Nature's reading room

As a child I gravitated to reading outside. I like to think that it was because I was imaginative and adventurous but I suspect that it was more likely related to the fact that I had a plethora of younger siblings.

If you haven't sat under a weeping willow and read your favourite author - go - go do it now. (Take a flashlight if the sun's clocked-off for the day.) Not just any weeping willow mind; the tips of the branches have to sweep to the ground like a Victorian skirt, so that the little beggars (be they siblings, kids or colleagues) can't find you.

As a young teen I graduated to the sturdy upper limbs of elm and oak trees. Fields of wild flowers were good too, as long as I had a rock or a tree trunk to lean against. My friends and I had a library in a forest. We enveloped books in waterproof waxed bread-wrappers and stashed them in the cubbies created by tree roots, and met every day to read, using the mossy rocks as seats and tables. I suspect that a number of books remain hidden on that forest floor all these years later. 

You know how people tend to have their own perspective of their environment depending on their jobs or interests? On a drive through Saskatchewan, for example, an Australian rancher friend pointed out coyotes lurking in ditches, a camouflaged deer in a field and bear cubs clambering up a tree trunk. My regular drive transformed from a pleasant enough journey to a National Geographic Special because my companion was tuned into what interested him. Another buddy worked with power lines; not just poles and wires it turns out. Oh no. Much more than that. Miles and miles and miles of much more than that.  

It's the same with me. Even now the landscape around me is mapped out into reading nooks; that cosy patch of grass by the river bank, the inviting crook of a tree branch, a wooden pier dappled by sunlight.

The weeping willow is still my all-time favourite but the nearest one is three streets away and apparently they "find it a bit weird for a grown woman to camp out on our lawn," so for that particular experience I make do with my comfortable bed. The lamp casts a gentle circle of light, and except for the cat on my shoulder and the dog draped across my feet, it's almost like the real deal. Without the ants.  


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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.