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Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.
-Steven Wright
We have another fine late winter day to continue our trek on the Bay Circuit Trail. Phyllis and I are eager to finish the thing and the weather is cooperating. Waldo, well, he’ll walk just about anywhere, anytime, for any reason, as long as it’s not too hot and his toes don’t freeze. So, here we go.
This leg is billed as being 9.2 miles long, without gaps, and we decide to start an hour later, at 9:00 instead of 8:00. The temperature is hovering around freezing when we start, but is scheduled to rise into the high 30s later on. The sky is overcast, with a possibility of light flurries, and the wind is almost nonexistent. We’re dressed in layers, prepared to shed when it gets warm enough that we start to sweat.
We left off in Hanson and aim for Pembroke, about 3.9 street miles away. But, of course, we aren’t going all the way by street, and those that we do go on are not the shortest distance between two points. The Bay Circuit Trail was not designed to get somewhere fast, but to link together already existing paths that wander through the green spaces surrounding Boston. Our course is much more tortuous and serpentine. As we start, we head more or less north, along convenient rural roads and streets, instead of east.
Traffic isn’t too bad, but I do have to keep Waldo on a short leash – there are no sidewalks here. He cooperates without complaint and Phyllis and I are able to leave him to his tethered pursuit of doggy stuff under only peripheral observation. Because it stimulated some interesting conversation, Phyllis and I turn back to the 36 Questions to Fall in Love. We are good friends and not intimate partners, but the questions are interesting just the same. As we walk along, we came to number 11, “Take 4 minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.” We lost it in laughter. Phyllis is 76 and I’m 75, so there’s been a hell of a lot of water go under the bridge in that time. I’m pretty sure Waldo’s answer would be considerably shorter. But maybe not. Oh, the smells he has sniffed and the sticks he has herded! Anyway, we decide not to limit it to 4 minutes and Phyllis goes first.
We didn’t keep track of how long she talked and she elided over a number of events that could be left for another time without leaving gaping holes in the narrative. It was very much more than 4 minutes. I just let her tell her story as she saw fit and at the pace she was comfortable. She told me of her major struggles in life and how she grew and developed because of them. She took me on a Mach 4 trip down memory lane from her first memories until the time we met, some 4 years ago, or so. Many of the details I’ve heard before from our previous discussions, but I’ve not heard them linked in chronological order. I was amazed at how many of the troubles she experienced growing up (something we’re still doing) were the same as the ones I stumbled through.
We’re into the woods, on an undeveloped trail, when it’s my turn. I start with my earliest memories, then kick in the afterburner to fly through my recollections from then until now. I skip over a lot of what I think is worth reporting, we only have about 6 hours for this walk, after all, but include what I think are the essentials to get the gist. I have no idea how long I went on, but there were several times when we found ourselves off-trail because we weren’t paying attention. It’s not that we were lost, we don’t get lost. We just wander a bit. In the end, our 9.2 mile jaunt took us down a 10 or 11 mile route with some backtracking as we wandered down a seventy-something year memory lane.
Along the way, we passed lakes and bogs, canals and wooded areas. The off-street trails had patches of snow compacted over beds of dead leaves, but nothing causing our septuagenarian footing to be unsteady. There was an old mill, the Nathaniel Thomas Mill, next to a creek (the waterwheel had been removed) that operated from 1695 until 1975. That’s one thing about walking in New England that I enjoy – bumping into history in unexpected places. Waldo was consumed by his own interests, as we trod our way sort of eastward, and it was obvious that he was as consumed by his experience as Phyllis and I were by ours.
About six hours after we started, we arrived at the car we left behind in Pembroke. Here, the BCT tracks right and left, tracing out a large loop to the trailhead in Kingston. We’ve already decided to walk on both sides of the loop. Our next trek is to the right, the southern arc, 13.2 miles to the sea. After that, we’ll come back to Pembroke and do the northern part of the trail for 13.4 miles and, after something like three and a half years, we’re done.
And then it’s on to the next trail, wherever we decide that to be.
The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.
-Christopher McCandless
A late winter’s day, with forecast highs in the upper fifties, is something that can’t be ignored. The snow is erased from the ground, like chalk from a blackboard, leaving only weedy and damp, but solid, footing. The sky is partly cloudy and the winds are light and breathy. Clearly, this is a day begging to be used for a long walk. Phyllis agrees and is available, so we decide to venture forth on the next leg of the Bay Circuit Trail, from East Bridgewater, where we left off, eastward to Hanson.
