Up North: #EveningWalk

Not sure why these walks are so calming, grounding, mind clearing – but they are. The whole day gets reviewed and put in perspective. The day things prepare to retire and let the night things come out.

The meadow was blanketed with purple Canadian thistle only a few days ago, now it’s aging. The flowers are drying, the black eyes of the Black Eyed Susans are petal-less and browning. It’s natural progression. As with the meadow, so it is with me.

I’m reviewing my memorized psalm as I walk. It’s been a while but this part comes easily back to me “As for man, his days are like the grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more.” How easily I fit into this meadow and take my place with the grass and the flowers as they age.

It’s mid-August in north Wisconsin. Are some leaves already giving in to Fall? I’m remembering all the times I have seen these seasons change. Summer is so short, and so sweet up here.

Poplar hearts on the ground. I love being up north, in this place, in this moment. I love all the places that God has put me, but this one is in my blood and even thirty years in Florida didn’t leach it out.

Water and reflection. The greenspace I walk goes through meadows and wetlands. Several ponds are connected with streams and marshes. This was Grandpa’s pond where he trapped minnows for fishing.

Grandpa’s pond and Grandpa’s barn. They too will change, perhaps disappear, just like the seasonal flowers, just like the people who have farmed this land, loved these views and walked these meadows like I walk them now. Oh to know their thoughts…

I love many things. I love small fires and running brooks. This one is almost unchanged from the days of my childhood, sixty years. I wonder how the water can keep coming from a source that never seems to empty. I think long and hard on the metaphor of “living water”.

Two families of Canadian geese have grown up here. They wander the banks around the pond until I appear, then they fly to the water. Out there they look so peaceful. How easily they float.

I can’t tell the parents from the goslings by their size any more, but their protective stance both in the water and out, give them away. By the size of the flock, they have done a good job.

Up north, where sunset comes late and sunrise comes early. I am here and get to see both ends of these beautiful days.

I get to see it! My gratitude is sharpened because I am daily with people I love who do not get to see it so clearly. How blessed I am. Tonight, across the table from me, one of my people who struggles to see at all, related that even eating had lost much of its appeal. She cannot see what she is eating. I try to imagine eating food that I cannot see.

As the sun spends its last few minutes above the horizon, I take picture after picture of it cutting through the trees like a giant flashlight 93 million miles away. How can that be?

Today I marveled at how well my computer and internet were working. Today I did ordinary things like cooking breakfast for the husband, writing a letter to a friend. scrubbing sinks and making beds, Today I prayed and considered my family, my friends. Today I took an evening walk.