Walking with Waldo

Stuck in a polar vortex.

Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now.

-Barack Obama

Christine, Phyllis, Waldo and I have put our longer walks on a temporary hiatus.  It’s cold and wintry out, but that’s not the reason.  We just don’t want to traipse around in deep snow and most of the trails available to us are unplowed.  Snow storms, a couple of weeks ago, left a good two feet of snow on the ground.  Since then, it has settled somewhat and, in places, been stamped down into an uneven track that’s difficult to walk.  For short distances, they’re tolerable, but for our longer treks, not so much.  The Marlborough Rail Trail is the only exception I know.  They plow it shortly after every storm.  So, Waldo and I have someplace to go to put in our six daily miles.  That does require about a 1.5-mile unplowed walk on the Hudson part of the trail, but that is something we can usually do.  With effort.

Today, we’re in the middle of a polar vortex.  That’s meteorologese for very cold weather coming down from the Canadian arctic into the lower contiguous 48 states.  Because we’re so near the ocean in Massachusetts, which moderates temperatures on the land nearby, it’s not as bad as further inland.  Texas is getting particularly hard hit.  They’re having single digit temperatures in some places!  Not being used to such frigidity, they are not prepared.  Here, the temperatures are dipping down into the low double digits, which is plenty cold enough, thank you very much.  It is believed that the frequency and severity of these polar vortices is due to global warming.

The argument goes that the jet stream keeps the arctic cold up north.  Global warming has weakened the jet stream and that’s the reason the icy air migrates south.  The fact is, due to the average temperature of the atmosphere increasing, more energy is being dumped into meteorological systems.  That energy has to be dissipated, which means we have more frequent violent storms and storms that are more violent.  All that energy makes the atmosphere swirl and rage in ways we’re not used to.  Hence, we get Texas turned into an icicle.

Waldo loves going out to the rail-trail.  He never tires of it.  Always sniffing and searching about for entertainment, he always finds it.  For example, he can sniff about on the surface of the snow, then plunge his nose deep into the white stuff and come out with a stick.  Me, I look out over the forest, fields and fens alongside where we walk and I see a white blanket with bare poles and sticks reaching skyward.  It’s a world in hibernation, waiting for warmer temperatures to be reborn.  It’s waiting to explode in verdure and inflorescence.  Like a sleeping child, it has a beauty all its own.

I look up at the sky above the trees.  Blue, with white puffs of moisture, it hangs there as if it is vast and limitless.  But it’s not.  I’ve been to the top of Kilimanjaro, 19,341 ft above sea level.  At that altitude there is very little air to breathe.  The little blanket of air surrounding our planet is only one thousandth of the radius of the Earth.  Seen from space, it’s a thin veil that provides us with the gaseous elements that we need for life.  And at over seven billion, there are so many of us dumping the waste of our vast energy consumption into the environment that we are slowly making it impossible to live on the Earth.  In 2017, it was estimated that 32.5 gigatons, that’s 65,000,000,000,000 pounds, of CO2 were pumped by us into the air.  We are killing our planet.

It is time that we step back from our industry, our commercialism, our consumption and look at what we are doing.  We don’t live in big modern buildings of hundreds of stories in height, we don’t live in cities the size of small countries, we don’t live in cars, buses, trains and airplanes, we don’t live in luxurious palaces of brick and mortar, we live in Nature.  We live in a world of trees, bushes, flowers, grass, weeds, squirrels, rabbits, birds and insects.  Those other places are just sites where we spend some of our time.  We live in Nature and we need it, all of its trees, bushes, flowers, grass, weeds, squirrels, rabbits, birds and insects, and the air we breathe, to survive.  And we are killing our planet.  It’s up to us to stop it and stop it now.

Waldo and I, we’re going to do our part and decrease our carbon footprint.  We’re going to walk more and drive less, for one thing.

And we’re going to enjoy Nature while we do it.

Cold? What cold?

I could play in this all day!

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi-human.  The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

-Edward Hoagland

I look up from where I am ensconced in my comfy recliner, legs all stretched out, and see a pair of black eyes staring unblinkingly at me.  Waldo is as still as stone and I get this feeling he’s repeating over and over in his head, “You wanna go for a walk.  You wanna go for a walk.  You wanna go for a walk.”   One thing for sure, I could never win a stare-down with this dog.  Some dogs will whine, or scratch at the door, or pace nervously about the room to let you know they want to go out, but not Waldo.  No.  He goes for the old mind projection thing of “If I concentrate hard enough on it, it will happen.”  It’s as if he’s trying to bore his thoughts into my head — which maybe he can, because I get it.

