A Sunday Stroll

On Sunday I ventured, along with Mr. Main Squeeze and my dog Pax, to West County Park.  I have not done much walking since my knee surgery in December, and each time I tried to walk any distance I would pay for it later with more pain.  But perhaps I've turned a corner in that regard, since we walked, slowly and mindfully so as not to slip or slide, for a good half hour.  And a good half hour it was, in this small park with not much but trees, a trail, delightfully quiet, surrounded by cornfields of course as this is central Illinois.  This time my pain was not any worse, which is a great joy to me as I love walking especially among trees.

I'm reading another Rebecca Solnit book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost.  No, I have not yet finished Hope in the Dark.  I'm just...well, getting lost among non-fiction books.  I haven't been a big fan of non-fiction until recently.  Now I am hooked on it, and imitating Mr. Squeeze whose reading taste is eclectic and his style is not bogged down in rule-following conventions of finishing one book before picking up another.

I miss the days of wandering in Ecuador, walking places not on the map, not in parks, just little country roads or even chakinyans (Quichua for cow-path, I think).  Not knowing where I would end up or how I would get home.  Sometimes it was by hitchhiking or hailing a bus, sometimes walking back the way I came.  My daughter asked me the other day if I could live 2-3 years over again which would I choose.  I didn't hesitate...'95 to '97 when I lived in Ecuador.  All that glorious wandering, spiritually, physically, all that time to read and think and process.  That wonderful parenthesis of not working during my adult life for a few years.  I am ready to pause again like that.  Will you join me for a stroll?