We decided to meet at 7:30 AM. The drive to where we have to leave a car is an hour and a half away, so I have to get up at before dawn in order to have enough time to get Waldo and myself ready. In the late spring and summer, 7:30 is a wonderful time to start a long walk because you can avoid the worst of the heat. But this time of year, it means we’ll be walking for a couple of hours in temps in the high thirties. Not a problem, but I have to think about what layers I can wear, to keep me warm then, and yet be able to strip off and easily carry the outermost layer so I’m not drowning in sweat later on. Soon, I’m dressed, Waldo has done his business, the car is loaded with my pack, holding doggy water bottles, and we’re off.
We start our trek at the Town Line General Store in East Bridgewater. Waldo is clearly excited. He knows we’re off on an adventure and is avidly jogging about and sniffing the world. Running this way and that, it’s like he’s thinking, “Come on, let’s go! I don’t care where, but let’s get it on!” Soon, Phyllis and I are all packed up and we’re off, walking on the side of a busy road. I keep Waldo on a short leash next to me, but, even so, he seems quite happy, just to be on his way.
This leg of the trail is near the Atlantic Ocean – it’s about fifteen miles away. East Bridgewater is only eighty-four feet above sea level, so there aren’t any hills we have to climb. The country is low-lying with bogs, some of them cranberry bogs, although civilization has filled much of the area in with houses and roads. Most of the walking we’re doing today will be along streets and roads, with only two paths, each only a couple of miles long, that venture off into the woods and weeds and wet lowlands. The kicker is that there is another gap in the trail, according to the map, and we don’t know what’s in that gap. It’s less than a mile wide, but it’s in the middle of a bog and it’s not clear, even from the Google satellite view, that we can cross it without swimming. Swimming’s not something I want to do, so we plan to go to the edge of the gap, and then, if we need to, backtrack and go around. That would add an additional three miles of street navigation to our jaunt, but it can be done. The total distance is twelve miles the long way and nine on the more direct route, if it’s possible.
The time and distance goes by fast. Waldo is hyper, running around and exploring, clearly having a lot of fun. Phyllis and I both have heard (from different sources) of the “thirty-six questions to fall in love.” I ran across it in the New York Times, I don’t know where Phyllis heard about it. We Googled it and decided to go through a few of them, just for fun. Each question is simple enough, but, being who we are, Phyllis and I are able to stretch out our answers to long philosophical and experiential discussions. They are way too much for me to repeat here.
Somewhere around question number four, “What would constitute a perfect day for you?” and we’re on a built-up dike, hiking through a bog that still has cranberries floating on the surface near the shore. As we compare answers and discuss what that means, the trail is nearly blocked by deep puddles. Some of them even have flowing water as it runs from one side of the dike to the other. We’re able to find ways around them, even though the going is somewhat treacherous and muddy.
By question number six, “If you were able to live to the age of ninety and retain either the mind or body of a thirty-year-old for the last sixty years of your life, which would you want?” and we’re at the gap. The puddles are bigger and deeper, but there’s still a way around them on the edges (even Waldo goes around them), and soon, we’re past the gap and back on the trail.
Then, in less than a mile, we’re back to the car and done with this leg; nine miles as we did it. “Hah!” I cry. “You can’t stop the intrepid Waldo walkers with a few wet spots and swampy ground!” It’s still early, about 1:00 PM, more or less, with much of the day still left in front of us.
We walked nine miles, but we’re still ten miles, as the crow flies, from our goal. By the BCT (above which no right-minded crow would fly because of its serpentine meandering), there are still three or four legs left (of nine to thirteen miles each!), depending on how far we want to walk on each leg. Soon, weather permitting, we’ll be done. Then it’s off to the next walk, whatever we choose it to be.
Waldo and I part ways with Phyllis and we head home. Waldo’s chin is on the console between us and his eyes are closed. I’m dreaming of my recliner and a nice nap.
We have been up since 5:00, after all.
There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
-Bill Waterson
It’s been about five years since I retired, moved to Marlborough, got myself a border collie and started walking a lot. This is the time of year when I like to reflect on things and try to get a sense of how all that is working out. As my life rushes toward that inevitability that we all face, the number of years, months, days and hours left to me ever dwindling, doing that helps me put things into some kind of perspective. Everything that I’ve done in life, all those years and tears behind me, has led to where I am now. But just where is that?
Is retirement a good thing? My body certainly thinks so. I am seldom sleep-deprived and I often glory in that precious jewel of old age, the midafternoon nap. Or a nap at any other time of the day I choose, for that matter. Although my body does complain in aches and pains when I whip it to keep it going on prolonged walks, I can follow a daily routine of exercise that keeps this “ugly bag of mostly water” (to quote a line from Star Trek) in as good condition as can be reasonably expected for someone my age. That was not so easy to do while I was working. Then there is that truly sensual experience of sitting in my recliner after a grueling trek, putting my feet up and relaxing every muscle in my body. The resulting drop in metabolic rate and release of corporeal tension produces a flesh and bone ecstasy more profound than any splash of cool water on a very hot day. That’s something that my soul relishes and I can indulge myself in it on any day at (almost) any time of day. That was not so possible before I retired.
