There were far too many humans on my walk this morning. Too many cars and trucks and buzzing chain saws. Too much loud music from the boom box at the swimming pool. And the three kids shooting baskets at the park (a surprising sight at 6:15 a.m.)? Even they tested my patience.
For whatever the reason, I could not seem to escape my species this morning. And I really, really wanted to.
I blame Terry Tempest Williams. Her damned book "The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks" has seeped into my veins and now I can't quit thinking about Big Bend National Park, a place Williams turned to when she was "seeking a different kind of circuitry, the nervous system of rivers and deserts and mountains born of fire."
Hey, I'm not anti-human. More often than not, people fill me.
But nature? Nature empties me. And when I am emptied, all kinds of things have a chance to make their way inside.
We could all do with a little more emptying these days. By chance or by habit, we Americans are overfull. We take in too much news and eat too much food, we spend too much money on things and too many minutes on phones. It's as though we are scared of the pause, of the silence that punctuates the in-between.
When I spend time outdoors, away from people, other things move into the center of my narrative, and I wake up to the freshness of their stories. I can't help but notice the bejeweled wings of the beetle at my feet and wonder what it was that stopped its heart. Held by the eyes of a young rabbit, I stand still and imagine we are exchanging stories, telepathically. Cooled by an early-morning breeze, I listen as it wends its way through the stand of pines I'm walking under.
Just writing about nature calms me. In fact, the only thing I don't find calming about this blog entry so far is that I titled it after a song that I didn't like much the first time around!
Besides, the title isn't even accurate.
I'm not running on empty. I'm running to it.
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