Time To Get Busy Again

Walk location: Glenwood/Glencrest neighborhood, Mankato
Walk time: morning
Skies: cloudy and foreboding
Temperature: 20 degrees and still
Steps: 5436
iPod: Jonathan Kellerman's Bones

I have been quite lax lately in my walking patterns, which I could blame on either the colder weather or my busier schedule. Both would be poor excuses, though, especially when I remember how good it feels to walk. It seems it is a daily battle to force myself into my walking gear, but once I am on the path I feel immediately better, a combination of both psychological and physiological benefits.

It is an early winter morning at twenty degrees, snow on the ground and molten grey skies overheard. The forecast for the week promises more winter weather, with additional snow and consistently overcast skies. It is a prototypical November day. Most of the trees are now barren of leaves, except a few who stubbornly grip their last colored fragments, as if an act of desperation to resist departing from the autumnal warmth of only a week ago. Outside the window where I am now sitting to type these words is a recalcitrant maple whose yellow leaves are bravely hanging on amidst the ice and snow of days past. Their drooping figures are a reminder that winter will soon be here in full force.

It is invigorating and refreshing to embrace the cold of the morning, and there is a certain comfort in returning to a warm home with rosy cheeks and fogged glasses. It won't be long until this morning's walk will seem warm in comparison to what is to come.