It is unseasonably warm here (you're welcome, Southern California; I brought the weather from JoCoCruseCrazy home with me) so project Get Outside And Exercise A Little Bit Every Day has been easier than it was in December.
Yesterday, I took Seamus with me on my walk. The Western sky was beginning to turn red and gold as the sun prepared to char the other side of the world and come back to us as we walked down the driveway and out into the street.
As we neared the top of our block, a woman I rarely see was working in her front yard, planting something near the curb. She's probably in her 70s, has white hair pulled back into a bun and a heavily-lined face straight out of the Grapes of Wrath.
She dusted the dirt off her hands and stabbed her small shovel into the freshly-turned earth. She looked up at me and smiled.
"You have a nice walk about," she said.
I smiled back at her. "Thank you! I think I will."
We continued up the street and around the corner, Seamus stopping to smell every tree, bush, and fire hydrant along the way. When we got home, he walked over to his little dog bed and was asleep and snoring before I had put his leash away. I poured myself a glass of water, stood on my porch, and watched the sun set.
Nothing special or unusual happened while we were out. I didn't have any epiphanies or anything while I stood on my porch and watched black silhouettes fly across the gloaming sky. It was just a beautiful half an hour, during which I enjoyed the quiet, simple pleasures of walking my dog and hearing a kind word from a neighbor.
And that, I think, is why it's worth remembering.
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my brain exploded with delight at that Soul Coughing reference. beautiful.
And that, I think, *is* why it’s worth remembering.
Hate to see a nice reflection marred by a typo!
SON OF A–!
Fixed. Thanks. 🙂
That is why we live here in Southern California, we can take a “nice walk about” chat with a neighbor and enjoy a molten sunset in the middle of January , we are so very spoiled and lucky!
You’re luck. Here in NE the current temp is 26.7 F (We had a low of 3.7 F). And the streets/sidewalks SUCK. One word comes to mind if I were to go for a walk today – shrinkage.
This made me smile after a hard week, thank you.
BTW, my How We Roll shirt finally arrived. I shall take a photo over the weekend and add it to the flickr group.
You just perfectly expressed how I feel after I walk my dogs. Nothing exceptional happens. I don’t figure out the secret to world peace. I just watch the sunlight slowly fade behind the mountains (I’m in AZ), the sky turn purple then black, and watch my dogs trot happily with a slight wag in their tails. It’s simple and it’s grand. Thank you.
I love taking the dog for a walk, warm and sunny or snowing like crazy. It’s a time of day where I can reflect on things whether they’re important or not. And saying hello or some greeting to a neighbor or another walker is like icing on a cake; not necessary but adds something to make it better.
Medical issues keep me from walking now and I miss it. Enjoy it when you can, Wil.
Almost perfect. Would have been better if it had read “I poured myself a glass of Oban…”, now wouldn’t it?
Beautifully written. Almost makes me want to go out and get a dog just so I can take him for a walk, though it is much less pleasant here in SE PA than where you are. For a few months, anyway, the elliptical will have to suffice and I shall remain, sadly, dog-less lest my two cats conspire to do terrible things to the carpets in retaliation.
So many of those moments in our lives get lost under the more “special or unusual” moments. It’s good to remember the special quiet moments too. Thank you for sharing. (PS first time posting since you lost your cat several years back. We LOVE you on Big Bang Theory!)
Loved it Wil, made me think of my fav Ferris line;
‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’
Thanks for sharing this. Made me think about moments like yours which I’d almost forgotten.
Grüße aus Deutschland – dds
Ahhh… I (living in southwestern Ontario, Canada, where there is currently snow on the ground and more falling from the sky) will enjoy your walk about and your sunset vicariously. Your post made me long for spring, and fondly remember my dog.
A nice little post.
Are you going to recap 2010 or just look ahead to 2011? 😉
Lovely. 🙂
Is your neighbour Australian…?
very good post Master Weaton, you can say few words yet speak volumes.
the post inspired me. I thought I would take my cat on a walk. I grabbed my cat’s body harness and leash forgetting just how strong a 10 pound cat can be when you try to get her to do something she DOES NOT WANT TO DO namely wearing the aforementioned harness. I think I still have all ten fingers and learned a valuable lesson, let sleeping cats lie.
You are exceptionally good at conveying a mood. Always a pleasure to read your snippets of the world.
But in five minutes, that same kindly neighbor is going to run naked down the street and change everything.
Lovely post! Its cold, wet and windy here in England and I’m longing for that first spring walk. I also can’t wait to get out in my garden and plant some veg! I bet your neighbor was just as cheery as I will be planting my first stuff out.
In other news my copy of ‘The Day After and other stories’ arrived. Excellent work! Please, please write more. There are very few authors who I’m not able to put down and you’re one of them. I think your characters are awesome because they are believable and so SO interesting. I love your other books (Reading ‘Just a Geek’ at the moment), but I think you could do so much with your fiction writing YAY. You write it, I’ll buy it =)
Sorry for long comment, I promise to be shorter and snappier in future =)
It’s possible your neighbor was hoping you’d go on a long, long quest of self-discovery, possibly in the wilderness, maybe for as long as 6 months. But that would be a very different story.
To paraphrase a fictional Sigmund Freud quote, sometimes a walk is just a walk. And sometimes that’s all they need to be for them to be great.
My office window in to our front “yard (it’s a copse of trees, our back yard is the Lincoln National Forest) is great. I thought I saw some movement one recent glarie morning, went to another window, saw it was deer. In my front yard. Went and got my camera, and it wasn’t deer, it was four deer.
Like the time one night that I went to let the dog out and there were three raccoons on our front porch.
…and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.
Sometimes it’s just the little things, things that we take for granted, that have the biggest impact when you least expect it.
Time to get started on my Be A Little More Like Wil Everyday project.
Ah cool for you to be inn a nice, warm place. How I wish I could go to a nice, warm place too. But as for me, I am planning to visit my wife’s relatives in the Asian country of Philippines. I bet it is ten times warmer there than compared to what you have in SoCal. Nice to hear from you and walking with Seamus. Hope to hear from you again. And I will try to let you know of my visit out of the country.
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Ahhh !! Thankyou Wil. I make a point of drinking in the sunset each day. It is a special feeling watching the light and colour change as the day transforms into night; is particularly exciting, as I remember it, for me as a teenager.
Postscript. A new Elder Scrolls!!! …squeee!!!
G’Day Dawn 🙂
No,No, Thank You Andrea. Great image.
G’Day zadig. Maybe he could come and join me in the middle of nowhere. 😉