Retirement isn’t all do what you want when you want, of course. Life still finds many ways to impose other people’s requirements on you. There’s taxes to pay, of course, and rent, insurance, utility bills, and so many other things. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some kind of retirement account where all of that was taken care of automatically, or just made to go away? What if there were an inviolable law that states that you can’t mess with retired folks? They’ve paid their dues, just leave them in peace. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? At the very least, you should be able to take care of business in your own good time, without harassment. Okay, you’re responsible for taking out your own garbage, washing your own dishes and doing your own laundry, but why can’t a retired person just be left alone to seek such joy as he can find, in what time he has left? Isn’t that what retirement is supposed to be about? Sadly, you can’t entirely leave the world behind while you’re still in it.
One of the best parts of my retired life is Waldo. I wanted to get a dog when I retired for several reasons. Most importantly, I think, it was because I wanted a friend, a partner, to share the last few years of my life. I’ve always really liked dogs and they, I believe, have always enjoyed my company. I chose a border collie, because, after some online research, I discovered they are an independent breed. Unlike many dogs who constantly seek attention, border collies are perfectly happy, and often prefer, to entertain themselves. That leaves me with lots of time to entertain myself, something I am prone to do. And yet, we are both there for each other when the need or desire arises. Living with a dog has its challenges, but, by and large, it is so much easier, engendering more peace and calm, than living with a human. People are so much more complicated. and peace and calm are the precious metals of retirement. Sharing a life with Waldo has proven to be an excellent way to wind down my life’s story. I do, thankfully, still have my beloved family, but they live somewhere else. Close by, but not in my face.
So, I worked for decades, giving up my time and peace of mind for a few dollars, and deferring my comfort, while pursuing all sorts of career and personal challenges. Now I am in a place where I can let most of all that go and largely just relax. I’ve traveled down a meandering path that has led me to where I am now, but that was never the end goal of my journey. The journey itself was the meat of the story that I’ve written and now is the time for me to savor it and wonder at the magic of it all.
It’s also time for me to take Waldo out.
What some people call serendipity is just having your eyes open.
-Jose Manuel Barroso
Today, the weather is quite warm, for January, with a high of 54℉! I left my gloves at home and I’m walking bare-eared under my wide brimmed safari sunhat. It’s cloudy and a little breezy, so I did wear my light fabric flight-jacket, but it’s not zipped up all the way. Waldo is happily prancing down the path, sniffing on one side, then the other.
I decided I’m going to visit my brother in Switzerland again, this June and July, so I’m committed to reviewing the French I’ve been able to learn. I would like to take a class in intermediate French, but that’s not something I can easily afford. So, I pull out my phone and replay the app I used in the past. Using the app makes me listen and speak and the repetition helps me form neuronic pathways that lead to speaking with some facility. I put the app on speaker and stick the phone in my shirt pocket where I can hear it well. I begin with the first lesson.
Because it’s warm and a Saturday, there are quite a few people, some with dogs and even some bicycles, on the trail. We haven’t walked more than ten minutes and an “elderly” couple, I don’t recall meeting before, passes us. I’m saying “Je ne comprend pas” (I don’t understand) to the app and the woman gives me a strange look. I smile and tell her, “I’m trying to learn French.”
“We are French!” she says.
Well, I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so we walk side by side and converse in French. Well, they speak in French and I mumble as best as I can, but they seem to understand okay. Waldo, he doesn’t speak any French, so after a cursory tail-wagging hello, he continues on down the trail in front of us, entertaining himself. Anyhow, I discover that the two of them have been in this country for some twenty-five years and have lived in Marlborough for fifteen. The man, whose name is Gilles, works as an engineer at Boston Scientific, a company whose headquarters is just off the rail trail opposite to the open field at Fort Meadow Reservoir. I didn’t get where his wife, Germaine, works.
It’s been about six months since I’ve worked at learning French and I’ve forgotten a lot. It’s still there, just under the level of my conscious awareness, and I have a lot of “Oh, yeah!” experiences. It’s funny. Over the years, I’ve tried to learn Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. If I don’t work at using one, what comes out is “Spitulese”, a combination of all of them. Since I haven’t used the French in a few months, I subconsciously default back to Spitulese when I’m searching for a way to say something in French. After an “Uh” or two, the French comes up, or my new friends provide it for me. It’s work, though.
