Dear Hilly

Dear Hilly, I love your photos full of color from Sedona. I’m sitting in my living room, watching the sparrows build a nest in our birdhouse. The slightest bit of warmth, and they immediately get on task. Do they think it’s an early spring? Do they think they could fit in a brood before New Year’s? Where inside them is the urge to respond to the smallest opportunity for life? Hilly, I should have left it alone but instead I took this photo and then stripped all the color out of it. What is it in me that wanted the starkest portrayal of the line between life thriving and life quietly waiting? Between winter’s darkest days and the drive to survive? Love, Diane

Dear Hilly

Dear Hilly, Do you remember how Pavel would say, “We are always doing our best. Sometimes it’s our shitty best, but we are always doing our best.” So we try so hard to take care of things we love. People, birds, all the things. Including ourselves. Sometimes we do a great job, and sometimes despite all our best efforts, things go wrong. Birds die, people get cancer, we do cartwheels trying to make it all work and we juggle to keep everything that needs to move forward moving forward. I’m reminded of that everyday. And I’m grateful for the energy that that effort takes, and I try to forgive myself when it falls apart. I love you, Diane