Walking with Waldo

I’m comin’, Waldo, I’m comin’!

Be aware of wonder.  Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and work every day some.

-Robert Fulgham

Ah, late spring and early summer — there’s almost always a time of day when the temperatures are cool and the weather is dry.  I always look at the weather forecast the night before and take my best guess as to when to go for our walks, then check it again in the morning when we get up.  Not that it would stop Waldo and me from walking otherwise, but there’s no reason not to use the best of the day to advantage.  This morning, it’s around 7 AM when we start, the skies are clear and a soft fresh breeze keeps us cool as we make our way down the tarmac.  Waldo’s out front, pulling a bit on the leash, as if to say, “Come on!  Let’s go!  Let’s go!” and I’m in the rear, pulling the other way, saying, “I’m comin’!  I’m comin’!”

It occurs to me that this tug of war is a good metaphor for much that happens in life.  Newton’s third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, applies to a lot, not just an energetic dog walking his “master” down the trail.  There is a push and pull to everything.  If that were not so, then things would change precipitously, rapidly going from one state to another without the time to assimilate the differences.

For example, if a spring is stretched, there is a counterforce generated to return the spring to its original length.  Once the stretching force is released, the counterforce brings the spring back to the way it was.  There may be overshoot and the spring might become temporarily compressed.  In such a case, there is a force in the opposite direction generated to again return the spring to its relaxed length.  There would then be a back and forth until the energy generated by the first stretching of the spring is released through friction and then the spring will relax into its original condition – or nearly so.

There are many other examples like this in nature, some without oscillation.  If a pan is heated on the stove, then taken away from the burner, the heat drains away by radiation, conduction and convection until the pan is again at ambient room temperature.  If you get angry and the perceived cause of the anger is removed, the anger will dissipate and be replaced by something more calm until some other emotion comes to agitate you away from equanimity.  If you stub your toe, the pain can be excruciating, but it will eventually fade until the next trauma.  All things in life have a neutral point, a center, and forces that serve to bring things back to that point.  If this were not true, there could be no stability to life.

Just the same, these stresses, forces, heat, emotional upset and so on, change who we are to some extent and we never get back just quite to being the way we were.  Life’s experiences change us, even if in small steps and slowly.  This is that slow slog we all go through from birth to death.  If we were to track that neutral point as it changes on our journey through life, it would show a slow evolution from what we were to what we have become.  Each tug, each emotional strain, each pain or elation that we experience, bends that neutral point just a bit and drives it into a slightly new position.  This center of who we are, this essence of our existence, do we have any true idea of what it is?

I don’t think we can ever intellectually know that, but maybe, over time, we can get an intuitive sense of what we are and how we’ve changed.  Whatever we are, the best way to know about it is to let go of all the forces pulling us this way and that.  To forget about thinking and feeling and all the rest, at least once in a while.  Instead, just listen to the poetry of life, dance with the squirrels and sing with the birds.  That’s what comprises your life right now.

Waldo sees a tempting stick up ahead and gives the leash a jerk that shakes me from my reverie.  I have wandered off my center, the here and now, but now I once again feel the wind on my skin, hear the birds sing and the insects buzz, see the leaves doing princess waves in the trees and smell the perfume of the nearby flowers.

I can count on Waldo to snap me back to what’s important in life.

I’m right behind you!

C’est un vraiment bel endroit!

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

-Abraham Maslow

Waldo and I haven’t been off the rail-trail since fall.  Phyllis, although still walking nearly every day, got engaged and is tied up elsewhere and Christine’s interests have wandered off somewhere else too.  We’ve walked with both of them occasionally, but nothing with any regularity.  Waldo and I could venture off somewhere new on our own, I’m sure Waldo would love it, but the logistics would require that all trips be round trips because we only have one car.  That’s not a show stopper, but the truth is, without the good company, I’m not really that motivated to find a new path to trod.  Perhaps, in the next few weeks, we’ll go to the upper end of the Assabet River Rail Trail.  That would require an extra 40 minutes of drive time, though.

Our usual trail is familiar enough that I can walk it without thinking about it.  The good part of that is that I can concentrate on when and how to conjugate in the passé composé, the imparfait and the subjonctif without much effort.  Concentrating on French makes the time go quickly and being on a familiar path makes that easy.  I still take time out every so often to smell the roses, but less so than before the French.  I miss out on dancing with nature and listening to her poetry for much of the walk.

That seems to be a regular riff in my life.  I have a definite proclivity to think about stuff.  I can focus so tightly on ideas and logic that I’m almost oblivious to the rest of the world.  I’m drawn to concepts and ideas and enticed into playing with them and watching how they interact with each other.  Often that’s quite meaningfully productive, in all kinds of ways.  But it does detract from experiencing what’s happening right in front of me.  I’ve never mastered the ability, if that’s even possible, to solve a differential equation in relativistic astrophysics while retaining the awareness of my surroundings.  It’s like I’m transported to another time and place, other than where my body is.  That’s not a bad thing, as long as it’s done with a sense of balance.

