On the last weekend in February, my husband and I went canoeing. The sky was blue and the weatherman promised temperatures “in the forties.” Spring was right around the corner, we said, but we couldn’t find the corner.
Instead, the two-track was drifted deep and Dick had to pull the canoe over snow for a mile down to the Betsie River. The wind was strong out in the open marsh and we paddled hard against it. “Doesn’t feel like the forties,” Dick said.
The sun had vanished behind a smudge of clouds and there was not a living thing in sight except ourselves. Nature was so unforgiving, I thought and pondered that cold fact for a while. Then it occurred to me that nature had nothing to forgive.
My husband had explained it to me once when I asked why he liked being outdoors. “Nature doesn’t judge,” Dick said. It was true. Nature didn’t judge, while almost everything else in our world did. Family, friends, school, church, work. Everywhere, everyone was judging whether we were good enough or not good enough.
But out here, in the vast white marsh, I was just one more feature on the landscape. Nature kept its own counsel and let me keep mine. It was a gift.