After a half an hour or so, I tire and revert to English. We then talk about all manner of things, including politics, dialectical differences in the various parts of France and Switzerland. Germaine is from the south of France and Gilles is from the north. We compare health care systems and retirement benefits between France and the US (Gilles says he’s thinking of retiring in about five years). They plan to return to France when they retire (they are dual citizens of the US and France). Heath care is every bit as good there as here, there’s universal health care, retirement benefits are enough to survive comfortably and it’s home. Add to that the wonderful food, wine and French culture and I can see the allure. For one thing, the French pride themselves in living the art de vie, the art of life. That means basing one’s life on the pleasant things life has to offer: good food, good wine, good art of all kinds and good companionship.
Germaine tells me she knows someone locally who teaches French and there is a community of people in the area who get together to speak it. Sounds like just the thing I’ve been looking for. I would think that meeting Gilles and Germaine was serendipitous, if it weren’t for the fact that Waldo and I have been out on the rail trail some 1,800 times over the years and, if anyone speaking French were to ever walk here, the chances are good we’d meet them eventually. Just the same, I’m really happy to have met them and, sometime soon, I’m going to have to invite them for a walk, or maybe a glass of wine (we exchanged phone numbers). Too bad there aren’t any sidewalk cafes around here like in France.
Gilles and Germaine stay with Waldo and me for the entire walk. At the end, we go one way, back to our car, and they go another (their home is within walking distance of the trail). “Enchanté!” I say, shaking their hands and “Aurevoir!”
Waldo and I go back home to rest, relax and savor our new friends.
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
-John Dalberg-Acton
Well, we finally got our first snow of the season. Twelve inches was dumped on us overnight three days ago. It was wet and heavy, bending some branches way down where we had to walk and even toppling more than one tree completely over. The temperatures went well down into the teens, making me bundle up in my parka and put gaiters on over rain pants. The worst part was that it took so much work to trudge along, blazing a trail through all that white. My seventy-five year old body complained a lot about it. Not only was I huffing and puffing, with heart pounding, I was dripping in sweat. Waldo, bless his young heart, porpoised through it having a grand old time.
Then, yesterday, the temperature rose into the forties and it rained. Today, the high was fifty-one degrees. Fifty-one degrees! Most of the snow is now gone, replaced by slushy swamps in the low spots and water running in the ditches. There is, however, some snow left in shadowy places and where plows piled it up while clearing the streets. On the rail-trail, there are stretches where there’s patches of squishy snow/slush/water, but most of that can easily be navigated around. Except, of course, for Waldo, who doesn’t seem to mind getting his paws (and his fur) wet. He even finds beds of the stuff to roll in. Ah, well, I’m used to the smell of wet dog this time of year.
We haven’t gone far down the trail and we come across an “elderly” man and his wife out for a stroll. With all the construction going on, conversation soon rolls around to how much things have changed in Marlborough. In just the five years Waldo and I have been walking down here, there’s been townhouses built and elderly housing complexes put up in places that used to be grassy fields and stands of trees and bushes. And now there’s the repaving of a city parking lot, the making of a park on the landfill by Fort Meadow Reservoir and the apartment complex going up at the beginning of the rail-trail.
It turns out the man is a retired carpenter who spent all of his life in Marlborough. I ask him if he remembers when the train still ran where we’re walking. He says he does. Deisel engines pulled passenger cars in the fifties and freight in the sixties. Where the trail crosses Fitchburg Street, the railroad ran over a bridge with a stone abutment. The passage beneath it was so narrow, only one car could pass through it at time. Most of the area that now has houses and businesses, like Boston Scientific, was all open field and forest. Marlborough Hospital, whose parking lot can be seen from the trail, was a single small building. The railroad tracks, back in his childhood, ran into town, well beyond where the rail-trail now ends, and there was a station behind city hall.
He remembers when the landfill, where the park is to be built, was still open and used as a dump — it was closed in the eighties. He even remembers the guy that ran it. He smoked a big cigar while using a bulldozer to bury whatever was left to rot. As we walk along, he points out this old building was a factory and that was a business of some sort. It turns out, he was hired to work on the apartment complex where Waldo and I live, back in the seventies. He remembers when it was an orchard before that.
I was fascinated to hear about how the landscape and ambience around here has changed during his lifetime. And that change is accelerating. Living long enough to remember how things were and how they morphed into what they are now, adds a sense of continuity to the world. The universe is not just a collection of random events grouped together in meaningless clumps. The study of history was something I never really liked as a kid, but now that I’m older, I’ve learned to appreciate it. Not as a sequence of dates and events, but the flow of the human experience as it evolves over time. It makes me feel like I can connect the dots, tell a kind of story, without too many plot holes, that connects where we were to where we are now.
