Portrait

Winter has stretched its icy fingers far into February, but has eased for now, hardy snowdrops popping up through the grass.  The ground is soft as there’s been a lot of rain and daffodil stems appear.  A fenced garden homes a mass of purple and yellow crocuses in a cheerful floral chorus, and sparrows etch footprints in the earth. 

On the way out of town, it’s uneven, hilly, flat, and sprawling, the fields spreading their tentacles of greenery across the landscape, mellowing the mind.  Sheep graze in the pastures, crows call from the fringe of trees.  Squirrels are disturbed by my dainty thudding, the swish of my arms swinging against my jacket, my heavy breath, as I trudge up the slight rise in the land, and they scurry to the nearest tree, their feet clinging on to the wispiest of branches, as they jump from one tree to another, higher and higher. 

The scent of pine crisps the air, clears the nasal passages, their fallen needles soft underfoot.  As I walk, I’m in a passageway of tall pines, a green den, dry and secretive, all worry and anxiety combed from my hair as I go.  It’s another world.  A tree world, the home of foxes, rabbits, field mice and the squirrels.  I’m alone, but I don’t feel lonely.  It’s deafeningly quiet, my ears buzzing with life like the teddy bear squeak of the buzzard as it chases the cackling magpies, the rushing burn, constant in the background.

A stile stands on ceremony at the end of the wooded walk and I climb over it into a field.  As I reach the top of a ridge and look back down towards the trees, I see the perfect portrait.  A deer stands, nose in the air, sniffing for humans.  If the wind is blowing her way, she will catch scent of me.  I stand as still as the deer and I look.  That’s all I want to do, to look at this illusive animal of the wild.  But then I capture her in my lens and click. 

My heart slows then races as the deer senses me and hops across the field, over the bordering fence and out of sight into its life in the trees.  Calmed and rejuvenated I walk back to my life, more able to face and dispel worry.