Hiking

Walking in the dark

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

Tonight I took a long walk for the first time in a week. I have been working a lot this week. I haven’t really had the time on nice days to be outside between a funeral and some ongoing issues with work situations.

I could have turned around earlier and made it back to the car before dark, but I kept going. I was almost halfway through the walk when the sun went behind the hills. I walked nearly an hour and a half after the sunset without a flashlight.

It is strange how familiar the paths have become over the past few years. I used to stumble and trip even in the middle of the day. I walked over three miles in the darkness without a light and my feet walked firmly even as I couldn’t see everything in front of me.

I remembered as I walked. I thought about writing poems about hiking in the snow in one space and took a picture of beautiful leaves in the sun\set in another place. I remembered where my dog drank water in one place and remembered the lightning crashing in another place. I walked with firm steps. FitBit informed me at one point that I had shaved a couple seconds off of my average mile split. I walked faster in the darkness than I used to walk in the light.

Why? You can see in the darkness once your eyes adapt. You can see in the darkness once the moon comes out. You can see in the darkness when you have enough time in a space. You can do a lot with over a year of practice walking in a space.

This reality applies to other parts of life as well. You can walk in the darkness after you have spent time living alone. You can walk in the darkness when the phone doesn’t ring and your children don’t reach out. You can walk in the darkness when you face challenges because you know the sort of person you have become.

I owe a lot to the practice I have done. Some would even say I have a discipline built from making choices. That discipline teaches me to be who I am today and I am grateful both for the lessons I have learned and the confidence that comes from doing the next right thing time and time again.

“The Wild Woods”

/ Robert D / 5 Comments

As January dawns, the year behind has finally ended. There were bleak nights, broken dreams, and tears aplenty. While there was beauty, there was often grief and loss. It hurt to think of all that had been and all that would never come again.

In the woods by an isolated lake, scant days before continuing the uphill climb through my forties, an elderly dog and I meandered through the branches. January snow was unseasonably absent and there were shocks of green moss and patches of red berries everywhere. A fallen trunk shattered open to reveal the mystery born forth into the world from a single seed left behind by oblivious critters in the woods. The space is sacred and thin as I walk in lands where the natural transcends mere words.

For a while, the woods were all there was in this world. Thoughts of loss waited in the car, but in the woods there was beauty to be found, wonder to behold, and even the simple challenge of not letting the canine drag us into another bog while seeking an errant smell. For a brief hour or two, the world shrank down to a world where the brown trunks swayed only gently as the wind found only bare branches to tickle. In the wild woods, a broken heart could be whole for the eternal but brief moment where two souls simply wandered together.

The wild woods reach out:
I almost look for "fair folk"
as my heart finds peace.

My first entry in a long time with the D’verse Poets Pub. The challenge of the week is a haibun about the changing of years or what you are doing during this early part of January.

Beautiful Bridge

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

Today is Saturday. I am approaching noon and have been trying to get my brain to engage with “work” for a couple of hours now. Fall is my favorite season and that outdoors is calling to me. Saturdays are difficult in the fall.

Yesterday I took a long hike at Buttermilk Falls. I followed the Rim, Gorge, and Larch Meadow trails around the area. If I had brought more water, I probably would have walked the Bear trail as well, but it was still a nice hike around the parkgrounds. I enjoyed taking lots of photos, although I should have brought a different lens.

Below is one of the my favorite pictures from the hike. I came across the bridge partially down the trail and was completely alone as the sunlight began to stream down into the gorge. It was beautiful and serene.

In the Woods…

/ Robert D / 1 Comment

We are getting ready to move soon. There’s a lot of stuff in boxes in my life. Everything seems to have a place and most of those places are currently found inside boxes. Living with most of your daily stuff in boxes can be extremely frustrating.

This morning I went into the woods on a nearby trail with one of my daughters and my wife’s “lapdog” Lily. Lily is a boxer labrador mix that we adopted after our friends’ dog became overly friendly with a neighborhood dog. She’s a kind hearted dog but hates being cooped up.

The woods are a magical place. The woods are one of the few places where my middle child is occasionally struck speechless. The majesty of wilderness tends to calm her restless mind as there is plenty to look at, plenty of things to notice, and the ongoing task of watching where you are stepping.

This morning the ground was a bit moist from recent rain and Lily ended up dragging me along some pretty slippery surfaces. Her paws and nails clearly had better traction than my sneakers. We enjoyed the walk tremendously despite being startled by a jogger’s German Shepherd visiting without a leash and without warning. Thankfully Lily is a very easygoing dog. I think that I jumped more at the sudden appearance than Lily.

I stopped to take this picture of Lily because the woods were breathtaking between the light of the sun pouring through the branches and the greens and browns everywhere. Despite being on a strong leash due to her tendency to run after wildlife, she seemed more at home in the woods than she normally seems in our home. I could almost feel Lily sigh with contentment a few times on the hike.

Psalm 55 is an interesting psalm. In that particular psalm, the psalmist is struggling with the grief and sorrow that comes from a friend’s betrayal. The psalmist is clearly having a difficult time with a painful situation, but what’s interesting is the response to the situation.

The psalmist wants to flee to the wilderness. In the wilderness there seems to be a kind of peace that the psalmist desperately desires. In the daily moments of the situation the psalmist finds storms and wind, but in the wilderness shelter can be found.

I can understand the psalmist’s desire for the shelter of the woods. Like my dog, I too enjoy moments where we are not surrounded by boxes. There is something glorious about being in the woods even when German Shepherds occasionally appear out of the nothingness.