Once I get out of my chair and start to dress for the wintry weather, he gets all excited and starts running in circles.  After a few circuits, he goes over to something that will make some noise if he paws it, like his aluminum dog dishes.  A couple of swats and spilled water later, he goes back to spinning.  I’m trying to tie my boots and he comes over and sticks his nose and tongue in the loose laces, trying to lick my fingers.  I do battle with his gooey, slimy, pink thing, doing my best to keep his parts out of the knot I’m tying.  He then raises a paw at me swipes at my pant leg as if to say, “Come on!  Let’s go!  Let’s go!”  Only once I’m all together and I stand does he attack the door, lunging at it with 50 pounds of puppy power.  I have to tell him to sit so he’ll calm down enough so I can get the leash on his collar.  Once that’s done, I open the door and swoosh, he’s racing down the stairs (a far cry from when I first got him and I had to carry him up and down the stairs).  He gets to the bottom and stares at the outside door, again trying to exercise mind control, and bolts out into the snow as soon as it opens.  It doesn’t take him long to get to the extreme end of the leash and we’re off.

Over the past week or so, Mother Nature has seen fit to grace us with a good foot or more of snow.  Property management has plowed the sidewalks, streets and parking places quite well, but our path usually takes us over where the grass is buried deep under the cold, white fluffy stuff.  Over many treks down the same path, we’ve worn narrow deep canyons through which Waldo charges as if he’s in a rush to get to where they lead.  But he’s not.  He’s just antsy, anxious to get out and run off his border-collie energy.  He sniffs about, his proboscis radar on the lookout for a buried stick, or pee-mail, or any other interesting odor lurking about.

The going is uneven and I’m struggling to keep my balance which slows me down.  Waldo has four smaller feet, walks a lot closer to the ground and doesn’t have to work so hard to keep his footing.  He’s faster than I am and often finds he has to stop and wait for me to catch up.  Sometimes, the path diverges in a “Y” and Waldo takes a wrong turn.  “This way!” I call and he porpoises through the deep untrodden snow between the paths, leaving deep footprints about three feet apart separated by undisturbed snow.  A gazelle couldn’t do it better.  He loves this stuff.

After a quarter mile or so, Waldo finds a place to squat.  He does what he needs to and then goes a little ways and stops, waiting for me to pick up what he has deposited.  Once done, I say, “Okay,” and he continues on his way, doing his Waldo thing.  I stumble along behind and watch him being a dog, enjoying the outdoors.  And I can’t help but share in that joy.  Although we are separate beings with our own individuality, we are also something else, something shared, something somehow merged, acting as a unit.  A part of each of us has met somewhere in the middle ground between us and formed something non-dog and non-human, and yet both dog and human.  Waldo and I, we have become a couple.  A couple of what, I’m not sure.

But we are a couple.

Ah! Nothing like freshly fallen snow!

It is cold, but at least it is plowed. In Marlborough anyway.

Attachment is the source of all suffering.

-Buddha

It snowed a few days ago, not much, only about 3 inches or so.  And then it got really cold, down to -13℉ with windchill.  I don’t own a pair of long underwear, but when it gets that cold, I do increase the number of layers.  T-shirt, shirt, fleece jacket and down jacket and gloves for the hands, are my standard go-to dress when it gets really cold like this.  My legs usually don’t get that cold, but I add rain pants over them that keeps the heat in just enough that I don’t get a cold rash on my legs when the temps go below 10℉.  The cold doesn’t seem to bother Waldo in his sable birthday suit, although I do keep a close eye on him to see that he doesn’t exhibit behavior that would suggest he’s cold.  The only such behavior I’ve ever noticed is that when it gets below zero and he’s walking on ice, his feet get cold and he’ll lay down and lick his paws.  When this happens, we go home.

Today, I’m waiting for the hottest hours which are after noon.  I momentarily toy with the idea to take the day off because of the cold, then I look at Waldo and those thoughts are gone.  He needs to get out.  Subconsciously, I brace for icy air on my face, cold that penetrates my fingers until they hurt, and the fear that I will be miserable.  I take a deep breath, a decision is made, and just like that, the fear goes away.  I put the leash on Waldo and we hit the rail-trail.

We start out and I can feel the cold.  It bites my nose and cheeks and gnaws at my fingers through my gloves.  I’m dressed heavily enough that the rest of me is quite warm.  When the wind blows, the skin on my exposed forehead starts to ache.  I pull my neck gaiter up to cover my lower jaw and chin, which helps that part of my face, and carry on.  Waldo, he hits the snow at a trot and snuffs around in the stuff.  Soon, somehow, he’s found a stick and he’s prancing down the trail, tail held high, waving that stick back and forth with pride of ownership.

