Walking Season
This is the cow pasture where Chet likes to cheat death. See why I can't stay away? I have to watch it change day by day. So he goes on the leash. I'm learning. He never will.
If there's any season for walking, it's now. These ravishing, brilliant days will be gone soon, and the gray murk of winter clouds will settle over us like an unfriendly hen. (And this was written yesterday, a breathakingly beautiful day. And today I am under the Ohio Valley cloud-hen, not happy, for once, to be prophetic).
The air of October makes me glad to be alive, glad to be mobile, able to walk and breathe deeply. It makes me remember to be thankful for these things. It's so easy to get too far inside your head and think that you have real reason to be miserable. Get up out of your chair. Go outside. Breathe. Look up at the cloudless sky and think about all those who can't go for a walk in the October sunshine whenever they want to.
Don't waste an October day. Drink it in, like a fine old wine. Finish the bottle yourself. Throw your head back, close your eyes, and open them again to the colors. The sun will leave soon enough.
Remember to watch the sumac turn. It turns before your eyes, and then it's gone. A wet day, a gust of wind, and it will give up those flaming leaves and stand naked until April. Look at it now. That especially goes for ash trees, who are very beautiful, but afraid of rain and wind.
I like the way McKenzie's ponytail switches when she walks. I look at Phoebe and know she will be patting me on top of my head before I know it. As for Liam: My father always said that when kids get together in a group, the youngest always has the most fun, just for being included. And Liam led the way on this Sunday walk and felt important, and every now and then he'd comment, "I like my life. I'm glad I have you for a Mom and Daddy for a dad. This is a fun walk. This is a good place to live." Things like that. Hearing that from Liam, who has habitually looked for the dark center in every silver lining, was a balm to my soul.
In the end, all we can do is look for our own joy. Hooking your joy into someone else's-- allowing it to become completely dependent on theirs-- leads into a pathless thicket. When I lived in Connecticut, I wandered into a few thickets of mountain laurel. You step over, duck, step over, duck, trip, fall, step over, duck, and eventually lose your way. When you emerge, you're thoroughly muddy, beaten and scratched up.
Well, I'm learning
It's peaceful
With a good dog and some trees
Out of touch with the breakdown of the century
We're not gonna fix it up
Too easy
(Joni Mitchell, "Electricity")
photo by Shila Wilson thank you for the walk and the pictures
posted by Julie Zickefoose @ 7:57 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
That hill made me think of Watership Down.
As my grandma would exclaim, "Well, bless Liam's little cotton-pickin' heart!"
Dontcha just love it when your child says exactly what you need to hear?
Thanks for the beautiful photos. And thanks, Shila, for the "leg up on the log" photo of Julie and Chet.
I needed that post. It's good to focus on what is going very right and what we can do as opposed to what is going wrong.
Nothing prettier to me than sumac in the fall.
Also, I agree with anonymous, that hill made me thinkg of Watership Down.
Watership Down, written by avid English birder Richard Adams.
On this dark, dreary, wet morning, your post is a breath of fresh air!
Julie, be careful not to step in hraka out there.
The Ohio valley has extended its reach to Canada. Cold, slashing rain under a curtain of grey clouds. More like a November day than October.
Liam is a strange and wonderful little guy.
Kids, they can break your heart or lift you out of the doldrums with a word.
Love your message and it's so timely. I need to take myself and my kids for a walk in the woods and soon!
Here in Redwood country, we get all our 80 inches of annual rain in the winter so our dark days are coming and they'll be dark and wet like we can't believe. But right now it's gorgeous -- sunny, crisp, and gorgeous. I need to enjoy it! Thanks for the boot in the butt!
This post just rocks hard.
I worship nature the way others worship their gods, allahs, etc., and your post captures all the beauty, spirituality, and absolutely soul-wrenching joy of walking in nature on a crisp, clear October day under a butane-blue sky.
Today, the cotton-batting of clouds has settled over Central PA too, but days like yesterday remind me of why I am alive. Your post and Shila's photos captured it perfectly.
Checking in with you this rainy morning, my heart nearly breaks with wanting to walk, either in rain or sun. My belly is heavier than my heart, but the latter still aches.
I'm sitting in my armchair by our big window on the backyard, looking out at the ash trees which dominate the space, define it. Of five, two are naked, one has a crew cut, one holds a fistful of leaves here and there, stubbornly, and all sway in the rainy wind, all but one. She is calm and stately, ignoring the wind and rain, and has still a full and golden crown of leaves, tinged with grey, rose, green. Her wet black trunk and the bland grey sky make her all the more lovely.
I'll walk when the trees are bare and, I think, the most beautiful of all. I'll teach my daughter that spareness has a beauty lush spring envies.
And you were one of those I was thinking of when I mentioned those who can't get out whenever they want to. Babies are ever so much better in a backpack. Shall we make a date? Our two ashes by the garage went from maroon loveliness to completely naked this rain-whipped morning. You have to hand it to them--they are drama queens.
Hang in there, Margaret. I'm thinking of you every two hours, like clockwork.
What a beautiful place you have there. Liam really looks like he's "one of the guys". I especially liked what you said about looking for our own joy. It really is a dangerous thing to "hook our joy into someone else's".
Another excellent post and gorgeous photos!
Here in Wisconsin our walking season basically ended last week; the sumac is now bare, and we're in the midst of a week of rain. But there are little joys amidst the gloom: the dark-eyed juncos have found our tiny yard, and a pair of red-breasted nuthatches have been visiting my peanut feeder! Who knew there'd be such thrills in a 25 x 20 city lot in October. :)
I often sing that verse from Joni Mitchell's Electricity. Looks like a beautiful day shared with loved ones. Does it get any better than that?
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