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THE NARRATIVE ARC

Tales of Motherhood From an Unlikely Source

How a walk in the forest helped me adjust to the teen years

Nadine Bjursten
The Narrative Arc
Published in
7 min readMar 28, 2024

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Beech trees with a blanket of white wood anemones covering the forest floor.
Beech forest in southern Sweden. Photo property of author.

Spring is here in southern Sweden, and the white wood anemones have begun to cover the forest floor. Peter Wohlleben talks about this period in The Hidden Life of Trees, when flowers take advantage of the short time before the leaves of the beech trees block the sun. Since 2010, when our girls were born, we have been showing them this marvel.

We have also heard rumors of wild garlic blooming early. It used to be an event that our girls delighted in, not just for the beauty of those star-shaped blooms against a carpet of green, but because you can eat everything from the plant, including the flowers. They make a sublime pesto.

I am ready for this walk. An ankle break from more than thirty years ago is giving me trouble, but I am not deterred. I am wearing hiking pants and a warm jacket, and while I put on boots, my husband dons his favorite blue hiking shoes, fleece, and vest. Our Rhodesian Ridgeback is waiting patiently in her harness.

In Sweden, they say there is no bad weather, only bad clothing, and we are, for the most part, dressed appropriately. One daughter doesn’t want to wear her hiking pants. Instead, she wants to wear her lavender…

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The Narrative Arc
The Narrative Arc

Published in The Narrative Arc

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