FB FRIEND Ann Iijima sends me my own words this morning. Which is a clever and ingenious thing to do. She says she finds ‘great comfort’ in them. The words in question are from my book, ‘Deep Woods, Wild Waters,’ a passage in which I describe my favorite Northwoods wildflower, the Pale Pink Corydalis. I wrote: “Here, on the exposed bedrock, with little to no soil, baking in the summer sun, absorbing the gray-fisted blows of howling nor’easters with their shredding winds, vulnerable to the inundation of winter snows and the unseen, rock-breaking assaults of frost, freezing, thawing, and refreezing . . . this is where it grows. This is where it stands and flaunts its little flag of color. To everything it is exposed, to every element, in every season. With only the tiniest of cracks and footholds to cling to, it stands. Delicate. Vulnerable. Tough. Defiant. Beautiful. And, brilliantly, it holds to all these charms at once. And therefore it is, to me, inspirational, and a messenger to the heart.”