I have many different strategies. I find that what works best is for me to leave a bit early every day and walk at least partway to my first work assignment. This is often but not always possible. Today, following a previous night of inferior quality sleep I just needed to stay close to my bed a bit later than usual, giving me just two hours to get everything done and ready at a comfortable pace while preparing for my day.
I did manage to walk a half mile to the Canada Line station. When I got close to my destination, I noticed that I could walk for another twenty minutes, or one mile, and make it to my client on time. There was a large beautiful park on the way, so that's how I traced my route. Despite the obese man in sunglasses and neon orange sneakers verbally abusing his little dog on a leash, swearing quite loudly and shamelessly at the poor little animal, it was still an enjoyable walk. I was still ten minutes early so I walked still a bit more. I had logged one and a half miles. My client and I managed another half mile walking in the mall, or ten minutes. That's two miles.
I had a noon meeting with a supervisor to hurry to. I arrived in the area twenty minutes early, so I walked around a bit, one more hour, or three miles. The meeting with my supervisor, which often runs more like hanging out in a coffee shop between two old friends, lasted over an hour. We talked some about how I am planning my retirement years: I will likely keep working, just not fulltime, while spending more time at other things that I enjoy. I walked to my next appointment, detouring a bit and fit in another hour or three miles. Six miles of walking. Despite the rain at times, and the unseasonably cool weather, the fragrances and flowers and green leaves of spring have been holding me spellbound. This wonder of new life that smacks us upside the head and full in the face every year, and yet so unappreciated. I fill my lungs with the sweet perfume of damp warming soil, tree resin, flowers and unfurling leaves as I count each raindrop that falls on my unprotected head and wander along quiet residential streets as though in a drunken bacchanalian frenzy.
My client never showed up. I enjoyed a can of V-8 as I waited for him in the cafeteria of the community centre while working on my current drawing. A half hour later I wandered along more greening neighbourhoods of the unfurling spring, and taking care to say hi to strangers along the way, covering another two miles before stopping to buy Breton crackers, bananas and red wine vinegar. On the Canada Line I had the courage to tell the frail elderly lady standing in front of me that I would see that someone gave her their seat and a young woman seated just below me promptly sprang up and gave her the seat. I arrived downtown and walked mostly uphill another half mile.
Factoring out possible exaggerations I must have walked at least eight miles today. At home, I enjoyed homemade cocoa, classical music and finished my paperwork, then resumed work on my current drawing. Here is the bird I am interpreting, a purple-breasted sunbird from Rwanda
To imagine that any one of those beautiful, delicate little jewels of a bird, could have been drinking nectar from a hibiscus, while nearby thousands of innocents were being slaughtered in 1994. This bird is so beautiful, that it hurts.
No comments:
Post a Comment