While I was working, 99% of my time was spent in that other place – thinking about driving, thinking about how to medically care for a patient, thinking about the physics of flying, thinking about all kinds of stuff.  Then, in the other 1%, I would take a respite to just go out and be with nature, sometimes on a motorcycle, sometimes in an airplane, or a canoe, or on foot.  That now seems a bit backwards.  Rather than working and using a vacation to recharge one’s ability to work, wouldn’t it be better to be directly engaged with your life and the experience of what’s happening in the moment, to be tasting life, and using work to support that?  Live on the beach (or in the mountains, or in a forest, or whatever fits your fancy) as simply as possible and only go to work when you have to in order to be able to live on the beach, rather than fill your life with work and go to the beach so you don’t go nuts spending so much time at work.  Modern society seems to have its priorities all twisted up.

Thinking about this makes me feel a little guilty at spending so much effort to learn French.  But that effort will allow me to have a more meaningful trip to Switzerland.  I’ll be able to interact more effectively with more people there and have a broader spectrum of experiences.  That’s always the hook that draws me into walking away from the here and now.  I somehow convince myself that by doing so, my life will be somehow enhanced, made better.  Then comes the driver that the more time you spend in that other place, the better your life will become.  That digs the hole that sucks me in and then covers me up.

I think the secret is all a matter of balance.  Use only what you need in order to truly engage with life and then do what’s necessary to provide that need.  Don’t get sucked into doing more than that.  In the case of my learning French, okay, do it.  But I’ll do it in a way that doesn’t eat up a majority of my time.  Reserve that for living in the real world.  The world of the here and now.  I may not have that much time left in my life to learn French, but I don’t need to be perfectly fluent in it to benefit from learning what I can.  And the rest of the time, I can be here, wherever and whenever that is.

Right now, that’s here on the rail trail, my attention absorbed by the burgeoning life around me.  French verbs be damned!  At the moment, I have more important things to do.

Like, of course, walking with Waldo.

Covid Garden is looking good!

The emerald tunnel.

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words.

-Johann Wolfgang von Geothe

The rail-trail greets Waldo and I with a green smile this morning.  There are places where the tarmac winds its way down a tunnel running through of a vast ocean of leaves.  I feel like we’re walking through green pea soup — without the bacon bits.  The sky is clear, the sun is low, the air is still and the temperature is pleasant.  All life around us seems to be humming a happy tune – the birds are certainly singing celebratory songs.  Waldo’s up ahead, lost in the moment, and I’m trying to learn French from my phone.

My plan is to go to the French-speaking part of Switzerland in two weeks.  The app I’m using on my phone is the closest I can get to immersion in the language and I think it’s working pretty well for that. I’m also using a textbook and a computer course that supply me with the grammar and structure, but the app is what is cementing the strange way (for me) to communicate in my 73-year old brain.  I’ve been doing it every day while we’re out walking, without fail, for the past four months.  I have no delusions that I’ll be anywhere near fluent when I get there, but I should be able to interact in the local tongue on a basic level.

One might well ask, why would I bother?  I’m retired, I have no career obligations and no goals set to motivate me, other than the desire to talk to people that I meet in their native language.  Isn’t retirement the time to sit back, chill and enjoy what life one has left without the stress of striving for whatever life has to offer?  I don’t think so.

I remember, when I was in college, studying about the sunnum bonum.  That’s Latin for the greatest good.  Philosophers, for thousands of years, have argued about this.  Some ideas tossed around were, the greatest amount of pleasure for the least amount of pain, or to gain the most wealth and power possible, or to achieve the highest glory and praise, or to be the most respected adult in the room.  Some have suggested contentment and bliss, or to surround oneself with the love of others, or to learn how to love everyone around you.  Others propose that it is the pursuit of the greatest amount of good for the greatest number.  Maybe it’s something else, or maybe it doesn’t even exist – perhaps it’s simply the invention of a confused mind.  Another way to pose the question is, since we are all driven by something, does that something drive us in a good direction or bad?

Now that I’m old[er], I can’t help but wonder:  Did I lead a good life?  Is there something I have yet to do to complete my life’s journey?  Something that, if I don’t do it, I will die without achieving what I should have?  It all boils down to the question: What is the meaning of life?  Is there any meaning to it at all?  We’re born, we live a certain number of years and then we die.  What happened before and what happens after that is completely unknown.  It’s hidden behind an impenetrable veil.  And what happens in between is often obscured by a dense fog of confusion, misapprehension and self-scripted lies.  Maybe these questions are all vacuous and we are nothing more than the predetermined action of a purely mechanical universe that is merely evolving according to a set of inviolable physical laws.

