I took a walk this afternoon. I walked around the neighborhood, then veered off onto the path that winds through a patch of woods, alongside a creek, and on into the park. As I walked I was composing this essay in my head, and I started out thinking in terms of "Anticipating Spring." My first thoughts were of the dead, dry, brown landscape, how melancholy and cold January is, and how one way to get through it is to look forward with anticipation to the coming spring.
But as I walked on, and particularly when I reached the woods and began to smell the scents that are so singularly "earth," I began to rethink my topic. Individual items began to catch my eye--a perfectly shaped brown leaf on the path, holding a teaspoon of water in a curled cup; the bonsai-like tree limbs, bent and gnarled, stark against the gray sky; the sun, briefly glimpsed through the dense cloud cover overhead.
Far from being monochromatic, the woods held a hundred different colors. The browns, tans and golds of the fallen leaves underfoot, the deep greens of the evergreen trees, a pile of broken rock in whites and grays. And beside the path, in a cluster of dandelion puffballs gone to seed, a new one, bright yellow, just opened. A dandelion so eager for spring that it pushed its way through the nearly frozen ground to become the brightest spot of color within sight.
As I walked the path, I also listened. The wind whispered through a stand of native grasses and blew through dried leaves still on the tree with a crunching sound like crumpling paper. A small animal, probably a rabbit, bounded through the fallen leaves behind me, and birds sang in the naked treetops, celebrating the unseasonably warm day and the promise of spring. Water bubbled and sang in the creek, rushing along the banks, pushing broken pieces of ice in its path.
I learned that there is as much beauty in late winter as there is in the springtime. It's a different kind of beauty--the beauty of the sparrow or the dove contrasted with that of the bluejay or cardinal. A quiet, stark beauty, elegant and austere.
I didn't expect any insights on this walk, I just wanted to get a little exercise and some fresh air. I found out that insight and beauty can be found anywhere, you just have to open your eyes and your heart to the possibility.
