Quality Time

To continue: I went out on a five mile walk yesterday (May 25th) in the early afternoon. Let me tell you a little bit about it, and I hope you'll get an understanding as to why I love living where I do.

Like I mentioned previously, the road that runs directly by my house is a dead end road. Not a complete dead end, as one of those concrete barriers was put up to prevent people from driving further on up, and there was one last side street you can go down that will take you to whatever destination you were trying to get to.

As the nature of local politics and lawsuits go, another section was blocked off at the other end, to prevent people from traveling down the road as well. In essence, after fifteen years or so, you have a man-made nature path. The road has been reclaimed by Father Nature, with bushes, trees and various kinds of plant life.

As you walk up the street and through this particular section, a change really does come over you. Some people have a particular place they go to to unwind, relax and meditate. My particular place is this approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of a mile overgrown road. For me, it becomes my private little meditation area.

Really. When I walk through this area, whatever problems I got immediately melt away. There are times when I have just stood there for a few minutes, and experienced nothing but the sounds of birds and the breeze blowing through the mountain.

Continuing with my walk, I come out to the other side of the blockade, where the only signs of life is the local regional center for the moderately and severely developmentally disabled (please note, while I abhor PCness in all its despicable forms, this will be the only exception I will make). I then make my way past what used to be a hospital for children and down the side street. I still haven't hit any signs of people and I won't until I get to the center of town. Like most small towns around the area where I live, on Sundays it seems that everything goes into shutdown mode.

By the time I got to the center, is when I actually began to see people. Once I got out of the center, I was back to seeing very few people, but quite a few cars. Basically, the walks that I take are as about as close to quality time for myself that I can ever possibly get.

My walks let me clear my head, meditate, work on solutions to problems, work out writer's block, or just simply let my mind wander around while the body goes on autopilot. Where I live, I consider it a slice of heaven, because the small town/rural charm of the area, in the middle of hard core suburbia, simply can't be beat.