Walk

Change

2022-03-25T16:24:00.006-04:00

I'm not sure why, but several of my blog stories were randomly emailed to me last night, in a list, with my most recent post showing up in its entirety. I haven't thought about the blog in a while. No, that's not true, in fact, just yesterday I thought of making it private as there has been no new content since 2020. But I still get some activity and I figured I would just leave things as is. Maybe stories will still find readers who appreciate them, I reasoned.

I still like to write, and especially edit. I enjoy constructing sentences in more simpler ways than I used to, hoping to get the information across in a pleasing way to the reader. Yet I have been mentally processing a lot but not writing. I tend to save my stories for those close few where I feel safe to share, dream, commiserate.

I have less of a desire to convince anyone of my viewpoints than I once did. Which is why I had originally started the blog. I wanted to share my ideas and find like-minded people, and maybe convince a few people of a few things. I was disenchanted with a lot at the time when I began writing. I've settled into "what is" more now. I've found ways to make a difference.

I still walk but that, too, has changed shape. Since the onset of the pandemic in spring 2020, I have walked with my neighbor who is about to turn 95 in June. We started walking daily around the neighborhood, about a mile, which he had figured out ahead of time by using his car to measure the distance. We would gab about the newness of it all, try to figure out what we could, and couldn't do, give each other that bolster of support we each needed to go out into the world for the necessities and operate from homebase as much as we possibly could as Covid 19 hit hard. We got it down. We shared supplies, we shared stories, we shared walks.

Six months into the pandemic he sold his house. It was something we had been dreading for years. We'd been neighbors for 27 years and we were suited to each other. Everything fit together; we were content. But the time had come in his mind to get more support in an assisted living facility--namely 3 good meals a day--so he painfully moved on.

We continued to walk almost every day but now we walked on some nearby nature trails together, instead of on the neighborhood roads. It was an adjustment for me. I'm used to dashing through nature and pivoting on any trail at a moment's notice to collect a natural object or snap a picture of wildlife of some sort. We were now holding hands regularly, to help with balance, so spontaneity went by the wayside. Sometimes I felt resentful. I did try to get out alone as much as I could, but it was tricky given the regular morning walking schedule we had. Still, my time alone in nature was very fulfilling when I could get there, and I was glad for that.

We are entering our third spring of walking together. We just commemorated our 400th walk. We still visit a nature trail, and we try to get out 3 or 4 times a week, but it's more like 2. Things are slowing down for him, and that's fine. There is still a lot of sharing that goes on. We laugh that if "they" just listened to us, the world problems would be solved. I've thought about writing our stories down, but it seems some stories are best lived in the moment. I feel more and more like that these days.

Maybe I will find more to write about, record more of my walking adventures as I continue to push my way back out into nature on my own. They say the ticks will be fierce this summer, so I will have to prepare for that. But I look forward to walking with myself. I'm at home in the woods, especially when I am alone. The trees welcome me as their own and the landscapes of rock and moss and streams and hills are my playground. And even if my walks don't make it to a story, the story and experience of walking will forever remain in my heart. And that's all that really matters.

Why Write?

2020-11-19T13:33:00.005-05:00

Did you ever have so many stories buzzing around in your head that you struggled to pause long enough to write one down?

This is one reason I've found it hard to record my walking stories on Walk for a while now. This year has been chock full of walking, and stories, but it has all seemed so voluminous I could not figure out where to begin so I let it go. Another reason I'm struggling is my writing style has changed. I find some of my past stories too wordy to hold my own attention. When I'm reading them I instantly start editing my words, like an over burdened English teacher who has lost patience with the writing student, having tried too many times to get her to understand how to cut out the dead wood. I imagine other readers easily becoming disengaged from my words. I see them quickly giving up with a simple click. And if I am honest, I can imagine this because when I am reading I too click around like a distracted child in a room full of new toys. It's way too easy to disengage from one story and move on to the mass of other stories that are waiting. And, frankly, I think reading styles have changed. Readers seem to crave written words that are pertinent, nothing more.

