I walked all one spring day, upstream, sometimes in the midst of ripples,
sometimes along the shore. My company were violets, Dutchman’s-breeches,
spring beauties, trilliums, bloodroot, and ferns rising so curled one could feel the
upward push of the delicate hairs upon their bodies. My parents were
downstream, not far away, then farther away because I was walking the wrong
way, upstream instead of downstream. Finally, I was advertised on the hotline of
help, and yet there I was, slopping along happily in the stream’s coolness. So
maybe it was the right way after all. If this was lost, let us all be lost always. The
beech leaves were just slipping their copper coats; pale green and quivering
they arrived into the year. My heart opened, and opened again. The water
pushed against my effort, then its glassy permission to step ahead touched my
ankles. The sense of going toward the source.

I do not think I ever, in fact, returned home.

The words of Mary Oliver.