After the first half-mile, I settle into my pace, one foot going in front of the other with an automaticity that requires no thought.  I settle into the sensation of having part of my body feel like it’s going to grow icicles where there shouldn’t had oughta be any, knowing full well from past experience that I am in no real danger, and I relax.  The mild pain in the parts of my face that are freezing just becomes another sensation like any other sensation, like the firmness of the ground that I walk on.  I rotate the leash from hand to hand as my fingers start to ache, putting the idle one in my coat pocket to warm it up.  This all becomes routine as well and I am soon opening myself to my wintery gestalt.

The air is clean and fresh, almost odorless.  I feel its icy tendrils probe at the insides of my nose, only to be warmed and integrated comfortably with the air in my lungs.  I see the white pines dotted along our route that give a pale green tinge to the otherwise white and tan palette of winter.  It is so quiet out here, there’s not even the sound of wind sifting through the leaves that abound in other seasons.  No constant buzz of insects, and any animals, including birds, that are around must be snuggling in their respective nests because they are making no noise.  No whistling, no chattering, no squawking, nothing.  I wonder of they’re peeking out of their doorways watching the icy day that I’m a part of.

And then it occurs to me.  The anticipation of coming out here is so much worse than being here.  Like so many things, the thinking of doing a thing is often so much worse than the actual doing of it.  My hanging onto the desire for warm comfort caused me to resist going for a walk in the cold.  My fear of being miserable put barriers up in my mind to getting out here.  But, once being here, I relax my grip on those things and just melt into the moment, tasting whatever happens without judgment.  And I am quite comfortable, I have no fear, it is, in fact, enjoyable.  How we torture ourselves, grasping for things that are not real.

Waldo, he just prances along, pleasuring in what he can find where he can find it.

Come on! It’s only snow!

Come on! Let’s go see where this goes!

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

-T. S. Eliot

A dirt path, covered with the tan and orange detritus of winter, winds through and amongst naked trees and bushes.  It rolls out in front of Waldo and I in a gentle arc that disappears after a short distance, curving around then veiled by its swathe of hibernating plant life.  Some green persists, but only that offered up by the white pine that’s scattered here and there in the forest — the deciduous trees, bushes and vines are all brown and skeletal.  What grass remains is mostly buried under a thick blanket of rotting leaves.  The oaks and maples slumber on in the cold and still give shelter to squirrels.  There are rabbits about, but they shelter from the icy air in their snug hidey-holes.  Most of the birds are gone, but a few linger on, chattering softly in the bare branches.  This wintery world is a quiet pastel place, yet the air itself assaults any exposed skin as if to demand a price for this peace, while simultaneously drawing the mind to the present moment.  It is a perfect time and place for a wandering, wondering mind.

Waldo trots along, apparently searching for anything of interest, and he finds it.  A stick here, pee-mail there, a fading vestige of scent left behind by some passing animal, it is all there for the discerning nose.  His mind seems to be wandering as well, going from one external experience to another.  We are both exploring.

Exploration has served mankind well, over the ages.  It brought our ancestors down from the trees, spread them out over the plains and then onto a vast diaspora that covered the Earth.  No other species has wandered so far and wide.  And our travels have been internal as well as external.  Philosophy, mathematics, art, literature, innumerable things that people do can be understood as exploration, extending the boundaries of the familiar.  What is it that urges us on?

Some might think that it is a need, like breathing, drinking and eating.  But I don’t think so.  Needs have goals in their sights and the inability to attain those goals cause frustration and anger (among other things).  And, if you do attain your goal, you then cling to it ferociously.  Exploration is different.  When you explore, you have no idea what you’re going to encounter and, often, your most valuable finds aren’t tangible things, but experiences.  Experiences you can only hold in your memory, not your hands, and they only have value on reflection.  Then, once you find what’s there, your thirst is not quenched, and you move on to the next discovery.  One is driven more by curiosity and wonder than by need.  And trying to satisfy that curiosity is no more a need than flowing water has a need for the sea, or a falling apple has a need for the ground.  It’s an expression of our nature.  To not explore is to not be human.

Now, not everyone safaris in Africa when they hear hic sunt leones (here be lions).  But every single one of us has felt curiosity in one form or another and has probed their personal unknown to some degree.  It is universal among our species, although many may suppress the urge, sublimate the longing.  At its best, exploration is the direct outcome of a sense of wonder.  It is the direct result of appreciating the magic of the human condition.  Not so much asking the questions, “Why are we here?” or “What’s the purpose of life?” or even “What is a human life?” as much as just bathing ourselves in the magical experience, as it is, of being a living, breathing, feeling, thinking human being in a world whose vastness will always be beyond our poor ability to grasp it all with our puny minds.