I’m looking forward to meeting this man and his wife out here again, and learn more about how it felt to live here, back in the day. For now, though, we each must go our own way.
And I have a doggy to dry out.
People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues,
-Haruki Murakami
Today, Waldo and I are out walking with Phyllis on the rail-trail near her home in Weston. It’s the one that runs straight as an arrow under some high-tension power lines. The original plan was to walk the next leg of the Bay Circuit Trail, but I had to cancel at the last minute and we came up with this as an alternative. I had a hard night and only got about three hours of sleep; I’m not sure why. Maybe it had something to do with a pain in my right chest wall that kept waking me up. It’s still there, but walking doesn’t make it worse, so, here we are. Ah, the aches and pains that old age is heir to…
We got to the parking lot, where we are to meet Phyllis, little early, so we’re out strolling in circles, waiting for her. A red SUV, about the same color as Phyllis’s car, but not the right model, pulls up about four car lengths away from us and a white-haired woman gets out. Waldo immediately shakes his butt and wants to cross over to where she is. I’m sure he thinks she’s Phyllis. He constantly shows me how intelligent he is. Even more often, he shows me how twisted his brain is, like when he puts some of the stuff in his mouth that he does.
It’s not long and Phyllis shows up and we’re off (as soon as Waldo is finished doing his welcoming waggy, licky ritual and getting his requisite pets and pats in return). It rained last night and there are still a lot of clouds blocking what meager sunlight we get this time of year. The ground is still a little damp, but there isn’t a lot of standing water or mud. The temperature is in the high 30s, but there’s not much wind, so it’s not that cold. Waldo seems quite happy and is off at the front of the leash, doing his Waldo thing.
There’s this weird thing that happens with friends. Maybe you don’t see them for weeks, then, when you do, you strike up a conversation as if it began with a comma. You know, you jump right into the middle of something like it was the continuation of a subject you just started discussing a minute ago. We’re talking about all manner of stuff, some of which I’m more interested in, some that intrigues Phyllis. Stuff like the benefits of a vegan diet (Phyllis), the requirements for a study to be called a “scientific” study (me), how delicious a recent gourmet meal was (Phyllis) and how I know Phyllis can learn a new language because, after all, she can speak English perfectly well and all languages use the same part of the brain (me). A little over an hour into our trek and the conversation wanders over to a person Phyllis knows who was just diagnosed with tubo-ovarian cancer.
It turns out that this woman had some respiratory symptoms that caused her to get a chest x-ray. Two different radiologists looked at it. One thought there might be a lesion suspicious for a metastasis, and the other thought that was an over-read. The woman’s PCP decided to follow it up and she got an abdominal CT. That showed an ovarian mass and some spots on her liver. A laparoscopy confirmed all this and they got a piece of tissue that they tested that revealed the cancer. I’m hearing all this and shaking my head, yeah. This is the usual way that ovarian cancer is found – incidentally. It’s asymptomatic in its early stages and most often found serendipitously only at a late stage. If there are metastases in the lung and liver (probably elsewhere too) it is late-stage cancer.
“What I don’t understand,” says Phyllis, “is why this happened to her. She is young, only slightly more than half our age, she has no family history, she eats healthy, doesn’t smoke or drink, and exercises regularly.”
Personally, I don’t ask “why” when something happens. That suggests that there is someone or something that directs what happens and can be made to justify their choices. I ask how, when and to what extent, but that isn’t relevant here. So, I listen.
“She’s married, has a couple of kids and is living a good life. Why would this happen to her?” says Phyllis. “I just don’t understand.”
It really is tragic and I understand Phyllis isn’t really looking for an answer, she needs to release some of the angst it has caused. Some of our conversations are more pleasant than others, but the fact that we are friends means we can talk about anything. And I don’t need to say anything here. It’s my job to listen.
As much as life pains us, there is only so much that can be said about its vagaries. We wallow in the sorrow of it all and then move on. I think Phyllis is comforted, a bit, in sharing her pain, but she can be hard to read. Soon, we’re back to our cars and we’ve walked 10 miles.
Maybe next time, we can talk about more pleasant things.
Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of the winter day.
-Elizabeth Bowen
We’re definitely in winter now. The solstice has come and gone, the sun rises no more than 24 degrees above the horizon and the shadows are always long. The temperatures have been all over the map, from the high teens in the early morning to the low fifties late in the day. This past month was the warmest December in the last 150,000 years. And we haven’t had any snow yet. Wind and rain, yeah, but none of the white stuff. I’m not complaining, just making an observation.
