Takin’ A Walk

Less than a block from my front door I run into a neighbor, clumping down the sidewalk in one of those surgical boots. He tells me he’s had three foot surgeries in the past year, and that now his entire foot below the ankle has been fused.”Might have made my last tele turn,” he says.

Two blocks further along, I stop in to see a friend who recently slipped on some slickrock on a side hike from the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. He fell about ten feet into a shallow pool, landing hard on his heels and ripping both of his quadriceps tendons off of his patellas. He was evacuated and is now gimping around straight-legged with the aid of a walker, fighting off depression, and looking at a prolonged recovery.

I walk on, roaming the streets and trails around town for a couple of hours. Recent snow coats the greening grass. Creeks are coming up, still clear and cold. Willow branches glow with an almost shocking neon yellow-green of the season. Chickadees sing their two-note song. Red-winged blackbirds breee in the wetlands. A nuthatch sounds that nasal honk. The winds gust from the east, strong and bitter, despite the sunny morning. Frayed cattails nod in the breeze. Everything has an air of pent expectancy.

No phone. No earbuds. Just in my head, meditating to the cadence of my steps, thoughts roaming and fitful and spontaneous. More than anything, grateful that all I have to complain of is being blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, with some fitful back pain and knobby feet.

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