Joy and Justice

"Joy, I think, is a kind of self justice."
        --J. Drew Lanham, ornithologist and poet

What could possibly top the wonderland of yesterday morning, our world transformed into an icy, walk-through Ansel Adams photo framed in iterations of grey?  By lunch yesterday, my neck was sore from looking up and my toes were frozen from walking through.  What a way to go, though!

This morning could not have been more different.  Clear and calm, almost spring-like, my walk was punctuated by long-silented birds. Cardinals had swapped their short-chirping winter soundtrack for the trilly love songs of spring, while the Blue Jays shrieked warning of the low-flying Sharp-Shinned Hawk trolling for breakfast.  Also chiming in were Black-Capped Chickadees (chick-a-dee-dee-dee!), White-Breasted Nuthatches, sparrows (who generally deserve no capitals, except for the White-Crowned, Harris and White-Throated varieties) and House Finches.  It was a choral performance for the ages.

Halfway through the walk, the low, golden arms of a February sun alit on my head, stretching my shadow across 33rd Street, until I covered both sides of it.  And, as so often happens when I walk, I felt the low, happy thrum of endorphins pulse through me.

Yes, I've seen the forecast.  I'm aware that today is as good as it gets for awhile.  Plummeting temps likely will shorten my walks for the next few weeks, but they won't stop them.  And I'll be darned if I let something that is not here yet take away the joy that this morning has already brought to me.  That would be squandering a gift and, if I've learned anything in the past year, it is to savor the good that finds me.  

Joy, for me, is the best fuel I can burn as I walk into the unknown of a thousand tomorrows.  If I were you, I'd head outdoors today and fill up on it.  Your engine will thank you.

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
    --John Muir