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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
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…