So why write? Why even put my story out there? I'm not sure. Maybe I think that if I keep writing, the one story I am meant to tell will finally come out. Maybe it's because I'm mid-way through a novel I starting writing for my mom. She loved it, and asked me to finish it, but I never got to the end before her passing. I feel I owe it to her to finish it and to the characters who are stuck there, probably hoping to get back on the road. Then there is the fact the I've joined a writing group so I think I should at least try to write. Also, they have asked for my blog address and I've put it off partially because there was no new content and partially because, well, refer back to paragraph one--my writing style has changed.

So on this day here I sit finally quieted enough to accomplish this task I set up exactly one week ago, to write something on this blog. Even when pickings have been slim, I've managed to at least post a few bits every year since I started Walk almost a decade ago. This year I have come dangerously close to posting nothing at all as the end of the year nips at my heels. But now I have a story. A story about writing. It will have to do for now.

P.S. I have spent a great deal of time editing this story already and I realized I like to edit. It feels like sculpting the dead wood; self-editing is a craft of revelation.

Aquaintance

2019-02-25T15:01:00.004-05:00

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

{Henry David Thoreau}

Keep Walking

2019-01-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

Ringing in 2019

2019-01-03T14:14:00.002-05:00

“The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air.

It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies.

Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night.

The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again.

When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.

It is your immortal inspiration.”

{Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration }

Last Walk of 2018

2018-12-31T20:58:00.001-05:00

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

{William Hazlitt}

Little Cup of Cheer

2018-12-28T17:45:00.008-05:00

Dreary day that it was, I somehow rousted myself from my very warm spot to make my way into the forest. It was warm for a December day in the northeast. Midday, whispered a mist. It felt pleasant.

Stepping onto the muddy path, I cursed myself for wearing my sheepskin boots. They had slipped on so easily, I hadn't given it enough thought. Oh well, I will navigate around the messy parts, I told myself. I know the trails so well that, even when mucky, I can always find solid ground.

I walked a couple of miles in the mist and fog, spotting plenty of proof that I was accompanied by deer, though none showed themselves. With the presence of living matter all around me, I knew I would spot something a little special. That can be said of any walk, really.

Curiously, on my last step out of the forest this little globose beauty revealed itself. I easily could have trampled it, never knowing. I reached down and placed tiny red berries I had carried most of the way into its awaiting cup. They surprised me by sinking into a mossy green liquid then resurfacing.

And so, today nature brought me this little cup of cheer. Nature is so giving.

Tarzetta cupularis (toothed cup)

Walking the Walk

2018-12-16T19:54:00.001-05:00

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

{Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha}

Thank You

2018-11-21T19:24:00.004-05:00

My world is brighter and more beautiful because of you.

Thank you.

Old Soul

2018-11-12T19:02:00.000-05:00

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.”

Jalal Ad-Din Rumi

Other People's Garbage

2018-10-15T17:40:00.002-04:00

After years of discovering the dynamic state of nature in the mountains behind my home in the Northeast I never expected the focus of my walks to become other people's garbage. (God knows, my traverses had provided me ample hours to focus on my own garbage.)

It all started with a some bottles that revealed themselves from under the last layer of spring snow. Soon, I started lifting protruding rusty metal pieces in various shapes, sizes and levels of decay. The shallow earthen pile I was working in became a hole of broken everything. Every now and then I would gently birth a whole bottle, or two, sometimes three, all by feeling my way into the soft humus cavern with hand.

With boundless curiosity and some effort on my part, two relatively small piles of garbage soon emerged. One, a metal bucket along with group of metal containers and some broken bottles, the other whole bottles, a few with readable caps, and a curious vinyl circle that turned out to be a piece of an old radio dial.

A whole new world opened up right then and there. Incredulously, I was thrust into other people's lives - by way of their garbage!

Since then, I have learned some local and regional history on garbage. For instance, my city has only had municipal garbage collection for the past fifty years. This left families to burn and bury their own garbage. Those with land, particularly farmland, buried their used, broken, worn out, and unwanted possessions along the edge of their property, often in the rocky forested areas that could not be used for farming.

I soon began to notice a large section of the land I had hiked for a long time had unusual small hills that cropped up all over. It turns out those are often garbage burial sites that have generated mounds due to the frosty ground heaving things back up through the years.