But now, in my later years, I can’t help but wonder:  What should I do with the little time I have left?  That is certainly less ethereal and more to the point, isn’t it?  But then you have to ask yourself, what do you mean by “should” and we cycle back to all the other questions.  It’s no help, either, to try to reduce it to:  What do I want to do?  That just replaces the label “should” with the label “want.”  Still, I only have a relatively small number of years left to live and I would like to know the optimal way of spending the time I have left on this Earth.

When I think about this stuff, I keep coming back to the fact that I came into this universe at a specific time and place and I’ve been going someplace and somewhen else ever since.   I may not know where that place is, or even understand if it’s a good place to go.  But I’m moving.   There is a directedness to this journey, but I have no way of knowing if it is a good direction.  No matter what I choose, it will certainly end in the same predetermined event, my death.  Even so, I can’t help but wonder if I can’t accumulate something more on my exit than I had on my entry.  Maybe good or bad isn’t the way to order what happens in the in-between.  Maybe the best that can be done is to simply experience as much as possible of what the human condition has to offer and that alone answers the question:  What is life all about?  Give an extensional definition rather that an intentional one.  (An extensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying its extension – that is, specifying every object that falls under the definition of the term in question. An intentional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions when the term applies.)  Maybe the good life is just that life that has tasted the widest variety of what the human condition has to offer.  Then when I ask:  What is a human life? I can respond with: The sum total of what I have experienced is the closest I will ever get to an answer.  Then the greatest good may be to get out there and experience as much of life as is possible.

At any rate, something like that seems to be what is motivating me to go to Switzerland armed with a thin veneer of French.  We’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, Waldo is out sniffing, looking and listening, chasing after rabbits and carrying sticks, doing a similar thing.  He’s learning the language of nature and exploring the limits of his doggy existence.

And he suffers not at all by not going to Switzerland.

With or without French.

The world is so green.

Waldo! Get out of the bushes! There’re ticks in there!

Forever – is composed of Nows.

-Emily Dickinson

Today, Waldo and I have a markedly different walk, compared to yesterday.  We got up late, around 10 AM and it’s in the low 60s as we hit the trail.  94℉ one day and 61℉ the next — that’s quite a difference.  These temperatures are measured outside of direct sunlight and reflect the temperature of the air.  The reason for this is that sunlight passes directly through the air without being absorbed, we can see through it after all, but our solid measuring instruments do absorb sunlight and, if they are in direct sunlight, will get hotter than the surrounding air.  The measurements would not be correct unless we put the devices in shade.

Our bodies are like that too.  That’s why shade feels cool.  As I walk down the trail, I’m quite cool in the shade, but as I pass into direct sunlight, I get hot enough to start sweating.  It’s an odd sensation.  The temperature difference is very noticeable, even Waldo feels it, despite the fact that his skin is protected from the sun by his sable birthday suit.   He purposefully searches out and takes advantage of shade as it presents itself.

I like to pay attention to what is happening to me in the moment, as you can tell from reading these blogs.  It’s a way of drawing my attention away from the thoughts, ideas, and stories I perpetually tell myself.  Stories that really don’t make my life any better – they’re more perseverations, worries and plain entertainment than the solving of any problem.  It’s just a constant narration that goes on and I listen to it as if it were important.  But it’s not.  It’s like a dog seeing a squirrel.  My thoughts flow through my head and my attention is carried away as if nothing else was more valuable.  I’m no longer in the land of trees, birds, flowers, Mother Earth, the trail underfoot, or the vistas of green life in all its abundance.  I’m in the land of self-created abstraction.

But then I force myself back to reality by asking, What kind of tree is that?  Are all the trees leafed out, or are there some holdouts, waiting for warmer temperatures?  How many different bird-calls can I distinguish?  Can I see the birds that are making them?  What does that blossom smell like?  How many of the plants I see have blossoms?  The object is not to find answers to those questions, but to just ask them.  The asking is what makes me pay attention to the greater world outside of myself.  The next step is to pointedly refuse to answer them, which would draw me back inside my head, and to just soak in the experience of the moment. Alas, it’s something I have to do with a purpose.  I like asking questions, then trying to answer them.  It’s entertaining, you know.  But the real meat of the human experience is to just experience.  To smell the flowers, hear the birds, see the trees, experience how it all makes me feel, without conceptualizing about them.  We only live in the moment, you know.  Everything else is a self-created fantasy in the mind.

