When you leave, it is from your family, but not a place you’d call home. The leaves are black now in their muddy graves, sodden from the months of snow and relentless wet that follows. Beech alone cling to their branches, bleached so white in the long winter that at first glimpse they look like bones hung for the vernal equinox. There were showers in the predawn blue this morning. The pit pat of drops on your tent would be soothing if you still trusted its weatherproofing; a shell that was once a true shade of blue now as pale as the cloudy mid-morning. A heavy, hollow tap tap tap tapping interjects, resounding–you’re reminded of the pop of fireworks on the streets of Taipei, gong xi–and you can spy a downy woodpecker hopping along barren branches. Of course it is all good luck, and you are certainly celebrating now. The Canada geese will eye you but not budge from their breakfast in a pond on the edge of a forest that chirps and buzzes relentless. When you arrived last night it was a million frogs who peeped and croaked nonstop until dawn, mating. In this perfect place, alone among the birds but for one dog and its human, several miles back, you’ve finally ensconced yourself in the flamboyant fecundity of spring. Nothing feels more like home than this.