I woke rested and feeling comfortable and awash in a feeling of contentment. I got through my morning routine without making some sort of loud noise. I made it to the trailhead before sunrise, but just after daybreak.
I caught a glimpse of Mt Hood and the beginning of a colorful sunrise.
It’s a beautiful morning. I sigh contentedly and lace up my boots. The trail is dim but not dark. There are little birds everywhere, and the air smells of flowers. I’ve got my cane, my camera, and this moment. It’s enough. There’s a work day ahead, but that’s later. I need to remember to water the garden, but that time is not now. I’ve got an appointment to keep in the afternoon, but that requires no attention from me, yet. It’s just me, this trail ahead of me, this moment, and a glimpse of the sunrise.
I grin happily to myself and grab my cane to get started. The clock is ticking and it’s time to begin. Again.
A colorful sunrise greeted me at the trailhead. The weather is mild, almost warm. The air is calm, and the pollen count is fairly high. My head is a little stuffy. The robins (and there are many) are quite loud as they call to each other.
Dawn of a new day.
It is a new day, filled with promise and opportunity, chances for success and for failure, and rich with choices. It’s also an utterly ordinary such day. The day begins well; I escaped my headache of yesterday. Definitely a good beginning.
I swap soft shoes for sturdy boots and grab my cane. I rarely walk any distance without it these days. I’m not bothered by that, it’s just a detail.
Colorful sunrise
I breathe, exhale, and relax, and set off down the trail. Lovely day for it, in spite of my stuffy sinuses, and irritated throat. Lots of flowers blooming now. I’ve taken allergy medication first thing, and it helps. I continue to enjoy the moment – and the flowers. The sunrise continues to evolve, the clouds shifting pink to salmon to peach and bold shades of orange. Quite a display. I pause frequently to enjoy the sight of it, and to snap pictures.
…It is worth all manner of bother and inconvenience and delays to pause for a beautiful sunrise; there’s no knowing how many we may see…
I walked and watched the sun rise, until I reached this not-quite-halfway spot. It has a better view than my usual stopping point. A row of trees is silhouetted against the sky. A wonderful baby blue morning sky begins to show between the colorful clouds.
I breathe exhale and relax, sitting awhile with my thoughts as the sun rises. I think ahead to later. I have it in mind to make breakfast for my Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer and myself, a little later. A chubby raccoon slowly walks past, far enough from me to be unconcerned about my presence, near enough to be clearly visible. Somewhere nearby, a woodpecker makes his presence known.
Dawn becomes day, and it’s time to begin again. I get to my feet to finish my walking and turn towards the sun.
This morning my walk began at a familiar well-maintained trailhead. I walked west with the sunrise at my back. The weather is mild, clear and calm. Seems likely to be a warm day and I’m glad I took time to water the garden thoroughly yesterday evening.
Mt Hood in the distance.
I pause my walk occasionally for sneezes, grateful to have thought to grab a pack of travel tissues, mildly annoyed to have to shove them in my pocket after using them; I’ve already passed by the few trash cans along the start of this trail.
I pass a woman going the opposite direction, being walked by her dogs. They pull her along, their leashes taut, she seems to pull back while also being hurried along. Too much dog, I suppose. I chuckle to myself and keep walking. The dogs paid me no attention, they had someplace to be, apparently.
Somewhere over there, the sun rises.
I woke up from surreal dreams this morning, super groggy. Even by the time I reach my halfway point, my head is still foggy, my strange dreams linger, and I have A Tribe Called Quest stuck in my head. I don’t overthink the moment, I queue up the track and listen to it while I watch another sunrise.
Venus sparkles like a tiny diamond on the soft pale blue of a dawn sky streaked with playful pink clouds. Hard to take the world seriously when there is such beauty. Sometimes pausing to appreciate the beauty in the world around me feels like an act of rebellion, as if to say “you have no power over me” to the goblin king. As the morning sky brightens, Venus fades away from view.
I sigh quietly to myself. I sit awhile with private thoughts. The clock ticks on. My journey is incomplete and the path beckons me. This trail isn’t going to walk itself. There’s more to see, more to do. The day has only just begun. I stretch and get to my feet. It’s time to begin again.
I’m grateful for the warmth of the car after a chilly walk through Portland’s Rose Garden. It is beautiful here, and the rain drenched rose bushes are covered with buds, and even a handful of blossoms. It is quite early for roses here, and only the hardiest and most eager will bloom until warmer weather – but it’s close. I made the trip to see the sunrise over the city below the garden, but the once spectacular view is now obscured by trees, and it is a gray and rainy morning besides.
A glimpse of the city is all that remains of the view from this place.
I’m not disappointed. It is time well spent in a delightful formal rose garden and the air is heavy with the scent of spring flowers and petrichor. Wonderful! Azaleas and rhododendrons and wisteria are blooming. There are uncountable hues and shades of green splashed with the many colors of various flowers.
Beauty in every direction I look.