I look at Waldo.  He’s doing his Waldo thing, bouncing down the trail with a precious stick between his jaws, checking things out and exploring what’s there.  I have no doubt that he has a language center in his brain; after all, he can understand what I say to him.  But I highly doubt that he fills his mind with words, the way I do.  It would be my guess that his waking moments are filled by a flowing river of sensations and, although he can change the course of that flow, he doesn’t translate it into ideas that are a mere shadow of reality.  He lives in the now, as he pursues his constant search for the perfect stick.

Now that I’m retired, I have plenty of time to bathe my soul in the present.  But, alas, I don’t take advantage of it as much as I should.  I have a psychic momentum that tenaciously propels me down well-rutted tracks and takes me nowhere of any real importance.  I calculate, I philosophize, I reason, I formulate, I propose, I fret, I celebrate, all out of habit, and all to no great purpose.  The time I have left in life would be so much better spent in just drinking in the essence of the human condition, to live each moment to its fullest.  I’m retired now and I can finally get away with that without negative consequences to myself or anyone else.  Alas, it’s not that easy.

Waldo, if he’s not already there, could get there more easily than I.

But I keep trying.

Beautiful summer day. So much to enjoy!

Things are still in the early morning…

Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.

-Al Bernstein

The forecast is for highs in the mid-nineties, so Waldo and I rise at 4:30 AM.  It’s still dark out as I crawl out of bed, but it morphs into predawn twilight as I get dressed.  Sunrise isn’t until 5:30, but it’s quite light out as we start our daily trek at 5 AM.  Once the sun is up, the shadows are long and the light has a golden hue that gives the landscape a magical, almost surreal, appearance.  I would not be surprised to see fairies flitting about in the weeds.

The temp is in the mid-sixties and a slight breeze blows over my exposed skin, giving the morning a cool, but not chilly, ambiance.  The trees, all now in full summer plumage, shimmy in the air and make shadows dance on the ground.  The Japanese knotweed now stands eight feet tall and dominates the land where it grows.  Common reeds too stand a couple of feet high in the drainage ditches alongside the trail.  Southern Indian azaleas, wild daffodil, ground ivy, lesser celandine and common blue violet are abloom with a riot of color.  Everything live has awakened and the summer solstice, marking the beginning of summer, is only a few weeks away.  With temperatures as high as they are in mid-May, I can’t help but feel high-summer is going to be a scorcher.

Having temperatures this high so early in the season does a number on Waldo.  He’s still sporting his heavy winter coat.  He’s shedding, but not yet that much.  I know, I know, most animals, including dogs, temperature regulate by panting.  Their furry coats actually help keep the direct sun off their skin and keeps it from warming the skin directly.  But, still, having a lighter coat must allow the air to circulate next to their skin and aid in cooling by conduction and convection, even if they can’t benefit from the evaporation of sweat.  Otherwise, why would they shed when it gets hot?  Waldo, this time of year spends more time looking for shade, as we trek along, than he does later in the year, in the same temperatures, when he has a thinner coat.  Also, he will turn and give me a “Water!   Water!” look earlier on.

The foliage seems to appreciate the higher temperatures.  The world is verdant and blooms are full and hearty.  In drier climes where I’ve been, things would have withered and browned.  But in New England, where we have plenty of humidity and rainfall, the sun provides better insolation, which means more food for photosynthesis, and doesn’t dry things out.  Out west, things would be all yellow and tan, wilting and drooping in the sweltering heat, but here even the grass, which is never artificially watered, stays lush and green.  I’m sweating, soaking my shirt with stale body odor.  On a hot day in the dry air out west, my clothes and skin wouldn’t get wet at all.  Instead, I would be growing a gritty, salty crust all over me, the sweat evaporating as fast as it’s formed.  Once home, I would feel like I’d taken a prolonged dip in the Great Salt Lake, instead of returning from a walk in the woods.

I remember living in Albany, New York, one summer.  It was so humid that you never felt like you didn’t need a shower.  All you had to do is leave the air-conditioned comfort of your home, cross the street, and your clothes were soaked.  It was so humid, I don’t think my sweat evaporated at all.  It just grew into pools and rivulets that ran off onto whatever was nearby.  Even writing was hard because the sweat would drip onto and emulsify the paper, making it impossible to move a pen around without tearing holes in it.  Of course, that was a while ago, before computers replaced pen and paper.

I don’t say all this in complaint.  It’s just another experience that life has to offer.  And it does provide me the opportunity for the exquisite pleasure of sudden relief as I step into my air-conditioned home.  It may be a bit wussy, but man, it feels good to sit down in my recliner and cool off in the AC with a cold drink in my hand.  Even Waldo appreciates the AC.  He’ll come in and flop over onto the bare floor, tongue extended, panting heavily.  Then, after an hour or so, he fully recovers and he’s back outside, romping around in the heat.

For a little while.

…and sometimes a little wet.

Yet another day on the rail-trail.

Upon the subject of education … I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.

