February 28, 2000 Walking Digest

I have walked this path many times before but always in the woods. The
dark green leaves and gray or brown trunks lightened in places by rays
of sunlight. You couldn't imagine being anyplace else. Today, everything
is white and I am a small blood vessel traveling through the body of the
abominable snow man. I hadn't known until now that he was actually made
of snow. The light filters through and betrays the airiness of solid
matter. Now I am but an electron in an ice crystal. Other electrons
dance around me like flakes of snow, or glitter falling, spilled from
the ceiling.

That is how I felt walking on February 3rd. It is not how I felt today.
The snow has melted off of the trees and a lot of the ground. The
forecast was for rain today, but it snowed a bit. The dusting of snow
covered some of the scars of the midwinter thaw, but could not hide the
damage. Midwinter thaws are bad enough in the city, when the brightness
of clean snow is replaced by porch lamps nearby and the overall glow of
the area. On a rainy, gray day in the woods, the wet dark of the barren
trees and road, are all too bleak to my eyes that have become accustomed
to the bright of the snow.

I set out walking. The dark woods bother me and the light snow covering
does little to help. The day is lighter, but I can't shake that bleak
feeling. I know that the dark is lurking there under the light snow. It
is like knowing that Queen Amadala will become the Emperor instead of
Senator Palantine, or that the Beaver will become a rapist instead of
Eddie Haskel, or that Hansel and or Gretel will grow old and cook kids
in their little cottage. I am telling you that the woods bothered me
today. I walk and pretended that it was the end of the world and I was
the last person left with nothing to do but wander and understand why
the woods looked as they did.

I was restless. The snow that had fallen today had an eerie feeling. I
heard it falling like heavy rain on my tin roof, and had to look out
many times to check that it was actually snow. Maybe that made me
restless. Maybe it was reading about Antarctic exploration while being
cooped up in my cabin all day. That could have done it. Maybe it was the
wind that has been blowing the last two day.

I once knew a dog, Patches. She came to live with us on the occasion of
my fifth birthday. She was a great dog and a childhood friend. When the
wind blew like these past two days and the snow sounded like rain on the
tin roof she would get restless. She would go outside and let her
beagle like ears flap in the rockets red glare. And she would howl. It
was not the half hearted howl that she saved for my trumpet practice and
fire engine sirens. She would go out and with her ears flapping and snow
sounding like hard rain on her tin head, howl like the world was ending,
like a norse god's dog, might howl. I understood her better this
evening.

Of course I have known this restlessness before. This feeling has send
me out in all weather. It has sent me wandering by freight train, by
burro, by home made raft, by car, by plane, by thumb, and by bicycle. I
think I got them all. Wait the last and most important, by foot.

I have come to appreciate walking above all other forms of travel. Why
is it that walking is so alluring?

That's a Thoreau quote, isn't it? That one about going into the woods
alone to find oneself. I just substitute walking anywhere for going into
the woods and count Thoreau as one of my heroes Also when I think of great
walking role models, I think of the Peace Pilgrim. There was a book by
her in the Unirondack library for years. I only ever read the jacket,
but the picture on back is burned in my memory. A sixty year old woman
standing at the side of the road in a tall sandwich board that reads
"Peace Pilgrim". She walked across the country in that sign just talking
to people. My greatest walking hero is Forrest Gump. Of course he ran,
but I imagine myself in danger and hearing Jennie yell, "Walk, Mikey
Walk!" Then the narrator's voice says," So he did, and he just kept
going," as a shot of me with a long beard walking across Nebraska fades
in. That Forrest had the right idea and he found himself and got
straightened out in the end.

Sometimes, while walking,  I'll wish I could close my eyes. I think that
I will find comfort in focusing on the simple task of moving. On the
cycle of lifting my feet and putting them down. It is something I dream
about while cycling, as well. I'll try it for a few steps or a few feet.
I imagine that is all there is to life. Each step is a decision made
that takes you down a path that you can sense but not see. You never
know where you will end up, though you chose the direction. Your
homework is to try this. Chose a road you know so it will be safer. Even
in the relative security it is haunting and chilling, that you can know
how you are propelled so well, and not understand at all where you are
going.

I wanted to walk forever tonight. I know part of that is an aspiration
to be like the great explorers. I was just reading about a 36 hour walk
for survival. Part of that is the Thoreau quote. In my five mile walk
tonight I didn't find myself, but I churned up this digest and started
on something altogether different. In 36 hours I would have come up with
a whole novel or maybe some solution for life's happiness for myself.
Most of wanting to walk for ever was that I was restless.

MiXiM