Waldo and I continue to be fortunate in that we have missed the wettest hours of rain. Sometimes, it’s misty enough to soak the outside of my rain suit, and on occasion, it has even sprinkled a bit. But except for those spits and sputters, natures raspberries, we’ve been able to find enough time to do our 6 miles and still avoid the downpours. Not that a hardy deluge would keep us from our appointed rounds, hell no. But my rainsuit is getting a bit used and heavy rain will soak through to my clothes. I haven’t yet had to deal with icicles growing down the front of my hood, like they have in the past, either. But with the shorter days, if it’s overcast, it gets quite dark just after sunset, which is now around 4:20 PM.
As we walk through our usual haunt, I see that we are, clearly, well ensconced in winter. Deciduous trees and bushes have lost their leaves, except for a few marcescent oaks and even they have only shriveled, tan remnants of what was broad and green. The autumn olives are mere sticks in the mud and the Japanese knotweed is just a bunch of red, hollow pencils poking skyward. Most of the vines, that climbed trailside trunks and covered much of the foliage, are now coiled thick ropes that wind around what’s left.
The grass, while still somewhat green, has yellow blades interspersed with its chlorophyl-filled brothers and is now mere stubble. Carpets of dark green moss and liverwort still line the tarmac, but they’ve lost the plump, fluffy pile they had in the warmer months. The pale green of white pine is still buried in the deep of the forests, as if to remind any who look that, yes, indeed, woods are green. The hardy English ivy persists on the tall dead stump of an oak and is unencumbered by the poison ivy that it competes with in the summer. Garlic mustard can be seen here and there, although their leaves are not nearly as big as they were this past rainy summer. The cinnamon and sensitive ferns are gone along with the low-lying undergrowth that hides the floor of the woods in the warmer months.
If I look skyward, I can clearly see basketball-sized clumps of sticks and dead leaves that are squirrel homes. When the trees are all leafed out, they’re well hidden, but they’re quite obvious now. I never have seen one of those guys cavorting outside their house, but, even in the cold, I see an occasional gray, fluffy-tailed rodent romp in the woods. Not nearly in the numbers that I did a few months ago, though. Back then, they seemed always to be in pairs. Now there’s just a solitary fellow, out doing whatever it is that they do this time of year. Maybe he’s engaged in a honey-do, I have no idea.
There are a few birds still around, although their song is a rarer thing these days. Once in a great while, I’ll spot a cardinal flitting across my path, and even a blue jay, now and then. Maybe their relative scarcity is due to an instinctual desire to stay someplace warm, when they find or make one, unless forced to do otherwise. They don’t have border collies who need walking, I suppose. There are no Emmy birds, though. They’re long gone until late spring.
Waldo doesn’t seem to notice any of this, or maybe he just takes it in stride. There are a lot more sticks laying around, but he no longer has the fervent need to move them around like he used to as a puppy. He just trots along, nose less than an inch above the ground, and takes in whatever nature has to offer. Maybe he’s just more interested in what is there, under his nose, now, instead of what was there in the past or will be in the future.
All this ambience is quite familiar, yet there seems to be something missing. Ah, yes. Of course. Snow. Well, it’s coming. There’s a forecast for 6-12 inches of the stuff for 3 days from now.
And how the scenery will change then!
Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.
-Thor Heyerdahl
The temperature is somewhere in the mid-forties when Waldo and I start out on our trek today. The sky is overcast, but the air is dry and there is little wind blowing. I’m wearing a light jacket under my rain jacket and I have on a knit wool ski hat that I pull down over my ears. Waldo and I pass others on the trail, including those with dogs and even a few bicycles. Bicycles in late December! But then, this is shaping up to be the warmest December in 150,000 years…
We’ve had to find new places to park our car for the past few weeks because of all the construction that’s going on. The commercial residential housing complex that’s being built at the beginning of the rail-trail hasn’t affected where we park. What it’s replacing are a number of old buildings that had no public parking. Across the street from there, though, is where we used to park. One day, as we arrived, people were fencing it in. I asked what was up, but they didn’t know. Now, it’s all been dug up. There’s no sign, yet, that they’re going to put a building up there, so maybe it’ll be a future parking lot, who knows. For now, though, we can’t park there.
It turns out there’s a parking lot, owned by the city, that is about an eighth of a mile from the start of the trail, but right next to it. We parked there, for a week or so, then, one day, there was a fence all the way around it with gates that were closed. After a few days, there were some men there and I asked them what was up. They said the city was repaving it and putting in some lights. I suspect there is more to it than that, though, because now there are some cement culverts and other structures, lying above ground, that suggest there is underground construction of some sort that is planned too. Anyway, that’s one more spot where we can’t park.
