What I Would Have Missed

Walk Location: Sakatah Singing Hills Trail, east of Eagle Lake, MN
Time: Early Morning
Temperature: 50 degrees
Skies: Cloudy and dark
Steps: 9,000

My wife awakens most mornings by 5:30 to head to the YMCA for her morning fitness routine. She has, over the years, tried to convince me that I should join her there, but I prefer to be outside to get my exercise. As she left this morning it was still dark, the morning cool from the night's temperature drop. As I heard her shut the bedroom door I debated whether I should get up and walk or enjoy another hour's rest. I decided to walk, and I'm glad I did. Otherwise I would have missed an impressive sunrise, only haphazardly captured here in this grainy early morning photo from my iPhone.



As Gizmo, my walk companion, and I stepped from the car it was still dark. By the time we had walked ten minutes the sun was beginning its rise and the eastern horizon was a deep cherry color, brighter nearest the base and then gradually shifting to a molten gray. Within twenty minutes the luxurious red had faded into the mottled grey of a cool autumn morning. Had I stayed in bed even a few minutes longer this morning I would have missed it.

There have been times when my emotions have kept me in bed longer than I wish. In those cloudy times of my life I find it hard to believe that the new day is going to be much different than the previous ones have been. When I am discouraged it is easy for me to see only the cyclic, monotonous repetition of days. Depression feeds upon itself. The darker the mood the less ability there is to see newness and opportunity, and the deeper one ebbs into emotional pain the more everything seems the same.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons I walk. I know how I become if I do not push myself to embrace the world each day. I become emotionally indistinct, seeing little reason for awakening, imploding from within. Walking seems to counteract that for me. It is activity, so my body benefits, and if my body benefits my mind begins to heal, and if my mind begins to heal then my emotional chaos seems to fad into an orderliness granted by the marvelous complexity of nature. And when I take time to look, perhaps I should say worship, in the Cathedral of Nature I am surprised by what I see. Each day there is something new. No plant is exactly the same day after day. No two sunrises are exactly alike. The combination of air temperature, humidity, moisture and wind is each day unique. Moment by moment life unfolds, and if I walk I have the opportunity to experience it directly and immediately. It is not the vicarious enjoyment of a television program capturing nature's splendor, nor the one-step-away virtual experience of the internet. It is real. It is ilife.

And it always shows me what I would otherwise have missed.