-Abraham Lincoln

Waldo is on point at the forward end of the leash, in his usual position.  He comes to a cross street and sits at the curb, waiting for me to come up.  He dutifully stays put until I give the magic word, “Okay,” then, when he hears it, he bounds forward and continues in his Waldo quest for the perfect stick.  It has taken a long time, and a lot of patience, but this is something he has learned to do pretty well.  And he now does it without looking for a way to avoid it.  He just does it.

I train Waldo for three reasons.  First and foremost is his, and my, safety.  Stopping at streets is an example of this.  Second is for my convenience.  I’ve finally gotten him to sit when I put on his Halti.  It can be hard to get it on when he’s squirming around, which is what he does if he doesn’t sit.  Lastly, I train him for fun.  Teaching him how to jump over barriers, weave between poles and crawl through tunnels is something he likes to do (and receive treats for doing) and it doesn’t take much to get him to cooperate.  We both enjoy the interaction and he gets to run off a lot of that border-collie energy the breed is renowned for.  If he is going to live amongst people in the city, and he has no choice about that, he needs training – education.

I remember when my brother, my niece and nephew and I went on the trip to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro a few years ago.  After the mountain, we went on a “safari” to several game parks in the area to see the animals.  On the way to the Serengeti, we stopped at a Masai village and met the people there.  Traditionally, they live in bomas — small collections of one room mud huts surrounded by a wall made of high piles of thorny acacia limbs.  These bomas lay on dry semiarid grasslands in places where civilization has not yet deigned to encroach.  The Masai are cattle herders and a family’s wealth is measured by the number of bony, scrawny, emaciated cattle they own.  Their way of life is slowly being squeezed out of existence, like that of so many indigenous peoples, by the needs of modern-day civilization.

Tanzania has a poverty problem, as well as other troubles, and one of the things I felt as we visited was a desire to help somehow.  Helping in any situation, truly helping, is a complicated thing and this is particularly true when it involves people of a different culture.  I certainly didn’t, and still don’t, understand the Tanzanian situation well enough to know just how I might help, so I turned to our guides.  I asked for the best way America and Americans could help the Tanzanian people.  They said, “Send us teachers.”

This surprised me, but I immediately recognized its wisdom.  “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” said Lao Tzu.  Traditionally, we give a helping hand by giving money.  It’s easy and it’s cheap.  However, it’s really not that much help and its effect doesn’t last long.  Kennedy’s Peace Corps, if it hadn’t been corrupted by the CIA and other influential government pressures, might have been a great way to accomplish this. But alas, like so many other attempts at international aid, it failed to fulfill its promise.

America’s educational history is long.  In 1635, the Boston Latin School, America’s first public high school, was created, and today, it is judged to be the #1 high school in Massachusetts.  Thomas Jefferson pushed for the establishment of an educational system paid for by taxpayer dollars.  That did not catch on right away, but today, we have a public school system from kindergarten through high school that is not only supported by taxes, it is required for all children to attend (unless their education can be arranged by other means).  It was, and still is, felt that a democracy, even a representative democracy like ours, can only be workable if its electorate is well-educated.  Smart move on the part of our ancestors.

In order for our system of government, and our very lives, to function well, the educational requirements of our citizens are much greater than it was in 1635.  High school is no longer enough.  To be competitive in today’s world, to not be a second, or even a third, rate nation, requires that our citizenry be highly educated.  We have jet aircraft and spacecraft to build, dangerous diseases to control and irradicate, an internet to use and protect, an entire interdependent way of life to keep running in all of its complexity.  Making college education, vocational education, all types of education, free is not a handout any more than making K-12 education free is a handout.  It’s an investment in our future.  Our society should decide what education is needed and provide that without forcing students to assume usury levels of incredible and ever-increasing amounts of debt.  Instead of putting up a barrier to education, we should be encouraging the education of those who are so inclined and capable.  Let’s not be reduced to having to ask other countries for their expertise to keep our society running and developing.  Let’s not allow ourselves, even in a small way, to fall into the situation Tanzania finds itself in.

Waldo, sigh, needs further education as well.  He’s good and has a good heart, but he still has to learn not to roll his furry head in the mud.  Yeah, he did it again.  Fortunately, he has someone to pay for his education.

And to wipe the mud off his face.

Waldo, looking for trouble, found some shade.

Waldo has stolen some poor bird’s perch.

When we listen, we hear someone into existence.

-Laurie Buchanan, PhD

The birds are out in force.  Their voices, in various pitches, melodies, whistles and cries, fill the air as Waldo and I meander through our favorite patch of woods.  At any one time, I can distinguish four or five voices, but I don’t know the species those voices belong to.  Waldo makes no response to them, I’m guessing because they’re well outside his influence, but I try to mimic their speech – sometimes more successfully than others.  I haven’t heard the Emmy bird yet, they show up a little later in the year, but there are birds whose whistles I can imitate.  Sometimes I get a response, I think, when I whistle in as similar a tone as I can to what I hear.  I’m not sure, because it may be that birds are just having a conversation among themselves.  It’s hard to know.