There is another lot, also right next to the trail, about a quarter-mile from the start, that the city has designated as rail-trail parking and that’s where we park for now and the foreseeable future. It is winter, after all, and although there is no snow yet, there will be and then it will be difficult to dig holes. So I expect we’re stuck with what we’ve got until spring. It’s no big deal, really. We just start a quarter-mile from the start, backtrack to the start and then turn around and continue down the trail like we always do. Waldo was a bit confused at first, but he’s a fast learner and he now knows where we’re going and it’s part of our routine.
Then, a couple days ago, we’re walking down the trail and as we get to the open field that overlooks Fort Meadow Reservoir, I see a man putting up a fence around it. This fence is clearly temporary; the posts don’t go into the ground, they sit on platforms, of sorts, that rest on top of the ground. The field is a big grass-and-weed-overgrown landfill, closed well before Waldo and I arrived, and the fence runs about an eighth of a mile alongside the trail. I ask the guy what’s up and he says someone is going to turn the area into a park of some kind. He didn’t know any of the details, like who was doing it, so, maybe, he was just feeding me a line to shut me up, I don’t know. Today, I see a piece of heavy equipment chopping up the trees that border the field and turning them into saw-dust. A nice park is a good thing, I guess, but I hate seeing all the trees being destroyed.
Right next to the landfill is the area of forest that a company from Texas wanted to turn into another commercial residential complex. For now, that project has been put on hold because the residents around the area were opposed to it. It is zoned for industrial use and the city council would not rezone it so they could build what they wanted. They can still build something that fit the zoning it now has, so there’s no guarantee that the forest will be safe, but I can hope.
Meanwhile, the construction at the beginning of the trail has progressed quite a bit. There is a completed five-story parking structure at the back of the lot and cement pillars are now poking up skyward where the rest of the building will be. By spring, I expect most of the bones and outer walls will be finished and, at the rate things are going, the place may be open by next summer. I’m no luddite, but I sure wish that the universe would leave my little patch of nature alone. But, alas, it seems it is not to be.
For now, I walk the walk and enjoy the birdsong and trees, take in the peace and quiet of relatively untouched nature and hope for the best. Waldo trots along as if oblivious to the coming changes and lives in the moment without fear of what the future has to offer.
We enjoy what we’ve got, while we have it.
Stercus accidit.
(Shit happens)
-David Hume
About four days ago, I was walking down the stairs at our apartment building, taking the dog out for doggy business. I was midflight, Waldo was down a flight in front of me, when I misstepped, hyperextending my right ankle. Down I went, falling against the wall, then on to the landing. My immediate thought was, “Damn! No rail-trail today.” Once on the floor, I did a quick systems check. Yep, my ankle hurt. It was the same injury, done in the same way, as two years ago, only this time, not nearly as painful. Waldo stopped his progress toward the door and the great beyond, turned and looked at me and waited. With some wincing, I stood and put weight on the foot. Not a whole lot worse. A wave of nausea and sweating flowed over me and then subsided. I took a step. I could hobble. Waldo could see that I was upright and moving, so he continued on his way. That’s about as much sympathy as I get. Anyway, we carried on, just a lot more slowly than usual, and did the doggy duty.
Today, walking is painful, but not too bad. What bothers me the most is that the ankle is stiff and if I try to bend it, it hurts more. Not unbearably so, mind you, but I worry that doing too much will make the recovery time longer and, dammit, we need to get back to the rail-trail. At home, I elevate the foot and wait for it to heal (the pain and swelling aren’t so bad that I need to use ice or wrap it). When we go out, I walk stiff-legged on the injured side and make do as best I can. Waldo adjusts his pace as well, or rather, he trots back and forth in front of me, doing S turns. He burns off his energy as best he can, while being tethered to a not-so-moveable object. Sorry, buddy, you are not going to like the next few days and maybe weeks. But there is little choice.
The weather has been a little chilly, with highs in the low 40s and lows in the high 20s, but it’s been dry. As one day morphs into the next, I’ve become more depressed. Not significantly so, but I can feel it. I’m attached to being out in nature, walking with Waldo, and I miss it. Waldo seems to take it all in stride. He’s a happy puppy and that doesn’t change. He does romp a little more vigorously than usual, but he doesn’t exhibit any bad-dog behavior, like chewing on stuff that he shouldn’t. He seems to live in the moment; he just has more energy to vent than normal, in that moment.
