The Promise of This November Day

It is supposed to be nearly 80˚ in Denver today, so Duncan and I woke early and headed over to the lake for a quiet morning walk along the path that winds around it. I wish you could have been there. The sun was bright and warm, and seemed to be shining in two places at once, above us in the faded and metallic sky and from the reflection off the lake below. The air was still and the water was impossibly smooth, with only the lazy wakes of the gliding ducks to mottle its surface. By 8:30 it was already too warm for the jacket I was wearing, so I slipped it off and tied it around my waist. The sunflowers are still in bloom along the shoreline and bees still dance from one wide yellow stage to another. When I closed my eyes and followed the gentle tug of Roo guiding me on his leash I felt as though I was a kite, untethered and witness to the world spreading out all around, basking in the warmth of the morning, breathing in the rich scents of both Autumn and the summer that has steadfastly refused to depart. I smelled mint and greenery, thought I caught an echo of the Russian Olives and the Lindens, imagined I was still in Lake Forest, where the scent of the lake seems to be the only scent that matters. Blind but led by a dog and the light of the sun on my closed eyelids, all time seemed to come together and melt into a single, extraordinary moment that surpassed logic and sense.

Perhaps one day technology will be as magical as any given moment in this wakeful life and I'll be able to sit at my computer and write something that will transport you this lakeside, where you will be able to feel the pull of Duncan on his leash and hear his soft footfalls on the path and the long grass that rises up along its edge. You, too, can close your eyes and savor the brilliant gift of warm sun on your face on a November morning. The scent of the lake and the trees will wash over you and the lowing of the ducks on the shore will be like a whisper in your ear. And only then will you come close to knowing how wonderful this morning was with my good dog at my side and the promise of the day spread before us, as vast as a lifetime and as silent as prayer.

The Shire

I grew up in a very dusty place, dry and arid in Summer, a place where the true definition of humidity is almost unknown. There is a brief period toward the end of May when the mountains turn a surprising shade of green and tall willows sprung up along the banks of the Portneuf and Snake rivers, but most years it fades quickly in June and turns a bland yellow before burning into brown in July and August. I never thought of my hometown as a beautiful place until I took a job at the front desk of a local hotel and overheard tourists remark upon the stark radiance of the wide deserts and the quiet splendor of our narrow, little valley. It took many years of being away from there before I was able to appreciate all the seasons of my hometown for their subtle grace and austere beauty.

It wasn't until I moved to Chicago that I learned what humidity was really like. In fact, I didn't know my own hair curled naturally until my first full day living on the edge of Lake Michigan in Lake Forest. I marveled at the way sheets stayed damp all day and bath towels refused to dry overnight, or how my envelopes seemed to seal themselves and the way, at night, every street lamp held a halo of orange. In August, as school was starting, the last of the lightening bugs were still rising up among the trees and every year I was there I stood outside long into the night and watched their dance, breathing in the deep, loud scent of the lake.

I was never very happy in the Midwest; life was too quiet, too normal, too peaches and cream, milk-and-cookies-before-bed. I compared it to The Shire in Tolkien's Middle Earth, where the Hobbits were content to remain outside of the rest of the world, proud of their ignorance, basking in their perceived, but naive, safety. I was a man of Gondor, where the mountains rose up tall and dangerous, where life was still wild and spontaneous. But it wasn't until Ken and I settled in Denver that I realized how fully that humidity and the scent of the lake had permeated my being, like some sort of odor burnt into your nose or a stain that can't be washed away. There are still moments just before the rain falls, when the clouds are carving their way down the foothills but before the wind arrives, when I stand outside and close my eyes and imagine I'm on the shore of Lake Michigan, the waves lapping against the beach, the smell of fish and wet the deep washing over me.

This morning was the closest I have come to actually being there in nine years. Almost immediately after waking I leashed Duncan and we stepped out into a thick and fragrant mist which obscured the trees in the park, painting them in a sort of rich and mysterious kind of weather-poetry, turning them into something different while making them even more of what they already are. It took my breath away. The fog was heavy; I could feel it moving across my face and after the cars on Bowles passed by and the morning returned to silence, I thought I could hear it prowling through the grass, bending the blades and driving the ants and gnats ahead of it. While Duncan searched out a good spot under one of the short Junipers, I held very still and took long deep breaths and felt myself pulled back to The Shire, where life is not at all bland, but rich and full of meaning and steeped in memory.

I really must go back. It would be nice to walk Duncan along the beach and play with him in the waves, to chase the lightening bugs at sunset and sit with my friends in silence and appreciate the simplicity and quiet of a thick Midwest night and the glowing halos ringing the lamp posts around us.

