Project Eveningland

4/26/2023 Wednesday

I’d call it a lazy day, but it’s not lazy to stop and rest for as long as you need (always assuming there’s nothing scary chasing you). It is in fact quite prudent to do so. So I had a prudent day, extremely prudent. Downright circumspect!

Today has me thinking about the gap between the things we say we want, and the choices we make. A shared human problem. I’ve been saying I want to rest without guilt or worry. I don’t pick my emotions off a menu, but I think I can do more to direct my thinking away from those patterns. Zoey the sheepdog gave me a lecture this morning about honoring my far-flung AT-completion deadline—a choice I made on the advice of my medical providers. (Since Zoey is a sheepdog the lecture was more a of a gentle blue-and-brown-eyed gaze than a lecture per se).

We all rested. Wedge took full advantage of the streaming options on the TV. I spent all morning in bed then crept downstairs for a big midday meal. Benny, Wedge, and I enjoyed a mini marathon of dumb cartoons. Heavenly. Then another two-hour nap came calling, marked urgent, and boom, it was dinner time. Gosh, this country living is a lot more hectic than I expected!

I intend to finish off the twice baked potatoes, and there’s a good chance that tonight’ll be a taco night. We will go into town tomorrow for some shopping and other errands.

I’m really looking forward to this next section of trail. It crisscrosses with the Blue Ridge Parkway. In 2021 there were bushes hanging heavy with blackberries and similar. I picked some and turned to gaze into the sunset. I am Reese Witherspoon in Wild, I thought. Not Cheryl Strayed. Reese Witherspoon.

I’m writing this as I sit on a bed in the little attic, gazing out huge modern windows that’ve been cut into what I’m sure was once a dark space. Outside the newly green trees sway in the wind above tall grasses which ripple in same. The sun begins to sink into the haze above the mountains, those blue-gray masses that layer one onto another, into the distance. The grandeur of our daily solar exhibition is a mere byproduct of an even more enormous set of forces. It reminds me that I am very, very small. But am I large enough to walk the path before me with courage, integrity, and style? I am enough to try.