How green everything is outside! Walking to work last week down the leafy lane that is now my 1.6 mile commute, I was struck by just how lush the vegetation is at this time of year. It seems to crowd in on the road from the hedges either side, insisting that you feel its presence and acknowledge your own existence as a part of nature. It is all just so green! And so full of vibrant energy. It's hard not to feel included and uplifted by Nature's enthusiasm at this time of year. Oh, there are flowers too, campions and buttercups and poppies in bloom, all very pretty and occasionally gaudy. But it is the foliage that impresses most upon my consciousness. It fills the world suddenly and like a welcome exuberant visitor entering your hallway, exerts its presence in your life and the places in which you live it.
I quite like being able to walk to work. Oh,. I miss my ten-mile-each-way commute by bicycle, partly because of the cake it allows me to consume with metabolic impunity. But also, I was fortunate for so many years to have a route which many would have gladly ridden for leisure. I miss that immensely and intensely. I shall have to get my fill of two-wheel happiness by more deliberate journeys.
And walking feels so slow. You cover such little ground with every stride. That said, it does therefore give you more occasion for reflection: A tiny cat with beautiful grey ocelot markings popping out of a garden to greet me, a buzzard soaring on a thermal as the morning sun heats some patch of tarmac and causes a column of hot air to rise to dizzying heights, the contained and wobbling muscularity of a lady cyclists bottom in grey lycra as she freewheels down the bumpy lane. Yes, certainly the senses appear keener to engage with the world and our instincts more responsive to what they encounter.
Oh, I have clouds on my mental horizon certainly. These are strange times and I miss my beautiful garden with its granny-bonnets and whispering black bamboo. But life goes on and no greater reminder of that could there be than the fecundity of verdant nature as Midsummer approaches.
So, with my metaphorical tail held high, though my metaphysical ears only half-mast turned down, I trot happily towards whatever destiny this day holds for me. Perhaps somewhere on my route, I will meet a fellow traveler coming in the other direction but whose eyes and demeanour reveal to me that even from the opposite perspective, they too can see how glorious, despite the setbacks of fate and fortune, existence truly is.
Philosophical observations from wandering about noticing things.
