Since getting my iPhone, I have renewed my walking practice, but just in the last two-three weeks, I have revved it into high gear. I used to vary my walks and runs. Lately, I have been walking the same 4 miles (which is actually 2 miles out and back) and doing it daily in an hour's time. It has become a meditation of sorts. The terrain is challenging and the views are wonderful. I don't always go at the same time of day, but I am really studying the route. I watch the way sunlight changes the view. I notice when the farmer tills the soils, bringing up the black bulging earth. I watch the way the green is trying to push its way into the landscape. I notice baby goats. The flow of the stream--or not-- in the case of ice. The smells, some good, some foul. I notice if I get tired at the same point in my walks or if I am getting stronger. I notice the litter. I have come to realize that if I stop and nod at a cow or sheep, they will nod back to me. Sometimes I take pictures of the cows. The birds are in pairs now--flitting around. I saw cardinals, blue birds, robins, morning doves, and something small like sparrows or finches--brownish.
Yesterday I looked out of the fields. They were yellow brown with just enough green trying to come through that the color seemed to pulse. Against this backdrop was the Amish schoolhouse. The children were playing and most of the girls were wearing bright purple windbreakers and lavender skirts which really popped against the wanna-be chartreuse of the fields. I wanted to take that pictures, but felt it a little disrespectful. I feel like poetry should follow, but I am still taking it all in.