I do speak domesticated cat pretty well and without much of an accent.  Many a time, I’ll be walking down the street (don’t see many cats on the rail-trail), see a cat (I have to be sans Waldo) who will start to move away from me and I’ll meow at it.  A friendly rising pitch usually does the trick, and the cat will stop and look at me.  It meows back and a continued give and take often results in the cat approaching and accepting a pet from me.  Not always, but it’s not unusual either.  Dogs, you can talk to in English.  Strange cats, not so much — if you don’t speak their language, you don’t exist.  Unless they already know you.

Waldo is kind of like a cat in that way.  When he wants something, he’s in my face and persists until I respond appropriately (in his mind).  He’s got a good heart and does it in an affectionate way, rubbing up against me, pawing at me, nibbling at my feet, that sort of thing.  Then, when he doesn’t want anything, he goes off on his own and entertains himself.  If he’s not absorbed in something or other, which he usually is, he’ll respond appropriately when I speak to him.  Sometimes he won’t.  It’s almost like he’s moody.

For example, when we’re out walking and a passerby shows interest in Waldo, and he is focused on going on his way and couldn’t be bothered, I’ll say, “Go say hello, Waldo,” and he’ll start wagging his tail and go up to the person with a submissive posture and nuzzle them, happy to receive a pet or scratch.  Then there are other times when he ignores me and continues on his way as if he didn’t hear me.  Sometimes, too, he’ll go over to the interested person, give them a wag or two, then bolt off in the direction he was going.  It’s almost as if he feels like, “Okay.  Duty done.  See ya!”  Waldo and I definitely have conversations, often nonverbal.

Usually, in my subconscious, I think of nature as being external to me.  It’s something to be controlled or conquered.  That’s just silly, because we are all just an expression of nature ourselves.  But what if, instead, I think of myself as being a small part of nature and when I interact with her, what I am really doing is having a conversation?  I’m not doing something to nature, I’m saying something to her.  What if I change the way I think about what nature does in response, not as a reaction, but as an answer to what I just said.  I’m just a small piece of nature vibrating in harmony (or disharmony) with her.

For example, when I spew carbon emission from my car into the atmosphere, it’s a kind of statement.   Mother Nature responds by raising the average global temperature, increasing the frequency and severity of storms, changing the PH of the oceans and killing off coral, and so many other things tied to global warming.  It’s as if she’s saying, “Uh, no.  Don’t do that, at least not in that quantity.”   When I do something as seemingly innocuous as whistling at the birds, she responds by them whistling back as if nature is saying, “I hear you!”  When I plant a tree, she responds by decreasing the CO₂ in the atmosphere, providing shade and a home for birds and squirrels.

Thought of in these terms, why in the world would anyone want to get into an argument with Mother Nature?  Instead of being in competition with her, wouldn’t it be better to be in harmony?

Like any other conversation, sometimes the best part is keeping quiet and just listening.  I look around me and see the seething green of the burgeoning new-growth leaves, the exploding reds and yellows of the just-bloomed flowers — all of spring-life waking up.  I listen to the birds, yes, but also to the wind in the leaves and the buzzing of insects.  I smell the varied and subtle odors in the air and feel the wind play with my hair.  I listen to nature’s meter, rhythm, and the flow of her syntax.  I just listen.  She’s talking to me in poetry.

I look at Waldo.  He’s trotting down the path and turns to give me a glance as if to say, “You coming, or what?”

We are in a harmony of our own.

Mother nature is talking. I just need ears, and attention, to listen.

The Covid garden is looking good!

One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm.

-Ella Maillart

The past few days have been quite warm, with temps touching 70℉.  I worked up a sweat, walking in shirtsleeves, and Waldo worked up a thirst.  Today, though, the temp has been in the low 50s with a mild breeze and I’m wearing a light jacket.  The sprouting and budding plants don’t seem to mind the colder temp and Waldo really enjoys it.  There are even a few bugs flying around, no mosquitoes, but plenty of ticks.  Birds are abundant and making their songs and calls while squirrels run about, doing whatever it is that they do in the spring, with abandon.  Nobody seems to care about the cooler temperature.  Including me.

