Waking up she could smell spring in the clean white sunlight on her walls, and later, when the day turned to fall, she wished she'd awakened earlier, had not pushed away morning, forcing herself back into darkness under her eyelids. In the fall afternoon, she walked in the park and began to notice, for spring and fall are the seasons of noticing. She noticed the trees leaning like dancers, trunks arching, arms flung skyward like branches, she noticed spiky liquid amber pods scattered like dry, empty stars across the grass, and she thought of diatoms scattered like sparkling seedpods across the ocean floor. She saw that overnight, hard red berries had fallen from the trees. She saw the beginnings of buds, of leaves, spring, and remembered last night's dream, a green place where she noticed buds bursting into leaves, uncurling like a lotus flower, like spring, we are seeing the beginning of spring, she had said in her dream, noticing.

She thought that home was the place, that a place became home, when you knew how the air would smell from the slant and color of the light in your window, the light on your walls, and yet, the smell of the air could still surprise you, could make you take a breath, and another. She thought that a place had become home when the air was thick with memories, every breath drawing in a string of them, of feelings, of senses, of thoughts, when every step brought you to a place where you had thought something, noticed something, and with every step and every breath you thought again, noticed again.

She noticed that overnight, the ice had rolled back on the pond, and the wind rippled the water where yesterday all had been still and frozen. She felt the wind lifting her, spread out her arms and felt fall in the air, saw the leaves rolling over the hillside like water, rushing forward across the field, waves flooding up a beach. She saw everything in motion, whirling at different speeds. She noticed the motion of the rock, flowing out of the ground and cooling, slowly folding as the Earth changed shape, she spotted glittering mica and rich, smooth pink veins.

-Kelly Vaughan
February or March, 2001