Today, I’m content to open myself up to my immediate surroundings.  To watch the unfolding of the world right in front of me as it dances and sings in nature’s icy recital.  To discover the curious and wonderful magic that speaks to me if I only take the time to look and listen.  And Waldo is doing much the same thing, in his own Waldo way.  So, maybe, the drive to explore is not exclusively a human thing.

Maybe it’s part and parcel of having a mind of any kind.

Phyllis likes to explore too.

The trail runs straight in Bedford.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

-Khalil Gibran

It’s cold out today, colder than it has been.  Without windchill, it’s 27 degrees.  With windchill, it’s, well, just damn cold.  Phyllis and I are accompanying Waldo on the Reformatory Branch Trail and the Minuteman Bikeway — Christine had a conflict and couldn’t make it.  The two paths together make up a route that goes from Concord to Cambridge at the Alewife T-Station near Fresh Pond.  The Reformatory Branch is not paved and it runs 3.9 miles from Concord to Bedford.  The Bikeway is paved and follows, pretty closely, the path Paul Revere took on his famous ride of 1775.  It runs 10.1 miles from Bedford to Cambridge and has been a multipurpose path since 1998.  Bicycle commuters use the latter to bike to town from Boston’s outlying suburbs, but there are bikes on the former as well.  Today, there aren’t many bikes, but, despite the cold, there are a lot of fellow walkers.  After the warmup trek from Concord to Bedford, Phyllis and I are comfortable enough and Waldo, hell, he’s in his element.

After the Battle of Lexington and the subsequent clash with the colonials in Concord, the British retreated through the same woods (although not the same trees) that we walk through today.  The trail runs close to Lexington Green, where the “shot heard around the world” was fired, but not so close that we can see it.  Although we do walk through forested areas, we can see houses and commercial buildings through winterized denuded foliage along much of our route. The towns and cities of Boston suburbia are very close.

I’m impressed that the Redcoats marched not only along our 14-mile trek, but further, all the way into Boston.  And they did it twice, both to Concord and then back.  And they did it all on the same day.  And they did it while being shot at by the colonial militia.  They were some hardy dudes.  I can’t help but wonder what both the Redcoats and the colonial militia would think of this place as it is today.

Even more incredible is the realization that all this happened only 8 generations ago.  I’m almost 72, so that’s only 3.4 times my lifetime.  In those terms, it doesn’t seem so long ago at all.  Think about all that has happened in the world during that short period of time.   For that matter, I’m awed by all the change that’s occurred during my lifetime, and I remember it.  It’s not theoretical history at all.  It’s real, solid and palpable, flesh and blood.  Hell, I can still smell and taste it.  We are living through an ever-accelerating change in the way we live, and it’s happening globally.  I can remember living in Ethiopia in the early 1960’s when there was just one short piece of paved road in the country.  Everything else was gravel or dirt ruts.  Today, the country is connected by modern highways.  I have heard that the camel drivers of caravans crossing the Sahara now use cell phones to keep in touch with their families while out trekking through the dunes.  Dramatic change is everywhere.

And yet, we, as biological organisms, haven’t changed hardly at all.  There hasn’t been enough time for us to evolve from what our ancestors were in 1775.  Or even to evolve much from what people were during the Trojan War.  That was 100 generations ago and there just hasn’t been enough time to make that much difference between what human beings were then and what they are now.  Evolution happens slowly.  Very slowly.  So here we are, animals whose bodies evolved to live in forests and run on grassy plains, interacting with other animals and plants, also evolved to exist in a natural world, who are thrown into a totally artificial man-made universe that our bodies were never designed to function in.  Is it any wonder we’re having trouble?

The thing is, the natural world of our ancestors is still here, just outside our doors, struggling to survive in this new ever-changing world, supporting us as best it can.  We may think that we live in large cities filled with electronic and gas-powered doodads that keep us living in relative luxury, but we do not.  The truth is, these cities and machines are imbedded in a natural world that envelops us and provides us with the raw materials that we need to survive.  All our technology and advancements just changed the caves we live in.  We still rely on nature to provide us with the essentials of life – the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink and the biology that supports our biology.  Without nature, we are screwed.  And we’re destroying that heritage as rapidly as we change the milieu we live in.

But out here on the trail, although it is paved by tar that has been dredged up from underground, and the air we breathe is polluted by industry and cars, we are swathed in a thin blanket of nature where we can be reminded of the real world of our existence.

