courage 2

I stopped running.

No, not forever, but for this day, just today. My legs were giving out on me on the humid day. I probably did not eat enough yesterday. I was too tired. So, I walked instead.

Now, why does this take courage?

I have a tendency to keep going far past the point of comfort–which I sort of like about myself–but then keep going, entering the realm of utter misery… This is particularly true about exercise. I fear that if I break the spell… um, habit… it will be forever gone as soon as I realize that the extra twenty minutes at home really is kind of nice, and lets me get so many things accomplished, and …

Well, you see my point. I rather fear losing the habit, but this time, I have been rather determined and focused for seven weeks, and this is my first time. I did not exactly give up, but rather, slowed down.

I walked. It felt great to walk, to look around. I crossed the bridge, and as I always do, I peered down to look for birds. I have seen ducks, of course, once saw a cormorant. But today, I saw a great blue heron.

Herons are my favorite birds, in a strangely obsessive way similar to my fondness for peonies. I not only like them; I consider them lucky. Well, after all, they are akin to storks, which are lucky in some places. But at this point of motherhood, I shun storks to some degree, given my cultural heritage around those particular birds. So it is a heron.

It was wading, looking for fishies, I assume, but it spotted me, and quickly walked to the grassy, tree-y bank where I could no longer see it. I imagine that it waited until I passed, and then went back to its business. But I was happy enough.

Slowing down is not so bad sometimes, and it is not giving up. On the contrary, perhaps it is a time for building, and a time for reflection.

streets and roads

It was a heron there, lumbering above the water—always auspicious, or so I had deemed these sightings years earlier. This was a new road, to another person, a home visit, the dispensing of some help, or hope, as the job requires. Sometimes a call comes from a nearby street, sometimes on a road miles away.

Hard to offer hope when life dispenses bad news. Incurable diseases, life-altering accidents, or something gone wrong from birth: this is the world I see day after day, home after home. I offer not hope, though, but options, or so my job says. I offer options for people to stay in their homes, or anywhere out of a nursing home or whatever other institution may beckon the likes of them. I offer options for lives gone wrong, for lives to be right.

What I offer more is time, and ears to hear the stories of these lives, often long, memories entangled among old thorns that grow sharper as the years go. I wish to tell these stories, but to do so would be betrayal. I absorb the stories instead, and hang them to the roads I see, the birds, the trees and paths that lead me to them and away.

These miles are oddly satisfying. Wandering has never been my forté, despite youthful dreams of faraway places. The town, the people: yes! That sort of adventure… But in my adult life, I have sought roots, community, company, laughter, support. For all the wishes for exotic locales, I found adventure, then grew up. I craved what I might have left behind. The lonesome road never held much appeal for me, at least, not as a way of life.

Some hitch a ride with the wayward wind and head off to never-ending adventure. Such is the cult of the cowboy, the loner, the rebel. It is a romantic notion, this wandering, this quest. It may offer refuge, in its way. The road may offer a way out.

And you? Wander on, go, if you like. If you do, your door remains shut, your home ever empty. Perhaps I’ll never find you.

The road may offer a way in. I had forgotten that. I had forgotten the road long and winding that leads not to wandering, but to a door, the door. I had forgotten the odyssey. I had forgotten you.

Perhaps I’ll find you.