Fire report: tealight, breakfast.  

Nice little day out at Augusta Springs. It's wild to watch my friends' kids grow up and turn into little people - much wilder still to realize that they like mushrooms, bugs, snakes, and ice cold spring water. In the spring pool, we noticed a banded water snake, and it was fun to pull up my sleeve and show V the banded water snake I have tattooed down my arm now and compare the pattern. I love how much she wasn't afraid of the (live) snake and how she wanted it to come back after the snake had given us a good assessment and then gone back into his hole. I'm grateful to V's mom for raising a daughter who isn't afraid of snakes and bugs; even more grateful to her for being one out of about two people in the world who were nice to me when my life fell apart. 

But I do love Augusta Springs. The light through the swampy pines was shaky as I remember. I was thinking about certain high ridges up at the top, half-decayed stumps with shale disintegrating out, spring peepers. I met myself there in a certain way.