Today I got caught walking twice and both times my across-the-street neighbor spied me.  He had a good excuse to be out since he was walking his big dog.  I was just rambling for the pure fun and health of it.  Okay, those are good excuses too.

It was pretty funny actually since the first time I had stopped en route to the trail to put a bowl full of refuse into our experimental compost can in the garage.  When he walked by I was stirring the contents with a shovel.  I must have looked like a witch stirring my cauldron.  The second time he saw me out on the trail and I was nose to nose with a giant pine tree taking close-up photos of the bark.

I acknowledged that I was up to some rather unusual activities, laughed awkwardly and went about my picture snapping.  He said he had wondered why I was shoveling the contents of our garbage can, then asked me if I had seen the bark on a tree much further up the trail.  It sounded interesting and I should get up there.

So all in all it was a good day.  I got in two walks, some good photos, a tip on some interesting bark…and very likely a reputation as eccentric.

Recently I’ve noticed that a lot of people on the walking path are talking on the phone as they stroll.  And quite a few others have ear buds in place while they listen to who knows what while they cover the terrain.

This multitasking goes contrary to my nature, my philosophy of paying attention to where I am when I am there.  Of course, I do occasionally do more than one thing at a time myself, but I really try not to when walking.  Most of the time, I don’t even walk with another person so that I can devote my attention to the environment.

So, a phone on the path?  Not for me.

It was a funny feeling, cool on my front and warm on my back.  I felt sort of like I was floating face down in a cool pool on a bright day.  The sun was still fairly low in the sky so it hadn’t warmed up much but directly in the rays, it felt toasty and reassuring.  I pondered turning and going the other direction to reverse the temperature variant, but opted against it.  It felt good just the way it was.

Today I didn’t walk alone; I walked with anger.  Anger doesn’t make a very good companion, keeping me distracted from the views and observations of interesting happenings along my way.

When I heard the voice of a small boy calling, “Hi! Hi! Hi!” while lifting his shirt to show me his belly button, anger tugged my arm to keep me from stopping to say more than “Hi and bye.”  Anger didn’t want me to lose the intensity of negative feelings.

And so we walked on, anger and I, all along my usual path.  At the bottom of the hill, we passed a cat that looked ominously about to enter the road.  I stopped and called to it but it didn’t come.  Should I try to intervene or had the cat traveled this path a thousand times?  Anger encouraged me to leave it, confident the cat could find its own way.

Anger didn’t dissipate but stuck with me along the entire loop until I crested the hill a second time and gazed again at the spectacular view of the mountains.  That’s when I had had enough and I walked on leaving anger there to fend for itself.