In the summer, when everything is cloaked in heat waves that squirm up off the pavement, I feel very much part of the physical world around me. Somehow the warm temperatures glue all the molecules together. I am not only me, but I am also the ground I walk on, the sky above me, and the air that I take in. Even sounds and smells feel like an extension of my skin.
But in the winter I feel separated. I am only me, and I am aware of the cold sidewalk and the streets I cannot cross and the smells that come from somewhere else.
There is an isolation that comes with the cold and these so-short days.
Yet there is also space and distance. These smallest of margins leave room for retrospection. There is time to stop on this long walk along the old stone wall and put the stones back in place, to lift them from the hard ground and build something beautiful.
Today I am embracing the space.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down. – Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”
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Here are some posts by a few more folks extolling the virtues of How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp. Check them out if you get a chance:
Clay Morgan
Michelle Woodman
Alise Wright
Team Aidan
Or buy your own copy HERE.
I barely see the the sun these days, but part of me likes the darkness. I just want to curl up and read a book in my jammies, something Christmas will afford time to do. Still, when I get outside for a walk, I feel SO MUCH BETTER. This is yet another time I envy people with dogs…