Walk Therapy

I am still on a full news hiatus. If there’s anything happening at all in the world of politics, I only know about it accidentally. I know I’ll have to pay attention again at some point (and that the fact that I don’t have to be on personal hyper threat alert is pure unearned good fortune), but I’m just not up for the news yet.

One fortunate thing is that fall has been so gorgeous this year. So I’ve been doing a lot of walking, trying to stop and appreciate beauty when I find it.

That’s from Central Park. Here’s another one, just looking up.

We’ve had so many gorgeous blue skies lately. Most of the time I just think: aww, lovely. Sometimes I think about how beautifully blue the sky was on September 11th when I walked over to vote in Brooklyn before getting on the subway, completely oblivious to the impending national disaster speeding toward us. It feels a little like deja vu.

And then I take a couple of slow breaths and turn the headphone up on my audiobook to drown out my brain’s internal monologue. And I look around some more.

Ahhh. Pretty. I can’t control the future. But I can appreciate a blue sky. I can listen to this audiobook. I can take a walk, which is good for me. I keep looking around for beauty.

And I see a single leaf still clinging to a tree, which makes me chuckle to myself. Like my last nerve! Ha, ha. Like my last shred of hope for democracy and belief in the goodness of people. Ha, ha. Ha. Ha.

I try not to extend the metaphor. This leaf, too, shall fall. Oh, dear.

Whatever happens, I remind myself, I am so lucky to live in this neighborhood. I mean, c’mon! Look at this loveliness.

This is my street. It’s so beautiful in the fall. It’s wonderful in the springtime. It’s lovely after a new snowfall, or an ice storm. Look at that sun! Hello, friend. You keep coming back. So will I.

Of course, the trouble with walking around, trying to be alert to the details around you as some sort of coping mechanism, is that sometimes I also see details that feel like a more realistic portrayal of my current emotional state. Just for fun, I take pictures of those, too.

I see the items, discarded on the side of the road, and I try to walk past. But the metaphor of a discarded Barbie knock-off with drag-style hair just feels too on the nose to ignore. I have to walk back and record her. And a few days later: well, I’d never seen a rearview mirror that shattered. I didn’t even realize it was possible. But, as Julie Andrews would say, impossible things are happening every day. Not always in a good way.

Clearly, the Beautiful side needs all the help it can get. I gathered up seeds from some of my native plants. The seeds have their own beauty, if you can see it.

I used the wire frame of one of the political signs that was recently posted to set up a little seed buffet along the sidewalk for my neighbors. I should have taken a picture of it, but at the time, I wasn’t sure if it was too silly, and then by the time I decided to do it, the seed station had been pillaged enough that it was no longer photogenic. But I did gather pictures of some of the seed flowers so people would know what they were taking.

It felt good to share seeds, a small thing to build community and help pollinators and spread some beauty.

After missing it last year, I was excited that I could make it to another Wild Ones Native Seed Swap at Thacher. It’s grown so much since two years ago, and while I contributed some seeds, I received much more than I gave. I also realized that I’ll need to do a better job of keeping track of which color bee balm is which when I collect seeds. It’s a bit of a schlep to Thacher, so I’d planned a walk, too, and lucky for me, it was another lovely day.

Wild Ones had also planned a fantastic craft activity, the chance to make a bookmark with a huge variety of dried flowers. I took my time and made a bookmark that I love way too much to shut between pages. Instead, it’s hanging from the bulletin board above my desk.

It’s become increasingly clear that walking around noticing the Beautiful isn’t going to be enough. We’re going to have to look for it and create it and share it.