And it is a beautiful thing.

Just ask Waldo.

Great Meadows, Lexington, near Lexington Green.

Harvey is feeling better!

Companion: a person or animal with whom one spends a lot of time or with whom one travels.

-Oxford Languages

We took Harvey to the animal hospital where they gave him subcutaneous fluids, force fed him into his craw, and gave him antibiotics.  It isn’t clear what he was suffering from, some Harvid disease of some kind, and at first, it seemed he was near death.  We discussed euthanasia, but decided we would support him for a few days and see how he did.  Lo and behold, he started eating again and perked up!  We brought him home and continued the antibiotics.  So far, he is getting more energetic, is eating more and appears to be on the rebound!  What a relief.  We’re not out of the woods just yet, but things are looking up.

Meanwhile, back on the rail-trail, Waldo and I do our daily six miles.  It’s cold out there, although that doesn’t seem to bother Waldo at all, but I can dress for it.  I’ve found that the neck gaiter I use as a face mask also helps keep my neck, cheeks and chin warm.  When pulled up into position, over my nose, my face is quite toasty.  The downside is that it redirects my exhaled breath so that my glasses get foggy.  My breath also makes the cloth quite wet if I keep it in place for long.  So, when I am alone, I pull it down, but keep it over my chin to keep my lower face warm.  It works quite well.

Waldo plods along, usually up ahead at the far reach of the leash, but sometimes s-turning back and forth, pursuing some odor or other.  There are also times when he will come back to me and almost trip me with a body-block while dangling his omnipresent stick just out of my reach.  I’m not sure what the rules are of the game that he wants to play, but I make up some moves of my own and enter into the fun.  If I grab at the stick, he’ll clamp down hard on it and refuse to let it go.  Digging in his feet and pulling away from me with his not-insignificant strength and weight, we could play tug-of-war over the damn stick for miles.  This game necessarily impedes our progress, so I look for other ways to entertain us both.  I could chase after him, but, hey, it’s hard enough to walk six miles, I don’t have to run it!  Another ploy: grab another stick off the side of the path, they are ubiquitous, and wave it in front of Waldo.  He’ll stare at it, drop the stick he’s carrying and wait for me to throw the one I’ve got.  As soon as I do, he grabs the one he dropped and then runs after the one I threw.  He then brings them both back to me and “tempts” me with them.  I pick up another stick, repeat the process, and see how many sticks he can carry.  This depends on the size, weight and geometry of the sticks, but I’ve seen him carry as many as five before they start falling by the wayside.

Sometimes, I cheat.  As he gets close to me, instead of going after the stick, I grab his tail.  I don’t think this is as much fun for him, though, so it’s a stratagem I don’t use often.  However we play it, there is a give and take, a kind of communication, that passes between us that reinforces our bond.

This bond fascinates me — we are two different species who share a life together.  It is theorized that both dogs and humans are communal animals and the groups they instinctively form help them survive in an evolutionary sense.  We both have biochemical, perhaps hormonal, needs that draw us into association with others.  I’ve often wondered if this is mediated through pheromones.  Whatever mechanism is involved, this “other” does not have to be of the same species.  For humans, the bonds can be made with birds, dogs, cats, horses, gerbils, and even snakes and spiders.  If each one of these bonds is not a conscious exchange between two separate minds, I don’t know how to explain it.  I’m anthropomorphizing here.  I’m not suggesting that animal minds are human minds or that they have the same qualities as a human mind.  But I’m convinced they have a mind just the same.

Waldo is an independent cuss.  I’m told it’s a characteristic of border collies.  He spends most of his time entertaining himself out there at the front end of the leash and ignores me.  But every once in a while, he’ll turn and look at me, or tempt me with a stick, or bite at my feet, or nudge my hand with his nose and I know that even when he’s pursuing an alluring odor, as if I’m not in the universe at all, I am there in the back of his mind.

As he is always in the back of mine.

Lets play!

Harvey at the hospital.

“We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.”

-Dean Charles Stanforth, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It’s yet another grey day out on the rail-trail.  Even in the early afternoon, the temperature is cold, although not frigid, and the air is mostly still.  Waldo’s up front at the end of the leash, on a mission, trotting along toward some goal I don’t understand.  I’m not at all sure he does either.  This is what a big piece of my life has become in retirement – get up, take the dog out, feed the dog, take the dog out, play with the dog, take the dog for a walk, feed the dog, take the dog out, go to bed.  Christine used to text, me asking me what I was up to, and I inevitably answered WWW, walking with Waldo.  She has since banned me from doing so, saying that’s a given.  Now, I am only to answer what else I might be doing.  One thing that is consuming my attention today is my yellow-naped Amazon parrot, Harvey.

