It’s been nearly two months now since my morning commute was made dramatically shorter, although I still make most of it on foot–it’s just now a matter of feet instead of a matter of miles, and some mornings for old times’ sake I do still go out and sit in the car for about half an hour. I’ve also been trying to get out and exercise some daily, mostly walking, but I realized I need to change my usual path through the backyard because I was wearing away the grass and I was starting to wear mud on my feet when I came back into the house. And I’m okay with the occasional change. It keeps the mind alert, and I’ve been amused by the complaints from so many people that their days are running together into a mind-numbing samelessness. I find that if you stay alert and mindful to the present you can be aware to how every moment is different; even walking back and forth down the same short path small differences become clear from one moment to the next.
So anyway as I was saying I’m completely clueless to most of the differences, mostly because I walk along listening to music or podcasts, although I do notice some things, like this:
I’m familiar snakes, from the pet garter snake I had as a teenager to the ones I’ve caught in my neighbor’s yard and moved to a safer spot in the woods behind our houses. So I decided to move this one too. She was right in the middle of the yard. My first thought was that I wanted to move her to a spot where she’d be safe from the dogs. She turned out to be pretty fierce, though, striking and hissing at me, and I realized I’d better get her out of the way to protect the dogs. It was a not so subtle change.
Yikes….snakes reptilian or human, yuck!
Oh, I’d take reptilian snakes over human ones any day. The reptilian ones at least do some good. They eat rats…although not usually human rats.
You were kneeling WAY too close for that shot, for my comfort. 😮
Don’t tell me you’re afraid of snakes. I’m an old hand with serpents having handled quite a few. I even had a pet snake as a kid. True story: a couple of guys were installing carpet in our house and one of them–a big bald guy with a Mister Zero t-shirt–saw it and told my Mom, “Lady, if that thing gets loose we’re outta here.”
Thanks for staying alert and mindful to the present, Chris.
Thank you–your daily blog helps keep me mindful.