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It is early in the morning as I write. Before everyone else starts, before Monday gets started. After daylight savings time has begun it is still as dark outside as my first cup of coffee that is now almost finished. I’m listening to an earlier album of The 1975 and thinking about walking in the woods during late summer turning to fall. I’ve been thinking about that, the smells, the antler moss underfoot, the red squirrels running all around and the Whiskey Jacks following me close from branch to branch above. I woke up several times during the night and each time I thought about heading out into the woods with a pack on my back with no destination in mind except that of being in the woods.
As I write, Minnow the tabby cat is in my lap purring with her legs stretched out. She doesn’t know that as she looks up at me with her green eyes that I’m wearing a screen printed black t-shirt that has her on it. Lucy made a scratchboard illustration of Minnow a long time ago and I scanned it and put it on a tee. It’s my favorite way to start any day, sitting with her, and when I can’t the shirt reminds me of her. I can feel her vibrations. It is so much more calming than when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Have you noticed how many things pull you off center? How easy it is to lose focus and find yourself overwhelmed with anxiety just by turning on the news or looking at your phone or looking at your phone again? By conversations over coffee that rarely orbit around books or art or movies anymore, but nearly always spin tight towards politics, conflict and disappointments? Checking the weather on your app is a good example. What should we wear today? As Minnesotans we want to know how many layers or lack thereof are appropriate cause March is all over the place. So we check to see how high or low the high temperature is. Alert. Special Weather Warning. So often. Wind gusts. Rain in March. Fog. Windchill will feel like minus 30. Extreme dry weather with high wind. Extreme wet weather with no wind… Bummer.
Remember when you had to dial a number on your dial up or push button phone to listen to someone tell you what the weather might be today? Or ask someone else if they had. Then we went about our day and we paid attention to our surroundings. We went fishing without returning before 2:30 in the afternoon because our phone told us it was going to start raining or snowing then. We knew without being warned that the weather was going to change because we lived in Minnesota.
I’m realizing that I haven’t enjoyed a good, long walk in the woods for quite some time. I like being surrounded by trees and wildlife and I like not having a destination per se. I like being able to find a nice place to sit and think. I enjoy sketching and doing some watercolor painting and looking up through the canopy to the blue sky above. I like feeling that I’m part of something that isn’t busy and mechanical and in need of maintenance. I like being out of cell phone range if I am and I like that it might rain and I might not be prepared for it.
There’s a lot to do this week. A lot of things have to happen for each of us. Staying centered will be important. Distractions are all around us, just as if (did you go to the Ely Historic Theater and see Star Wars in the Ojibwe language? -- we did -- it was fantastic) just as if we came out of hyperdrive into an asteroid field that wasn’t on the map because it used to be the planet Alderan before the Empire and Vader blew it up with the Death Star. It’s only Monday after all, and that’ll happen quick.
Faith, a good cat, and another cup of coffee. Reminding myself of how inspiring it is for me to tromp through the woods and have Elevensies with my back against a big tree and my feet propped up on a root like a Hobbit. Life is better when we take the time to be simple for just a little while. I’d blow some smoke rings if I knew how.
