A Walk Through the Woods

I arrived at my new home in Texas on December 11 where I will be living so that I may care for an elderly mother.  She will be 90 her next birthday and is still quite independent (and stubborn) but needs some help in maintaining her daily lifestyle.  It is quite a change compared to what I've been used to for the past 30 years.  No longer will I have the luxury of running to the grocery for a single loaf of bread or the lettuce I forgot to buy when I went earlier today; no longer will I have 25 different movies to choose from at a nearby local theater; no longer will I have a choice of an abundance of stores at one of the many malls; no longer will I be able to say, oh, I'll just gas up the car tomorrow.  Instead I'll be saying things like look at the billions of stars in the sky; look at the hawk soaring above; can you hear the sounds of silence; I'll get to know the joy of one-store shopping at America's largest retailer; I probably won't have to stand in line behind more than one or two people at the bank and within a few weeks' time they'll be calling me Scooter (my childhood nickname and the only name most people in these parts have ever known me by) and ask how my mom has been feeling lately; and perhaps the most fun of all, I'll have endless subjects to photograph. 

Yesterday Mother was feeling cold and she cranked the indoor temperature up to 83, so I went for a long walk down a country road and into some woods.