I’ve had Harvey for about 35 years.  I got him when I lived in LA and just moved into an apartment that didn’t allow dogs.  I wanted a pet and birds were okay, so I went to a pet store and became enamored with Harvey.  He has been with me and seen a good deal of my life, about half of it, come and go.  I think he is about 40 years old now and his expected lifespan is around 105 years.  I fully expected to die before he does.  Years ago, I arranged for my younger daughter to take care of him when the time came that I couldn’t.  Things came around full circle and, when I got Waldo, I moved into an apartment that allows dogs, but not exotic pets.  My daughter agreed to take care of Harvey and he now lives with her, about a half an hour away.

I’ve missed Harvey since, being no longer able to have daily nonsense conversations with him.  For example, I’d say, “Hi, Harvey!”

And he’d answer, “Whatcha doin’?  Huh?”

And even crazy adventures, like the time he was in a TV episode of Dragnet (1989-1990), starring Bernard White and Jeff Osterhage.  But that’s a story by itself.

Harvey has had liver problems, something I’m told is not unusual for a bird, for many years.  It now appears that it has caught up with him and he is on the edge of death.  There is still a small chance that he’ll survive, but it doesn’t look good.  We will know in the next few days.

When I was young, my life was expanding.  The number of people I knew and interacted with grew and changed constantly.  Opportunities for work, career, friendship and adventure were legion.  But time was scarce.  Work requirements often made it difficult to find the time to explore life, while at the same time, having the money to make it happen.  Then I got older and my options grew fewer.  Time is now aplenty, but wealth, well, not so much.

In my old age, loss has become a regular event.   After retirement, my life became much simpler.  I don’t regret that at all.  The tight schedules, stress, multifaceted daily schedules, deadlines, life-and-death responsibilities – much of the stuff of which modern life is made, are gone.  It leaves me time to reflect, commune with my soul, my atman, nature and Waldo.  I now have the time and space to swim in the wonder of it all, not with an effort to understand it better, but to relax in it and become absorbed with the magic of human life.  I’ve lost a lot because of age and retirement, but I’ve gained a lot too.  Much of the quantity is gone, but the quality is greatly improved, although, sometimes, it is quite painful.

It is also true that when I was young, most of the people I knew were young and healthy.  Older family members got sick and died, but it was shocking when my peers did.  At my current age, acquaintances are dropping with more regularity.  Most of the people I have known are about my age. The older I get, the more vulnerable I am to disease and death and, therefore, so are many of the people I know.  It comes as no surprise, then, that the more time moves on, the more people I lose to the grim reaper.  More loss.

Now, I have Harvey’s loss of good health and it comes unexpected.  His death, if it happens, will be yet one more loss as I make my own way toward the end of life.  And it will be a hard one.  I have known him for so long, shared so much of life with him.

At least I have Waldo.  Dogs live about 13 – 15 years or so before their life has run its course.  Waldo is still young, at almost two and a half, and we will both grow very old together.  At least, that is my plan.  By the time he is 15, I will be 85 and we will be of about the same age in every real sense.  I would not mind it at all if he outlived me, but I sure hope I don’t outlive him.  That would be hard indeed.

In the meantime, he and I can share our love of walking in the outdoors and being surrounded by nature.  We can give each other company and although the end is somewhere out there in the not-so-distant future, it is not yet in sight.

I take a deep breath.

Come here, Waldo!  Wanna chase a stick?

Waldo and his ubiquitous stick.

Its grey out today — again.

Gray is the color… the most important of all… absent of opinion, neither/nor.

-Gerhard Richter

It’s a grey day out on the rail-trail.  It’s cold and the tarmac is wet, slushy in some places.  There is a light breeze that blows, on occasion, and when it does, its cold bites through my gloves and makes my fingers ache.  The frigid air numbs my cheeks, the only exposed skin I have.  Our pace is brisk – Waldo’s because it is his nature and mine because I’m trying to generate some body heat.

The daylight, being scattered by an overcast, is soft and diffuse.  There are no sharp edges or glaring contrasts.  Edges still exist, but they are not black against white, they are just different shades of grey.  Physics and Chemistry would suggest that objects do not really have edges in the way we think of them.  Atoms and molecules are bound to each with an equivocal grasp that is loosed by normal vibrations caused by heat.  The tarmac I walk on has free roaming heavy hydrocarbon molecules just above the surface that intermingle with molecules of air.  Air molecules also grapple to the structure of the solid tarmac.  It’s like an Escheresque dance of air and tar.  Far above the asphalt, all is clearly gaseous.  Within the substance of the tarmac, everything is clearly solid petroleum residue.  But there is this thin gap between those two extremes where one morphs into the other like an Escher drawing.  As I walk along behind Waldo, watching his attention disappear into nature in very much the same way, I am struck by the idea that much, if not all, of life follows a similar meme.

