Walking Weather

I think I’ve written before about how I spent this summer either gardening or hiding from the heat indoors. (It hit 30 C / 85 F all of a sudden at the beginning of the summer, and pretty much stayed there until the end of August, when it dropped suddenly.) We had a truly ridiculous tomato harvest from early August until the end of September, so that sucked up most of my outdoors time and energy.

But now the tomatoes are done (or at least all picked and ripening indoors). It’s well and truly fall…and for me, that means time to revisit my favourite nearby walks and seek out all the colours.

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Joining in with the #aseasonedconnection by @ulrika.maria.terese . No prompts, just noticing… • This past week, the beautiful fall weather has pulled me out of doors for walks. But not just the weather. My anxieties are rising again—the pandemic and politics both just keep getting worse—and that anxious energy has to come out somehow. So…I’m walking, and pausing, and noticing.

A post shared by Siri Paulson (@siripaulson) on Oct 1, 2020 at 7:01am PDT

I started walking just about on the fall equinox, and have kept it up pretty steadily for the two weeks since then…not every single day, but many of them. That’s new for me; I like walks but have never done them so regularly (not counting ten minutes here and there during the public-transit commute I don’t have right now).

Most of the walks are pretty short, twenty or thirty minutes, squeezed in at random times between work and other tasks. But I’m already noticing a physical difference–I will admit I’ve been feeling pretty creaky during this time of remote working, and I’m positive I’m too young to be creaky! The walks are also proving to be an excellent stress reliever and mindfulness tool…which I knew, of course, but it’s amazing how often one needs to be reminded. I often take photos along the way, which means there’s a creative component too.

It’s going to get trickier, as the weather gets worse and the days get shorter. I’m hoping that my new baby habit will carry me through. In Norwegian, there’s the saying “Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær!” which roughly translates to “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes!” (Side note: I had heard the expression in English and knew that it came from Norwegian, but didn’t actually know what it was in Norwegian until I looked it up just now. It rhymes! It’s so cute!) We’ll see how far I can get with that philosophy against the Toronto winter, which can get truly gross at times (but probably not as much of the time as I tend to think it does).

For now, though, we have days like this one. (Did I mention how much I love trees, the older the better?)

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#aseasonedconnection for October 4: Another walk today. It’s still early in the season here; lots of green yet. Walked a familiar route in a light drizzle, trying to expand my definition of “a lovely day for a walk” in preparation for winter. • Walked through a cemetery, was drawn off the track following foliage colours, and discovered this mighty giant of a Whomping Willow, probably as old as the cemetery itself. • I love old trees, for they have lived so much. This one must have been witness to so much grief, explosions of love with no place to go (hat tip to Jamie Anderson, whose words I am paraphrasing). Yet the mourners go away, the seasons flit by, and the tree still stands. I wonder if it feels the shift in the air, this time of year, as keenly as we do.

A post shared by Siri Paulson (@siripaulson) on Oct 4, 2020 at 6:55pm PDT

Until next time…just keep swimming! (Ha. Swimming’s good too.)