One of the many benefits of living in the country. This is the view from my daily walk with the Fur Babies. It takes twenty to thirty minutes, depending on whether I speed walk, or stop to chat with a friend.
I try to do it every day, whatever the weather. The dogs love it. Cedar runs and leaps around, sniffing everything. Lumi trots beside me or slightly ahead, occasionally stopping to sniff something that interests her. Watching them on this walk never gets old. I love seeing the different ways in which they engage with nature. They are curious and excited, every time. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that we do the same walk everyday, in fact I think they like the regularity. I know I do.
I cannot to begin to imagine what they are smelling. I assume they’re gathering information about what other animals have been there, their gender, age, how long ago. Dogs, foxes, raccoons, deer, no doubt. Perhaps coyotes and bobcats and of course bears. Then there are the small animals – mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, birds. Since it’s January there aren’t many animals visible. Even the birds are few and far between. I miss their song.
It always amazes me how the land takes on a different character everyday according to the season, the weather, the mood I’m in. On a clear day the views stretch far, but there are also days when mist engulfs the whole walk and there’s barely any visibility.
I read somewhere that walking in nature is so much more beneficial than just regular walking. It’s easy to understand why. I try to approach it like meditation, while sometimes of course I get wholly caught up in thought patterns and tangles of narrative, I try to let it all go and to be more in the moment, experiencing something more fundamental about the sights and sounds. The textures under my feet change all the time – mud, to snow, to ice, crispy, slushy, hard and soft. My brain yearns constantly for meaning. What is the point? What is the outcome? Why? Why? Why? It’s so unhelpful. I don’t want to experience the daily walk as a list of calories burned, a task to tick off along with all the others. There is a mini triumph every time in the struggle of the uphill, followed by the long stretch of even ground, and in the easier downhill as we get towards the end, I want to push myself harder, faster. Cedar runs at the start – even though this is the steepest part. She runs in spurts, but seems to have no trouble navigating the gradation. By the time we are going downhill and I am wanting to push myself harder, she is in another mode, more measured, more in line with Lumi. It is then that the three of us are aligned, moving more as a coherent vehicle than three separate pieces.