Gloomy outside all day today; no rain, just a gray, damp funk seeping through all the cracks. Reminded me of a lot of days in Scotland. I’ve come to appreciate days like this because they keep my turned inward, which I need to do sometimes. They also make me appreciate the sun more.

As part of my online course starting tomorrow about forest bathing and tree wisdom, our assignment is to find a tree and get familiar with it; get to know it, feel it, befriend it. I commune regularly with trees on my daily walks, usually stopping to admire them and sometimes going to put a hand on the trunk of the larger ones, which have been around longer than three generations of my family. I thought about adopting the teenage tulip popular along the trail near my house, the one the beaver started gnawing on last winter—but never came back for. However, I’m going to adopt as my tree friends the two red oaks in my front yard. They’re close at hand and easy to set up a chair underneath and study without getting odd looks from passersby. After all, it’s my yard. If I want to talk to my own tree, hug my own tree, sniff my own tree, I will. (Okay, now I do sound weird.) Looking forward to learning the wisdom my red oak pals can pass along. I just hope the cicada mites are gone so I don’t get bit while playing with my immobile friends.