I’m grateful for the ramps around the garden these days, where once I took the stairs without hesitation – a hint that I’m not the young woman I was the first time i visited this place, some 28 years ago. I grin at my recollection. It was summer that first visit to this rose garden, and everywhere the roses were blooming. It was disappointingly crowded (it’s a very popular place), and I was distracted much of the time (no camera, and one hand on my bee sting kit all the way around the garden), and I rushed myself. I was “checking off a box” on a mental list of things one simply must see/do in Portland, as if a tourist rather than a woman who would spend the next 27 years in the area. lol I hadn’t yet moved here.
…To be fair to the woman I was, then, I was only up for the weekend, and had no idea that I’d move here some few months later.
Moments are fleeting. Let them take the time they take. Be present. There are no “do overs”, only new moments, each unique.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. My feet are damp from walking through rain-soaked grass in spite of my boots and I’m grateful for the dry socks I keep in my pack, in the car. I smile knowingly, recalling less well prepared younger versions of me. I have little in common with her, now. We’re quite different, even down to how we experience moments of joy and the inevitable passing of time. I lack her energy and ferocity, but also her impatience, emotional distance, and suppressed rage. This version of me has quite a few “upgrades”, I realize, in spite of the wear and tear on some of the parts. lol
However skillfully we plan, there’s really no knowing where the journey may lead, and stairs that are easy now, may one day feel almost impossible.
My thoughts wander to yesterday. My Traveling Partner and I worked on a garden project together. It was fun, satisfying time spent joyfully in good company. He made me a hydroponic tower garden, intending for me to grow things out of reach of the deer, using a small solar pump to circulate the nutrient solution. We tested it yesterday.
Another perspective on love. A precious shared moment.
I sigh contentedly, feeling grateful and fortunate, even content and hopeful. Satisfied? Happy? Those are good words for this feeling, too. I savor the moment, and notice with delight and a measure of awe that I happened to park the car next to a 100 year old rose. Wow.
R. canina, “Dog rose”, 100 year old specimen.
Yes, the world is a fucking shit show of idiots and monsters, and the United States is being turned into a dumpster fire by a turd driving a clown car full of trolls – but none of that has to prevent each of us from enjoying the beauty we find around us, or stop us from savoring (and nurturing) what is good in our own lives. It’s important that we fill up on small joys and simple pleasures. These experiences fortify our hearts for hard times that inevitably come. It’s a very human experience. The journey is the destination. We become what we practice.
Don’t let monsters make you monstrous.
I listen to the robins singing for a while, and watch a small squirrel (who is also watching me). Lovely morning. Soon enough it will be time to begin again. I wonder where this path leads?
I woke early, got to the trailhead after a peaceful Sunday morning drive. No traffic at all. My walk was quiet, solitary, and uneventful in every way. It was just me, the sounds of distant traffic and my footsteps, and the occasional song of a robin somewhere nearby. There were flowers blooming along the trail.
A field of little yellow flowers.
Flowers are a bit like moments, aren’t they? They are brief and often quite beautiful, some more impressive than others, often regretfully fleeting, sometimes delightfully sweet. Lives are built on moments the way gardens and meadows are built on flowers; there is so much more to it than that, but it’s easy to overlook the underlying complexity distracted by the moment – or the flower.
A clump of small purple-pink flowers.
Moments and flowers both have incredible variety. Some are intensely beautiful, others are quite subtle. Some are memorable to the point of creating a lasting impression or an archetype, others less so, becoming easily forgotten as time passes. Flowers fade and wither, their lives are short. Moments, too, exist and fade away, never to be repeated, each unique in some way.
I walked thinking about moments and flowers, both worth considering “from a distance”, and examined more closely. There is so much to learn from reflection on a moment, or from examining a flower. There is much to appreciate and enjoy being wholly present with either.
A worthwhile moment, considering a flower up close. An ordinary meadow flower, given a chance to become a moment.
The Spring air is fragrant with the scent of meadow flowers. My thoughts wander to my garden. The strawberries are flowering. Did you know that strawberry blossoms have a scent? The Swiss chard I planted has sprouted and the romaine is recovering from being nibbled upon by the deer. I planted tomatoes yesterday, and potted up the lemon balm I had sprouted. It’s a lovely tea herb, but a poor choice to plant freely in a garden bed; it will take over. Like the mint, I keep it potted. The clematis I added this year is thriving. The peas are climbing their trellis. The garden is a lovely metaphor for life.
Is your garden thriving? What have you planted there? Are you following a plan? Have weeds taken over? Your results will certainly vary (I know mine do), and there is so much work involved it can feel daunting to try to keep up. How we tend our gardens has a lot to do with how they grow and what we can harvest. It’s no good dreaming of plump sun-ripened tomatoes plucked from the vine if you didn’t plant any tomatoes to begin with! In every moment the choices we make matter, and guide our potential outcomes and future moments.
I smile and enjoy this quiet moment at meadow’s edge, smelling the flowers on the marsh breeze. Nice morning. I don’t mind that the clock is ticking, I’m not paying it any mind; I’ve got this moment to enjoy. I can begin again a little later.
Evening Light 