I’ve taken up this new thing. I’m hiking. I’m just a novice mucking about on well-marked trails in state parks, but almost without any control, I keep going out there. (click the blog title for some pics.)
Today, I tried something different. I went on a Tuesday in October. It was eerily isolating and somewhat disturbing when the leaf cover on the trail was so thick that I actually lost the trail briefly. I sufficiently freaked myself out. But, I will go back.
Being on my own, calling my own shots without being accountable to anyone… whether real or imagined… is a new thing. And for some reason, I’m expressing my newfound freedom in the state parks. How auspicious that I should go today… it would have been my 7-year wedding anniversary.
There was a time when October 1st hit and I went over the edge. There was Halloween, my anniversary, the cool weather, the leaves, my mom and dads anniversary—and it was one of the busiest times at work! Not enough weekends or plans or hours for errands and tasks! I never felt like I was really enjoying this sacred month.
It is now more than halfway through October, and I have to admit that it has been the most action packed, exciting and delicious one so far. Not only have I done a laundry list of fun and fabulous things, but I’ve done them at my pace either alone or with people I care about and with no self constructed monkey on my back.
I don’t think that I’ve ever been this content—all the way to my bones. Sure, there is this and that I should be doing, sleeping more for one. I have problems, not so small, nagging at me. But, the end total is serenity. I’ve never been so in the present, so relaxed, so clear.
Even when I went into a panic this morning, when I realized that I was utterly alone on the trail, it wasn’t a panic that maintained control. The noise that rose up in my brain quickly subsided and I heard the blue jays and the titmouse.
That was when I knew that it was all going to be okay.
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