Do to a flat tire, the universe gave me an opportunity to walk to work this week. I have not walked to work since before we left for the AT as I have discovered that riding my bike is faster. Imagine that! Soooo… I begrudging left for work just as the sun was topping the mountains. I have to be honest and say I was not to terribly excited to walk as the early mornings have become quite cold. When I left I could see my breath in the early morning light and the cold tingled my face.

As I found my way around the pot holes in our parking lot I was taken in by the stillness of the early morning and decided on the long way to work. Maybe I had needed this chance to walk after all feeling an immediate sense of calm. As I walked down the sidewalk heading east, I took  in my rather excellent views of the mountains. Although I had promised myself I wouldn’t, I had allowed them to become part the background of my life, not paying them much attention. I let my mind wonder as I continued on. Flowing from memories of the trail and wishes for the future I found myself recalling another walk to work I had taken back in Indiana.

During that walk a few years before the birth of “Snuggles,” I had been fighting  to understand a deep longing. I had stared to feel a deep connection to every tree. That each was reaching to embrace me and every piece of grass had a story to tell me. Every bird, squirrel and fox was a wild friend that had become trapped in by the city that developed around it. I had was also feeling trapped. The emotions I felt back then had ultimately set me on a path that would completely change my life.

I came to the intersection where I would be leaving  the quite neighborhood of trees and bird calls and moved towards a street lined with buildings and filled with the noises of early morning traffic. I looked back towards the treelined street I was leaving and took in one last breath of  the brief tranquility I found there. I then turned towards the numbing duties of the work day.

It’s hard going from fresh air to boxed and stale; from sitting on a boulder to a chair.

A hill to climb is now only stairs, a view to watch now a screen to stare.

These creature comforts I can no longer bare.

Give me the wild, my heart longs to be there.

(Above italicized writing is an excerpt from a journal entry dated August 2014)