“Come quickly. You mustn’t miss the dawn. It will never be just like this again.”― Georgia O'Keeffe
Notes from A Morning Walk
I took a walk this morning* with a seagull. I woke up and got dressed earlier than usual and was standing on my front steps around 5:30. The moon - big, fat, the color of a pale apricot -- was sinking into the ocean. I did something I haven’t done in years. I ran. I ran down to the cliffs hoping I could be there in time to see the moon slip behind the horizon. I missed that moment but I found what it left behind.
The seagull and I met a little further on. We made eye contact. We kept our distance. The walk began, the seagull following the curve of the cliff, me trailing along with my phone. The pace was not slow, not fast. I heard my breath, felt the morning air fill my lungs. Waves slapped against the rocks below. I stopped wishing the gull would take wing. It was enough just to walk together for a while. Enough for me, that is. I don’t know about the gull and I feel a little bad about that now -- maybe he/she/they would have preferred a stranger with more to offer. [Note: the video is a leisurely three-minutes. I plan to use it to meditate to but you may want to just sample it quickly and skip to the end if seagulls aren’t your morning cup of tea.]
I began to walk in the mornings again a week ago Wednesday. I woke up, threw my clothes on and went out before I could start thinking about it. The next day I did it again. I’ve done it every day since. I hope I do it tomorrow. When I started, the weather was blowy - we were coming off rain and droplets of early morning mist coated my cheeks. The murk suited me, gave me cover. The mist settled on my skin just as it settled on the pigeons. I liked it. They looked, well, ruffled.
Since Wednesday, February 17, I’ve walked 20 miles and written a little over 4000 words. I’m still carrying the extra pounds I’ve put on since quarantine started but I can feel my muscles responding to the hills with more confidence and less ache afterwards. The knot in my chest is loosening.
I’ve noticed how plants wake up slowly. Poppies close up so they look like a stand of flames in the morning dark. The first few blooms of ice plant along the cliffs are still withdrawn, their gaudy pink petals aren’t ready until the sun is a little higher. They aren’t in a rush.
I used to walk every day. In 2016 I set out to walk 1500 miles for the year. I walked around 800 but the habit was established. I liked walking. I liked taking photos and sharing them. I liked feeling the ground beneath my feet, smelling the ocean, and being around people, watching them, and overhearing bits of their conversations. I especially liked walking early in the morning. It felt like stolen time: no one ever looked for me much before seven in the morning and the few people I encountered weren’t looking for a conversation. That time seemed to offer everyone a chance to greet the day in their own way, on their own terms.
Then I stopped walking this way regularly. The pandemic messed with my brain. Rina, our pup, died. The first time I walked without her, I cried so I didn’t go out again for a little while. Then ten days ago on Wednesday, February 17, I woke as the night was leaving the sky and had to go out. My body decided for me. I decided to trust it. Each day I’ve walked a couple of miles, sometimes more, sometimes less. The distance is not important. Noticing is what seems important. I try to notice everything but details slip away like fish through the holes in a net. Some remain though.
Today: the moon over the ocean the color of a faded apricot. The quiet crunch of sand and grit when I leave the paved sidewalk for the cliffs. A seagull who eyes me warily, curiously, or possibly in annoyance as we walk “together” for a short distance along the cliff. Parrots screech above me, the songs of smaller birds burst from a bank of rosemary in someone’s neglected yard. Clouds that shine pink light everywhere the moon used to be, a sky that is grey, then aqua, then violet, then that blue that only a morning sky can be.
Short Read: Clear and Cool by Ted Kooser
When I got home this morning, I googled “morning walks” to see what others wrote or thought about moving by foot through the break of day. I found Ted Kooser. Specifically, I found citation after citation for a book he wrote: Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison, a book that I will own next week when it arrives from one of the few used-book stores that had a battered, affordable copy.
I am embarrassed to say, I know little about Ted Kooser even though he was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Even more embarrassingly, I must admit that I am a child when it comes to poetry. Actually a child would be far less self-conscious about poetry than I am.
I know what I respond to but I don’t know why a poem works. I don’t understand the rules and I don’t know when someone is breaking them. All I know is what a poem makes me feel. Some poems strike my ear like a long stretch of improvised jazz -- they zip around my head looking for a way in and my heart goes untouched. But the few lines of Kooser’s Winter Morning Walks that I was able to locate brought back touched me deeply. The story behind the book resonated even more.
He wrote it after he left his day job, and put his writing on the back burner while he dealt with cancer. He began to walk in the early mornings before the sun could interfere further with his cancer. Upon returning from these walks, he wrote a poem and put it on a postcard which he mailed to his friend and fellow writer, Jim Harrison. He did this every day until, day by day, walk by walk, he found his way back to his writing. Here is one of the poems from the collection.
Clear and Cool
by Ted Kooser
Walking in darkness, in awe,
beneath a billion different stars
at quarter to six in the morning,
the moon already down
and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning
at the edge of the west,my shoes
too loud in the gravel
that, faintly lit, looks to be little more
than a contrail of vapor,
so thin, so insubstantial it could,
on a whim, let me drop through it
and out of the day,
but I have taught myself
to place one foot ahead of the other
in noisy confidence as if each morning might be trusted,
as if the sounds I make might buoy me up.
Long Reads
Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit explores every aspect of walking that you may never have considered as you head out to walk the dog, take a day hike, or just think about walking. She delves into the history of walking, its physical effects, not to mention its effects on our minds and our spirits. She profiles walkers from novels, as well as real-life “extreme” walkers who use their feet to live their message. It’s a wonderful book, one that you can pick up and put down in between walks.
Henry David Thoreau had a few wonderful things to say about how walking helped him explore both his outer and inner worlds. You can read them in his slim volume, Walking.
Spark Community Recommendation
Colum McCann’s story of a friendship born and tested out of conflict and tragedy, Lori Gottlieb’s funny, insightful, and “poignant” stories of a therapist, her clients, and her own therapist, a mystery by Lisa Scottoline, and a darkly funny murder mystery set in Poland by Olga Torkaczuk. These are the books some of our community members have read recently and recommend.
Apeirogon by Colum McCann: “There is something special in the way the author manages time.” - Mike W. Montclair, CA
One Perfect Lie by Lisa Scottoline: “A good read” Joyce R. From North Carolina
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb: “Poignant, funny, enjoyable” and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk: “Worth reading” - Janice M. San Diego, CA
All the books mentioned here are available, when possible, from our Spark Community Recommendations Page on bookshop.org where every sale helps to support local bookstores and literacy programs.
That’s it for this week. Please let me know how you are and how you feel about mornings in general and morning walks in particular or just anything at all because, let’s face it, you have other things on your mind these days. Tell me. I love hearing from you. And if you know anyone who might enjoy this post or Spark please share and ask them to join us. Here are some handy buttons for both things:
Be well. Stay safe. See you next Saturday.
Gratefully,
Betsy
*FYI: I write my letters to you on Fridays so my walk will be, by the time you read it, yesterday. It just felt better to stay in the day as I wrote it.
P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…We Don’t Shovel
This is from Mary who lives in New Hampshire where it is just plain easier to let the snow pile up.
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
I can’t wait to see what you send!
reading your meditative prose was an act of meditation for me - thanks
i'm glad you are getting back into this practice. i had been walking every day and fell away as well, but have now begun again. your post and pics are beautiful