I’m reading about The Lewis and Clark Expedition with my grandson.  In 1803 to 1806, the Corps of Discovery traveled some 4,000 miles on their own, each way, out and back, having nothing to help them survive but what they carried with them, what they could find on the way, and what some friendly Indians gave them.  They went all the way from Pittsburg, PA, down the Ohio River, to the Mississippi River to St. Louis, then up the Missouri to parts unknown and eventually came to the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.  No European had trekked the entire distance before and no one knew what was really out there.  There were rumors of wooly mammoths, mountains of rock salt, a lost tribe of Israel, volcanoes and the dream of a Northwest Passage.  They knew that the Missouri River ran through the area and that there were Indians and mountains to be crossed, but little else.  They also knew that on the western side, there was a river, the Columbia River, that ran east, but didn’t know how far it went.

My grandson is twelve years old and has never done any real camping.  I’ve tried to impart to him a sense of what it must have been like for those guys, but without some exposure to living in the wilderness, it’s pretty hopeless.  He’s a city boy.  I take him out on the rail-trail when I can talk him into it, but he’s more interested in playing video games.  I also have trouble explaining to him what motivated the men to go.  I tell him about a sense of adventure, the glory of being where none of your people have gone before and the enticement of being able to tell others about it when you return.  But, I think, all that is beyond him — for now.

There’s something else that appeals and draws me into nature.  The sense of leaving behind my everyday mundane life, at least for a while, and all the worries that suck me into my normal day to day existence — an escape, while at the same time, I’m open to and welcoming of something new.  I certainly felt that when I was growing up.  I also felt it when I went flying.

On many occasions, alone in the cockpit, throttle and trim set, there was little to do other than look out of the canopy.  Thousands of feet below, on the ground, were roads and highways, cars and trucks, cities, people and all the stuff that made up my ground-pounding life.  But up at altitude, there was just the sky, the horizon and an occasional cloud or two.  I felt as if I was above the world I knew, separate from it, in some kind of hiatus.  It was liberating and exhilarating, even if temporary.  There are many things that I enjoy about flying, but that is definitely one of them, even when I take a commercial airliner.

I feel the same thing, to a lesser degree, every day when Waldo and I go walking.  My life isn’t as complex and full of stuff as it was before I retired, but still there is that sense of being somewhere other than in the mundane world created and populated by man.  It provides a change in perspective that allows me to see my other life as one outside of that life, rather than one intimately a part of and drowning in it.  Removed in that way, I can think about whatever issues I may have in a less intimate and painful way.

For Waldo, this is his everyday life.   I’m not sure how much reflection he’s capable of, or how much he benefits from the change of scenery, but I do know he’s eager to go when we’re on new and different walks, like the ones we do with Christine and Phyllis.  Variety is the spice of life and that, too, is a motivating factor in seeking time out in nature.

I’m definitely ripe for a new adventure.  But for now…

This’ll do, Waldo.  This’ll do.

Looks like a jungle…

The Japanese knotweed is getting tall…

Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.

-John Muir

Waldo and I are going on our trek earlier than usual today.  Normally, we wait until midafternoon, at my insistence, in order to take advantage of the warmer temperatures.  I look forward to being able to walk in shirtsleeves and enjoy it when I can.  But there is also something to be said for doing the morning constitutional first thing and freeing up the rest of the day for other activities.  The days are now warm enough that it’s no big deal to walk when we get up, although I will have to wear a jacket — the forecast is for a chilly and humid late morning.  Waldo, heck, he doesn’t care.  In fact, I think he likes the cooler temperatures.

We rise and I give Waldo his breakfast as I get dressed.  He’s a good eater and eagerly consumes his kibble and drinks some water, even though he has some tanks that need emptying.  I feed him first thing because we’ll be gone for a number of hours and that way he won’t have to eat late.  I put my breakfast off until we return — I’m no longer a young animal and can comfortably get away with it.  All the same, Waldo is eager to go and is frenetically worming his way between my calves and the chair as I sit and try to get my boots on.  I explain to him that he is delaying my getting ready and I can’t get my shoes tied, but he has none of it.  I don’t complain too hard as it allows me to get some puppy love and affection, something that’s going to be in short supply as soon as we get out the door.

Once we get on the trail, true to expectations, the day is cool, but I’m quite comfortable in my light jacket.  Even though lockdown restrictions have been eased, there are still quite a few people and dogs out on the rail-trail.  That’s one good thing that Covid did for humanity — it got people off their behinds and out into nature.  Two years ago, when the pandemic started, the number of people on the trail increased remarkably — exercising there was one thing they could still do outside of their homes that was relatively safe.  It must have whetted some appetites because the number that Waldo and I encounter is still higher than pre-Covid.  We all must be happier for it as, although some keep to themselves and don’t want to be bothered, none seem grumpy or wanting to be somewhere else.  There is no place Waldo would rather be.

Color has exploded alongside the trail.  Everywhere, there are green leaves blossoming on the low-lying bushes.  Even alder buckthorn is coming alive.  In addition, there are white puffs of pussy willows (although still without leaves) and small yellow lesser combine and weeping forsythia flowers.  The Japanese knotweed has started to grow – thick red tinged stalks thrust green leaves upward four to six inches above the ground.  It won’t be long and those stalks will stand eight to ten feet and choke out everything else.  Every day I’m out here I see a change – the rapid reemergence of life after a long winter.

