I am tired. My Sorel boots feel like heavy weights on my feet. It’s another grey day, the temperature is falling, (minus 13 now), and the wind has come up. The snow is soft and my feet sink in about six inches as I follow the track. I trudge on and wonder why I’m doing this today.
Then I can’t help but smile as Princess tries, once again, to climb a tree. It makes me laugh every time. She greets every day with renewed hope that maybe today will be the day she gets to the top of that tree.
It’s the middle of a busy Saturday. I was awake at five a.m. catching up on my magazine editing. I had a little early morning email fight with my publisher, thought about resigning as I always do when I get mad, then carried on as I always do. By nine, we were in town for Tai Chi practice, then grocery shopping, home, lunch, nap and now walk. Out for dinner and theater later.
So I try to find contemplative peace in a hurry. It reminds of Philosophy Prof Jacob Needleman’s book “Time and Soul” where he writes learning how to hurry without feeling a sense of hurry on the inside. It’s a skill I haven’t learned.
I stop in front of a tree I’ve passed a thousand times before, a tall spruce, one of the tallest in the campground. Today I notice for the first time that its trunk is curved like it has Scoliosis. It is curved and yet it still reaches up, proud and high toward the metallic sky, perfect in its imperfection.
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