Spring is a good time to imagine things. For instance, I went for a stroll down the Nature Trail yesterday and today. It is full and green these days, and the leaves cast interesting patterns of shadows on the trail, and with all the rain we've had lately, the brook is full and gurgly as it runs under the bridges . . . a little too fast to play "Pooh Sticks," especially by oneself, but pretty, nonetheless. I sat on a log, and the sunlight flickered white off the new leaves, and from the corner of my eye I could almost believe I saw fairies, and who's to say I didn't? And once, I declare, I saw a sprite flick around a bend in the path. This is unusual, I'll grant you, in the daylight, but white sprites come out in the day as long as they don't think anyone's around, and I was being quiet, so it could have been, you know? And I sat there in a patch of sunshine, blinking like a cat, thinking about how distant our modern age is from the joys of nature, and pondering poet James Dickey's notion of the exchange, that moment when modern man can slip into true communion with creation as he is meant to have, wondering if that moment was truly possible, when . . . . "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" BIG BLACK BEETLE! In a moment, I was behind my log and peering over it, while the big black beetle strolled its lazy way up a slab of rotted wood, its antennae meandering in the air, oblivious to my tremblings not two feet away. A few moments later, I recovered my gasping breath, however, and crawled out from hiding. Arming myself with a long stick, I proved myself the sister of brothers and proceeded to poke the beast, steering it along new paths on its log. I saw another big black beetle a little ways down on the same log and, my matchmaking heart instantly thinking thoughts of inevitable romance, decided to try to cause a meeting between the two. But despite my prodding and all my good intentions for the creature, my first big black beetle refused to cooperate but insisted and burrying its way into the wet wood . . . . And thus ended my poetic exchange with nature. Somehow I don't think James Dickey would be terribly impressed. Anyway, I went swinging this evening after supper, a longer swing than I've had a chance for all semester. I closed my eyes as I got higher and pretended to be astride a winged horse . . . but that felt a little too My Little Pony, so I switched it to an eagle. Then I decided to be the eagle. But that got old quickly, so I switched to a more nautical theme and became the figurehead on the prow of a ship, turning the squeaks of the swing's chains into the tackle and rigging of a man-of-war sailing across the English Channel. Then the swing stopped, and I was a college girl with windswept hair in Buies Creek. I've been listening to The Decemberists and find, against my better judgment, that I kind of like them. As in, the songs keep running through my head and I find myself singing them . . . which isn't always bad: I'm a legionnaire
Camel in disrepair
Hoping for a frigidaire to come passing by
I am on reprieve
Lacking my joie de vive
Missing my gay paris
In this desert dry . . . . Perhaps not the most brilliant, soul-stirring lyrics ever, but this song makes me laugh. Problem comes when I start singing the ones about gut-shot French Canadians and other cheerfully macabre things like that . . . . | 
