I am fortunate to have a nature center in my backyard.  Hiking always brings something new and something constant.  Sometimes I see muskrats on the edge of the ice washing their paws or their dinner or their paws before dinner.  Sometimes wild turkey will wander obliviously near my path, intent only on finding seeds and acorns.   The constants are the frogs chirping in the spring, jumping quickly into ponds once my footfalls get too close.  I usually always see deer but not in the same places, and either in-deerson or the remnants of their beddings.  The swans are always on the same pond in close to the same spot.  The male ever vigilant, flapping his massive wings if I venture too close.  The female sometimes hidden in the reeds, more demure.  They are never far apart from one another, which is yet another form of consistency that draws me.  

It is December the first in the midst of a pandemic, and it is the heartbreak of this month that has me searching for the constant, the familiar.  Mom died in December.  My dog, Kea, died in December.  My daughter's father-in-law died in December.  Seeing the swans reminds me that while much of life changes, some of life remains the same.  Returning to my childhood home provides the familiar and the constant that Dad will be there, sitting on his front porch.  Even when Mom died and the familiar was changed, time made the change familiar.

The one newness of today's walk brought a beautiful Golden Retriever out walking her owner.  Her name is Ginger and she came bounding up to me, eager for attention and petting.  Although my Kea was a small Shih Tzu, she was affectionate and loved to go for walks. Ginger left me in tears, missing the constant of a loving pet who had been my companion for 13 years.