Life throws all kinds of things at us that we don’t intend. With a little thought, you can usually trace out a causal chain of events that explains how things happen, but that does little to allow us to control it. It’s up to us to decide how we’re going to respond to what life offers us. Me, I try to put some thought to it, put my shoulder to the boulder and push it on uphill. In this case, I walk as necessary to see that Waldo gets to relieve himself, then try to judge how my ankle is reacting and decide how far to go the next day. I’ve decided to try to walk one to two miles tomorrow, wearing my hiking boots. Day after tomorrow, I’ll assess how my ankle is doing, then decide how far to push it from there. The spirit is demanding, but the goddammed old-age flesh is frustratingly weak.
Waldo has a different approach. It’s all hell-bent-for-leather and do as much as he can. When his legs were sore after his vaccinations, he hobbled around, favoring them, but pushed it as hard as he could. He didn’t try to limit how much he was going to do. He was continuing on as long as I let him. He’s a lot younger than I am, though, and can get away with it. I’ve learned, the hard way, that I can no longer do that. If I try, I’ll pay a steep price. Dammit. All I can do is push the damn rock up the hill judiciously.
I’m also frustrated by the fact that Phyllis and I only have 5 more legs of the Bay Circuit Trail to do before we get to the end. I was hoping we could at least get closer before the first significant snowfall. Now that doesn’t look so probable at all. Sigh.
But Waldo and I are still out there, trying.
We go through the good, the bad and the ugly all together.
-Emily Robinson
It’s cold today. The feel-like temp is around 28℉. It’s overcast again, but no precipitation and the wind is minimal. Still, I’m wearing rain pants, to help hold in the warmth, and my parka. Waldo seems comfortable enough and is eager to go walking. I can’t help but wonder how warm his fur is. When it’s cold, I keep a close watch on him for any signs that he’s uncomfortable. I watch for shivering and any tendency to stop and go back, for example. But he continues on, relishing being outdoors. I also judge how comfortable he is in the cold by watching him on his balcony. He can come in and go out as he pleases, yet, in these temperatures, he stays outside and only comes in when he needs to be taken downstairs to relieve himself. Our human ancestors must have watched furry animals and had similar observations because they killed animals, stole their fur and survived just fine in the cold.
I’m also watching Waldo today because he was a little lame yesterday after his yearly vet exam. He’s a really smart dog, which means he’s complicated. He has a really good heart and is very friendly and loving. But, he has his boundaries. Like the balcony. He’s decided that’s his territory and he doesn’t like me out there. I go there and he yells at me, leaving me no doubt whatsoever that he doesn’t think I should be there. He’s consolable and, after a bit, he accepts it, be he doesn’t like it.
Last year, he decided he didn’t want the vet to mess with him. In the past, he was startled by stuff like getting a shot, but otherwise put up with it. Last year, he wouldn’t let the vet examine him at all. He wouldn’t let him look in his ears or look at his teeth. Nope, he was having none of it. He didn’t tolerate a muzzle and I had to reschedule the visit so I could premedicate him with some trazadone pills. That didn’t work either, so the vet ended up giving him a shot that put him completely to sleep. Giving him that shot was fun, let me tell you.
So, this year, we planned on going the shot route. Waldo came into the vet’s office, happy and wagging his tail, eager to meet everybody. Then we went into the exam room and his demeanor changed completely. But we planned for this. I sat in a chair placed so the vet could get to his butt. I held onto his collar tight and reassured him as best I could. A vet tech held a blanket over his face so he couldn’t see what the vet was doing. As soon as the vet touched his butt, though, even before he gave the shot, Waldo went ballistic. He snarled and writhed, letting everyone know that what was going down just wasn’t acceptable. I held on tight and in just a few seconds, the job was done, the blanket was removed and I released my hold. Poor thing was obviously frightened. I petted him, talked calmly and softly to him and he quieted down after a bit. A few minutes later and he was out. Problem solved. I wish I had some of that stuff to give when I worked in the ER.
Waldo’s exam was perfectly normal and he got some vaccine shots. After the exam, the vet gave him a reversing agent and, within ten minutes, he jumped to his feet and was ready to get the hell out of Dodge.
After we got home, he was still a little groggy, so we spent the morning napping. I thought we might be able to go for our walk later in the afternoon, but he developed a limp on the side where he got his shots. It obviously bothered him, but not too much. I figured he was sore from the vaccine. I get muscle aches and pains after I get vaccines, so he probably was just suffering from that. I decided to put off the rail-trail walk until today. When we went out to pee and poop around the complex, he was a bit gimpy, but okay. His behavior was a little off and I couldn’t tell if it was after-effects of the anesthesia or if he was mad at me.
Today, I haven’t noticed any limping at all and he’s acting like his same old self. He’s giving me lots of attention, getting in my way as I try to put on my boots, and doing his best to get me to play. So, we’re back out here on the rail trail. He cavorts and I watch. Everything is back to normal.
Yesterday was just another speed bump in the road of life.