After all, there is no impenetrable boundary that separates me from the rest of the Universe.  My physical being is made up of atoms and molecules, just like all other matter.  There is no substance in my makeup that does not make up all of existence.  What I am corporeally is a product of the ebb and flow of energy in the cosmos just like everything else.  I am part of the universe and inseparable from it.  As I reach out to interact with the rest of reality, it reaches into me with unavoidable tendrils of truth that are there whether I want to deny them or not.

One might argue that man has a “soul,” a “consciousness,” or a “mind.”  Something that is unique to the species, or maybe even shared with other living things, but not the inanimate, like rocks and dirt.  Perhaps this animas is not subject to the shackles of deterministic matter and controlled by the laws of nature.  Maybe some of what we are is made of something the rest of the world does not have.  If there is such a thing, there is no objective evidence of it.  No scientific experiment can demonstrate it.  Is it rational to think of ourselves as being anything more than a collection of stuff, the very same stuff that the rest of the universe is made of?

Perhaps, a more realistic way of seeing ourselves and the world, instead of being composed of a collection of solid objects, is to think of everything as being liquid, melding everywhere with everything else.  But a viscus liquid that maintains some cohesion and separate identity, although only vaguely separate.

Waldo is out in front of me, sniffing some probably God-awful substance I do not want to identify.  Because I witness it, it is a part of me.  Waldo’s life experience fluid flows into and mixes with my own.  I am not separate from Waldo, my essence is mixed with his.  The trees and bushes, such as they are this time of year, intermix with my quintessence through the conduits of sight, hearing and smell.  I absorb something of the nature of the ground on which I walk through my sense of touch, the feeling of my muscles contracting and the lift of that the very dense liquid, ground, that keeps me from falling through the Earth.

And these liquids are not made of just different shades of grey.  They are vibrant with a cornucopia of bright colors — hues of emotion, tints of desire, dark pigments of fear, pastels of hope and golden glints of bliss.

It is all so magical.

There are subtle colors, even when all seems grey.

Kinda wet and, in places, slushy.

The road goes ever on and on,

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then?  I cannot say.

– Tolkien, J. R. R.  The Lord of the Rings.

There are two disjointed parts to the Assebet River Rail Trail.  The first, and closest to where we live, is 5.25 miles long and is the one Waldo and I take from Marlborough to Hudson.  The second, once part of the same railroad bed, begins in the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge and runs up to Acton, about 3.35 miles away.  There’s a gap between the two sections,  navigable by way of city streets, of around 5 miles.  One day, we’ll have to do the entire 14 or so miles in one whack, but today, on nothing more than a whim and because we’ve not yet done it, Waldo and I are walking on the further part of the trail.  We park in Acton and head south.

It snowed last night, followed by rain.  This left a slushy, slick mess on the tarmac we have to walk through in places.  The going isn’t too bad, though, and we make good progress.  Shortly after we leave the car, the trail takes a bend to the left and then right again.  This is obviously not exactly on the old railroad bed – a train would never be able to make that sharp of a turn.  It then runs over a new well-constructed footbridge.  Someone has spent some time and money making this trail foot-friendly using the old right-of-way, but not following the original track exactly.  I see the same thing in Marlborough, but there, I can see why.  The path needs to be slightly rerouted because of streets and highways.  Here, it’s not so obvious why the path twists and turns the way it does.  Maybe it’s due to property boundaries?

We seem to be on the edge of town, buildings and streets on the left, swamp, forest, trees and, sometimes, the Assabet River on the right.  The river is full, lapping up against tree trunks and around bushes on the shore, and the water moves fast.  Waldo takes to the trail as soon as his paws hit the ground and is off out in front as if he knows where we’re going, which he probably does, given the number of these walks we’ve been on.  The day is cold, but not terribly so, the sky is partly cloudy and the sun shines down between white puffs, more of a reminder that it is still there than a source of warmth.  Waldo seems quite comfortable in his sable birthday suit.

As we walk further, we move into Maynard and by some old factory buildings.  A placard posted beside the path reveals that one of them belonged to DEC, back when it was a big deal.  It’s now owned by someone else, but it’s still in use.  Other placards along the route give lessons in local history, including the founding of Maynard and Acton and the industry that made them grow.  Now the towns are quiet suburban areas.

