Every early teacher who had me in her class – and most of them were very kind and patient – wrote the same comment on my twice-yearly reports: “Margaret is a well-meaning girl, but her head is always out the window.”
“Oh, but it makes so much more sense out there!” I would answer in retrospect now, if I could, “Trees don’t confuse, birds don’t baffle. Give me simple, clear things to learn like the roll of the hills, the turning of the seasons, and I will be as learned as the rest of them. Give me a field, a patch of woodland to read and I will unlock the wisdom of the ages, break the shackles of ignorance! Of course my head is out the window! You have to be in the woods to hear the forest sing!”
— Margaret Dulaney, To Hear the Forest Sing, p. xviii
Photo: by Falls Creek Falls trail, Washington