I Walk with Beauty

"As I walk, I walk with beauty."  from Prayers and Remembrances, Stephen Paulus

For years I wanted to through hike the Appalachian Trail.  That desire has passed. Because of my age and love of all thing comfortable, I know that I will never do that. I do, however, follow the AT vicariously by reading stories and trail journals of those who do make the trek.

Over the years I have hiked portions of the AT and have gotten a feel for what that hike might be like. Short of such experience, I have hiked and backpacked numerous times. Over the years I  have followed my feet, as Frederick Buechner says, through streams, valleys, mountains, woods and inviting wooded roads. Many of these hikes rewarded me with incredible vistas. and all of them afforded me much needed communion with nature and good exercise.

The longest hike I ever took was a two-day twenty-eight mile hike near the Shiloh Civil War Battefield, Tennessee.  Each day we hiked seven miles in the morning and after lunch hiked seven more in the afternoon. My Boy Scout troup, Troup 99, had traveled by school bus from Enterprise, Alabama to a campground there when I was twelve years old.  Since it was April and the temperature was in the high 70s in Enterprise, the only coat I packed was a thin windbreaker.  When  we arrived at the campground it was twenty-eight degrees. I put on everything I had packed and kept it all on for most of the trip. I was still cold, but I survived. Both days were beautiful days and the hike was extraordinary.  Even as a kid I could appreciate beauty and wonder.  I was  very glad that I had packed a long-sleeved flannel shirt  and that windbreaker. The combination of three undershirts, those outer garments, the warmth of the sun and the engine of my own body's warmth meant that I was not only not miserable, but was quite comfortable.

Something rather unfortunate happened the first night we were there. One of the first rules of scouting is to put out your campfire completely before leaving the site.  When my tent mate and I left the campsite for dinner, apparently we didn't do that.  We returned to the campsite to find our tent half gone. And there were white splotches on our sleeping bags. A scout from a neighboring campground explained that when they saw the tent on fire, they put it out with their hot chocolate. We cleaned up the marshmallows off the sleeping bags that had miraculously survived intact and slept under the stars for the duration of the trip. Considering how cold it was, that experience was not all good. But it wasn't all bad either.

But I digress,. I was talking about hiking. It's unfortunate that we, as human beings tend to do, compartmentalize things.  This is good. This is bad. This is enjoyable. This is not. This is meaningful. This is not. Because of that we often live our days wanting to be somewhere that we are not, wanting to be doing something that we are not doing.  As important as it is for me to spend time on trails and in the woods, I am trying to learn to enjoy following my feet wherever they take me.  I am  learning that walking from my car to the front door of Walmart can be a richly satisfying experience.  Outside and inside I find numerous people who can't walk at all. Because of physical issues or their size, the power chairs are about their only means of getting around.

I enjoy walking from my car to the entrance of our local shopping mall.  It's a far cry from the Appalachian Trail, but quite often my feet find me in Barnes and Noble which also houses a Starbucks. I pull a somewhat random book off a shelf, buy a large Americano, no cream,  and settle down with both.

I enjoy walking from my house to the mailbox.  I usually just find a bill, a prospectus from a mutual fund and two or three credit card solicitations, but occasionally it's a greeting card from a friend or a book from Abebooks.  As Dan Fogelberg says, you just never know what you're  going to find in your mailbox.

I so enjoy walking from the parking lot to the NICU. When I get to the locked door I ring the buzzer. If I was a parent the nurse would ask who I'm there to see. In my case she just opens the door. They were expecting me. It feels really good to be expected there. Really good.

I have a long way to go before I'm "self-actualized" as Herman Maslow suggested, but I am learning that the beauty  is not in the Appalachian Trail or in Zion Canyon, the beauty is in me.  I don't have to walk to beauty; I can walk with beauty.  And beauty walks with me.

As you have noticed, while I am scratching up my thoughts and feelings here, I am usually listening to beautiful music.  This morning I chose to listen to the works of Stephen Paulus. I was introduced to his music in a rather profound way about fifteen years ago. His music has become a touchstone of beauty and deep peace for me. Spotify just cycled to his Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, Three Places of Enlightenment. Since it's instrumental music and I do not know where those three places are, I will suggest  three places of my own--1. My back deck with a cup of coffee or an IPA. 2.The NICU and 3. This spot where I am sitting. How I so enjoy this spot where I am sitting. It waited for me nearly thirty years.

Every one of those Appalachian Trail hikers talk about places and moments that make all the danger and discomfort that they have experienced worth the walk.  I have no doubt that their testimony is true. And I wish them well on their journey. On the other hand, when I get out of my car at Walmart I I feel the warmth of the sun combined with the cool spring air against my face. I see a bird flying by from wherever birds come from to wherever birds go. I smell Taco Bell. I don't eat at Taco Bell but it smells pretty good. I lock the door of my car with a button on the handle. I don't even need my key. And I walk.  There were about eighteen months or so of my life when I didn't know how to do that. But somewhere, probably 102 Glenn Street or our house at Laguna Beach, Florida, I took one awkward, wobbly step and fell back down on my  diapered butt. But I had learned to walk.

I won't always be able to walk. I'll need help getting into Walmart. And I'll need one of those power chairs. I won't be walking to the mailbox. I won't be hiking any wooded trails. But because a younger me had learned to walk in  beauty, I'll be exactly where I want to be. And when I get back home, I'll sit down and I'll remember, I hope to God I can remember. I'll remember when those Boy Scouts walked from their campsite to mine and put out the fire on my tent with their hot chocolate. And I'll chuckle to myself and be very content.