From August 2000

I sit in the yard among the lilacs and marvel at a woodpecker tracing a quick pattern up and down the trunks of the bush.  Here, in this city, despite the noise, pollution and steady stream of traffic, flitters this beautiful bird with a ruby colored throat among the branches.  Close, closer,  and the rhythm  it beats out with it's tiny beak, a mantra, "Live.  I live.  I am.  I thrive.  I adapt.  I assimilate."  Remember what it was like to be a child, independent not thwarted?  Embrace the memory, this is life.  Regain the memory and the essence.  It was not taken, it was relinquished.