We pass people, all bundled up against the cold, wearing masks.  I wonder how busy rail-trails were before COVID hit and before everyone was spending so much of their time at home.  There are about 55 rail-trails Massachusetts alone, and every one we’ve been on, so far, has been well used.  Some are paved, some not.  Some have places that are hard to navigate, for one reason or another.  Even so, we’ve passed people, bikes, skateboards, roller skates, electric powered wheels of one kind or another, joggers, kids, afoot and in strollers, and dogs.  On cold days, hot days, rainy days and snowy days, when the track is clean and dry, wet and muddy, icy or covered with a foot of snow, at midday or after dark, we have never been completely alone.  There have always been others there.  It’s nice to know that there are people out there that appreciate a good place to walk.  People who share with Waldo and I the pleasure of being out in nature for a stroll.  Clearly, there is a community of like-minded people who are renewed by living in the moment, surrounded by the natural world.  And there are so many beautiful places to walk, so many places to go.

And they are just outside your front door.

The Assebet River in flood.

In the Highland Street Forest.

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

-Susan Sontag

Waldo and I, we love our little rail trail.  But there are so many other places to walk.  Phyllis lives in Weston and has told us about the trails around where she lives.  Today, we tread on paths we have not yet wandered down.  It will be an adventure of exploration.

We start at Phyllis’s house and walk down unpaved footpaths that border the nearby streets until we get to the Highland Street Forest, which abuts the grounds of Regis College.  Many paths wander under the bare trees, winding along amongst the oaks and maples like noodles in a bowl of spaghetti.  It’s been a little while since Phyllis has explored in here and she’s forgotten its wiles and ways, but she has a map we can follow.  That isn’t as easy as you might think, because for a map to be useful, you have to know where you are on it.  The place is thick enough with tree trunks, branches and denuded brush that you can’t see very far to get a clue.  But, on the other hand, it isn’t so big that if we get lost, we would be in a bad way.  We could just walk along any path and, sooner or later, we would wander out of the forest and onto the surrounding streets where we could orient ourselves.  It’s an opportunity to exercise our scouting talents and I kind of like that.  Besides, wandering around without a clue as to where you are or where you’re going has a certain charm to it, you know?  Kinda reminds me of life.

Waldo, he’s having a grand old time, sniffing about, wandering along, exploring the off-path country, as the three of us humans are trying to figure out which track we should follow.  He doesn’t care about the destination on the large scale, he’s too busy learning about what is right in front of his nose.  Besides, for Waldo, the destination is not something that holds much value.  After all, arriving at journey’s end means a good walk is over and I’ve never seen him eager for that.  I’m sure, too, he is quite confident that when it’s time to eat and go to bed, he will be in a nice warm comfortable place.  He doesn’t know how that comes about, but history would tell him that it always ends up that way.

It’s cool out and, as we walk on the leaf-covered ground on tracks not much wider than what a single person needs to navigate through nature’s arboretum, we snuggle more tightly in our jackets.  It’s a perfect temperature for Waldo.  Our footfalls drop hollow on the ground, as if we were walking over a deep cavern.  I’m guessing the sound and sensation are caused by the soil being raised by an extensive system of roots that leaves many gaps in the subterranean dirt.  At any rate, it sounds like we’re walking on a ripe watermelon.  We come to the intersection of other trails and arbitrarily choose a way to go.  We pass a few other people coming through the woods.  It’s not clear as to whether they are as lost as we are – another apt metaphor for life, I think.  After a bit, though, we decide we should figure out where we are, because we want to go on to the Weston Reservoir, just so we can explore more trails, and we have to figure out how to get there.  So, I cheat and pull out my iPhone.  It seems we’ve come around in almost in a full circle, so we readjust our route and leave the forest.

There’s an aqueduct that leads the way to the reservoir, and the area is advertised to be “dog friendly.”  This appears to be akin to providing a bright light for moths because there are a lot of dogs out here.  Some are off leash and all seem to be friendly enough.  With every one we meet, Waldo does a perfunctory hello-dance, waggling his butt and tail about and approaching in a submissive posture.  He’s then off to the next interesting thing, as if saying to himself, “been there, done that.”

We get to the reservoir and walk around it in a large loop; it’s about a mile in circumference and fenced in.  The lake is still and serene.  The shores are pristine — in some places rocky, in others plant life wades in at the edges of the clear blue water.  By the time we’re all the way around, the sun is set.  We follow the city streets back to Phyllis’s house and it’s dark.  All in all, it as been a pleasant winter’s trek.

But then, they all have been.

The Weston Reservoir, through the fence.