Spring is a time when things change fast.  For so many months now, the cold icy winter has stalled the evolution of the seasons with a monotonous routine whose change can be measured by the number of inches of snow accumulated on the ground.  Now, in only a single day, I’m witness to an eruption of awakening that resets the zeitgeist of my walks with Waldo.  My morning routine, mostly the same in any season, of rising, feeding the dog, getting dressed and hitting the trail, is illuminated by nature’s stirring from hibernation.  And like the sudden whiff of a rose’s perfume, it stimulates my mood and gives it wings to soar above the mundane.  The celerity of spring’s evolution slices through my habitual plodding through life and bathes me in the beauty and magic of the human condition.

I’m not sure that Waldo notices the coming of spring, except there are a lot more sticks around and it’s easier to upgrade the one he carries in his mouth.  I could be wrong, I can only guess, but I think he sees every day as unique and different and that change is just the fabric of our existence.  If so, he’s right, of course, but I do so much enjoy watching the stirring of life as it flows in an uninterrupted stream before my eyes.

And spring has only just begun.

…and the shadows are long.

The Japanese knotweed is getting tall!

The man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

-Henry David Thoreau

Today, it is pushing seventy and partly sunny (that’s a glass half full description if there ever was one) with only a light breeze.  I am in my shirt-sleeves and working up a sweat.  Waldo’s tongue protrudes from his snout, flat as a crepe and flopping about as he bounces down the trail.  It’s midweek, midafternoon, and still, there are quite a number of bikers, skaters, skateboarders, dog walkers and just plain folks ambling down the tarmac.  It’s the warmest it’s been for many months and there are quite a few people who are taking advantage.  Birds are singing, squirrels are cavorting and insects are buzzing.  The bugs must have been hibernating because as soon as it gets warm enough, they are out in numbers.  Including ticks.  But not mosquitoes – yet.

Water, left from a recent rain, flows down the creeks and channels alongside the trail.  There’s some mud around, but not much, as the sun dries up most of what is there.  Waldo always finds a wet spot to roll his head in.  “Hey,” I complain to him, “I gotta pet that thing!”  It does no good.  Whatever urges him to wriggle in the mud is stronger than my admonishment.  His white spots turn dark brown and his face and furry pate are streaked with stuff that’s curdled and slimy – the consistency of chunky peanut butter.  Ugh.  He rights himself and continues on down the trail in a gleeful trot, having satisfied an itch in a hard-to-reach place.  He is a master at enjoying simple pleasures.

Pleasure is an odd experience.  It’s not only subjective – I don’t think I’d be as joyful rolling in the mud as Waldo — it’s also relative.  I remember a time years ago when I was a teenager and I had malaria.  I picked it up while my family and I were in Ethiopia.  The strain I had could lie dormant in the liver for years before becoming active.  We had been back in the US three or four years when, one day, I developed shaking chills.  My fever shot up to about 104.5 and I felt miserable.  I had little energy to do much more than lie on my back and roll my eyes at the ceiling.  This lasted for a few hours and then, suddenly, my temperature dropped a half of a degree.  It felt like every muscle in my body spontaneously relaxed with a resounding “Aaaaaah.”  I broke out in beads of sweat the size of marbles that soaked my sheets.   My fever had broken and it happened precipitously.  I learned then that there are few, if any, pleasures so great as the sudden cessation of pain.

I remember another time I was frying some chicken in olive oil.  Idiotically, I reached out and grabbed a piece of chicken with my hand to turn it over. At that moment, a dollop of hot oil leapt up and splashed on my exposed fingers.  Damn, that hurt!  I was quite aware that burns are treated by putting cold compresses on them, but I’d never had a burn that needed it.   Until that moment.  I put my fingers in some cold water, expecting the pain to ease a bit.  I was shocked to discover that it made the pain completely go away!  I pulled my fingers out of the water — excruciating pain.  Back in the water – “Aaaaaah!”, pain free.  It was amazing.  If only all medical problems could be so completely treated.

Were these simple pleasures?  Well, they sure weren’t complicated ones.  There are so many things in our everyday life that can give pleasure – the aroma of a flower, the sight of sunlight reflecting off a placid lake, the sound of birdsong, the feeling of a cool breeze gently caressing sweaty skin, just to name a few.  They are all around us and omnipresent.  And we don’t have to experience pain to enjoy them.  All we have to do is open our awareness to appreciate them.

I look at Waldo jauntily trotting down the tarmac.  Maybe I should try a little roll in the mud?

Nah, not today.

The Covid garden is blooming.