Something Else's Walk

Sometimes nothing happens on the walks. The sky simply turns from blue to gray, the wind picks up and bites at the places where minutes earlier the sun felt warm and pleasant and the traffic does what the traffic does, which is move from either right to left or left to right. Duncan does his thing, which is sniff lots of places, raise his leg on one or two of them and then we go back inside because I wore a sweatshirt when I should have put on a coat. Those are the throw-away walks; they're not even walks really, just slow, casual meanderings up and down the lawn between the building and Bowles while I wait for Duncan tend to his business. Sometimes there's a rabbit but most times there are not, so we simply come inside where Duncan sits at my feet while I make tea, talk on the phone or write at the computer. Those are the walks that make me sweat, make me think, This is day I have nothing to say and they'll all see me for the fraud I am.

But sometimes, when it's one of those days, if you pay attention, the universe will bring the walk to you.

We were sitting in the living room listening to Wagner's Das Rheingold, Duncan near my lap but not on top of me, Winnie on the back of the couch doing that roll-around thing she does when she wants my attention but won't let me touch her, when I noticed something move outside past the patio. At first I thought it another of the countless morons who live nearby and don't pick up after their dogs, but it moved slowly, with trepidation and when I looked up, standing not ten feet away, on the other side of the patio doors, stood a tall and lean doe, her ears raised, staring right back at me. Were I at my mother's house in Idaho, I would not have been the slightest bit surprised, after all, her house sits at the foot of a mountain and I've spent many a winter afternoon watching the deer move through her yard. Even in Lake Forest deer were common. But I can't think of a singer time since we moved her nearly nine years ago that I've seen a deer down in the city. It felt like a treat, something special, especially because she was looking at me as intently as I was looking at her.

She took a hesitant step forward, never looking away, not even when Duncan raised himself off the couch and approached the window. Her white tail flicked twice and she moved forward out of our sight. Duncan and I followed into the dining room where she was standing in front of the window watching us. I hurried into the office to grab my camera, but by the time I turned it on she'd moved past, down the yard and behind the building. I can only hope she crossed into the golf course and stayed away from Bowles completely.

We stared after her and I think we both realized that this afternoon the world was not part of our walk but we were part of something else's walk.

Walking Meditation

When I was in college at Lake Forest and looked forward to coming home for Christmas or summer break, I used to count my steps. There was a time I could tell you how many steps from the theater building on South Campus to my room in Deerpath Hall. I knew how many steps it took to walk to the beach or to Tim, my mentor's, office. My journal is filled with entries that said things like, "Five hundred steps to the train station today. How many steps 'til I'm home?" It brought me comfort and gave me something to look forward to, like marking off the days until Christmas. I forgot all about that until this afternoon when I realized I was going through the motions on my walk with Duncan. I hadn't been paying attention: I wasn't in the moment. I was asleep.

As much as Duncan may not like it, sometimes the walks aren't about him. Sometimes they're not even about me. Sometimes they're just about the walk and being awake.

It's easy to get used to the places we go, the people we see, even the sounds and sensations of our steps on the same sidewalks or the same soggy grass. It's easy to forget that the world is changing every moment and even though we've walked or driven or peddled the same route day after day, climbed the same stairs, parked in the same spot under that one precious, shade-yielding tree, that everything is different than the last time we were there.

The nights are cooler now–they have been for awhile. Even the days are cooler and the trees and grass are different every time I see them. The elms are done but don't know it; they hold on to their yellowing and browning leaves like houses hold on to ghosts. The grass isn't as soft, and it has a September sort of crunch to it under our feet. The people, still wearing shorts and t-shirts, have begun to tie sweaters around their waists, or they wear hoodies. They all look the same to me.

I don't want to go through my life a zombie, counting the days until the weekend and then Monday morning after that, or the hours left until I get to leave work. I want to absorb as much as I can, to not take anything for granted. It's a difficult task to stay awake and not switch over to autopilot. Sometimes you have to work hard to be present and notice the beauty all around you.

There's a line in American Beauty, one of my favorite films, that makes me weep for my old poet's eye: "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it.... that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever... It helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

Who at the park today noticed the man and his grandson fishing from the bank where I sometimes let Dunc wade in after the ducks? Who stopped and spent ten minutes watching them cast and reel, cast and reel, the sun setting in front of them, the mountains and lake turning black before them? Will they even remember how thick the bugs were, or that the school marching band was practicing Tusk, that quintessential marching band song not a quarter of a mile away? Will this night fade for them or will they lock it up some place and keep it alive simply because they want to keep it alive?

I will remember this night because it was beautiful and made my heart want to cave in.