When I went to
bed Friday night the fan was on and the windows were open. Sometime
in the hours before dawn, a cold front blew in. Roused from sleep, I
reached down to the foot of the bed and pulled the quilt up. At some
point I became aware of Marc getting up to turn off the fan and again
to close the windows.
It was overcast,
cold, and blustery all day. 57˚ at the time I wrote this with a
predicted low of 49˚ for that night, it was a winterish day. Today,
Saturday, it is still overcast, cold (currently 50˚) and blowy. It looks like it's clearing up
though.
I've been in the
habit of picking up pecans once a day, getting anywhere from half of
a gallon sized bucket's worth to a full one, but Friday was the first
chance I had since Monday. I picked up two full buckets and then
later, when I went out to water the garden, I stuffed my pockets full
to bulging with the ones that were in my path that had fallen since.
My one full box of pecans has become two.
I've abandoned
my careful criss-crossing of the yard. I'm bored with that. I used
to think of it as my pecan labyrinth. Lately I cover the yard in a
more snaky fashion, wandering whither I go but eventually covering
the entire field of interest. I think. It's still a labyrinth of
sorts, I guess, though it has no structure at all.
I still
contemplate stuff while I walk and I look forward to it not only for
the goodness of the pecans that I'm collecting but also for the
contact with the earth. I walk barefoot letting that energy flow up
and into my feet. I need direct contact with the earth. I guess
that's why I like to garden, to get out there and dig.
This lack of
contact with the earth, the trend of living ever cleaner and more
sterile lives, lives that are spent more and more indoors completely
cut off from the planet that we sprang from, is, in my pet theory,
one of the main reasons the human race has gone insane. And surely
we must be insane considering all the damage we do to the ecosystem
that we depend on for our very lives. Not to mention all the damage
we do to each other.
Walking
barefoot, digging in the dirt, wandering the woods and prairies,
paddling the rivers, sleeping on the ground under the stars, these
are the times when I have felt most serene. Being in touch with the
earth, being covered in the earth, breathing the earth, absorbing the
life and energy and magnetism of the planet keeps me centered. It's
why, I guess, whenever I am unhappy or angry, my first impulse is to
go outdoors, to let all that negative emotion drain away.
So while I am
not sad to see the intense heat of summer fade away, I am less than
excited about the cold winter days to come when I must, finally, for
comfort's sake, put on shoes and limit my time outdoors.