(Example of how the ground might look, and what you might find by rifling around.)

I've come across some interesting artifacts within these mounds: Model T Ford parts, antique radio conductors, teeth from handmade farm plows, household cans with recognizable brands, (albeit with lesser known contents, like Campbell's oyster stew, apparently a dinner favorite)...an antique fire extinguisher even.

One particularly satisfying pile held bottles of fascinating shapes that included several perfume bottles, leaving me with the feeling these farm owners were well off.

I found bottles and jars for all purposes. They had contained milk, ink, medicines, cleaners, pickles, mustard, soda, jams or spirits. They came in every color: white, clear, green, brown, light purple, light yellow, aqua, and cobalt blue - the most satisfying to unearth. They had many shapes, including a hexagon. Some openings were threaded for tops, others were smooth and hand blown for corks, some had raised letters revealing names, others were painted, with paint that barely survived the elements, others were smooth. Some carried codes on the bottom in numbers, letters, or shapes. Some codes are even one time mysteries made by the originator. And there were a plethora of make-shift, handmade wire bottle carriers for singular and multiple bottles.

Oh! And there were shoes (old soles!), buttons, belts, hand-forged nails, broken tea cups, abandoned coffee pots, pans and pottery shards with pretty patterns. Pretty much anything you can imagine from the "olden" days. Even toys!

Seems the reemergence of old garbage has provided a little something for everyone to pique one's curiosity!

Magical Trees

2018-04-15T19:32:00.000-04:00

“The little island seemed to float on the dark lake-waters. Trees grew on it, and a little hill rose in the middle of it. It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful. All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret - almost magic.
“Well,” said Jack at last. “What do you think? Shall we run away, and live on the secret island?”
“Yes!” whispered all the children.
“Let’s!”
{Enid Blyton, The Secret Island}

What Remains

2018-04-05T16:30:00.002-04:00

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Hunters of Dreams

2018-04-03T20:13:00.000-04:00

The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
The brooks for the fisher of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
The streams and the woods belong.
There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine
And thoughts in a flower-bell curled;
And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern
Are as new and as old as the world.

{Sam Walter Foss}

Notice

2018-03-30T21:16:00.002-04:00

Life is a thousand tiny miracles, notice them.

{Unknown}

Irish Humor

2018-03-25T14:55:00.001-04:00

If this humor be the safety of our race,
then it is due largely to the infusion into the American
people of the Irish brain.
{William Howard Taft}

Passage

2018-03-11T21:04:00.001-04:00

Forest Garden

2018-03-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

“She was sitting in a garden more beautiful than even her rampaging imagination could ever have conjured up, and she was being serenaded by trees.”
{Lynn Kurland, Spellweaver}

Heart Life

2018-02-24T20:03:00.000-05:00

Believe in your heart that you're meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles.

{Roy T. Bennet, The Light in the Heart}

Winter Magic

2018-02-22T19:52:00.000-05:00

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” {W.B. Yeats}

Dreamer

2018-02-17T20:16:00.000-05:00

“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
{Shel Silverstein}

Open-hearted Vision

2018-02-14T20:02:00.000-05:00

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."{John Lennon}

Footprints in the Snow

2018-02-08T21:34:00.001-05:00

“Snow

While falling it hides your passage

When finished it documents your path”

{Richard L. Ratliff }

“Everyday, you leave a footprint!”

{Ernest Agyemang Yeboah}

Behold

2018-02-05T22:18:00.001-05:00

Make yourself familiar with the angels and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you.
- St. Francis De Sales
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/angels/2010/05/21-uplifting-angel-quotes.aspx?p=9#eTZtqu1z7TpYLHuX.99

Make yourself familiar with the angels and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you.
- St. Francis De Sales Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for, without being seen, they are present with you. ~St Francis of Sales
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/angels/2010/05/21-uplifting-angel-quotes.aspx?p=9#eTZtqu1z7TpYLHuX.99

Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for, without being seen, they are present with you. {St Francis of Sales}

Restore Your Soul

2018-02-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

{Alice Walker}