New trails and new spaces

My friend D. joined Ellie and me on our walk yesterday.

I'm so grateful he did. If he hadn't joined us, we probably would have taken our normal route. Gone to our normal park. Walked along our normal trails.

Instead, we drove across the city to our favourite Park -- a park we always walked when we lived on the other side of the river. But moving here, we're closer to the Weaselhead -- and seldom venture miles away to Nose Hill Park.

I was grateful for Ds presence. We wanted through rolling hills and windswept plains. Waist-high prairie grasses blowin' in the wind. Thistles tall and prickly.

Ellie pranced ahead. Stopping to sniff. To look back. "Are you coming? Are you coming?"

We passed only a handful of people.

We sat on a ridge, sun hot upon our faces. I played Vaughn Williams, "I heard the lark ascending" on my Iphone and we meditated in the late morning light. I was grateful D. goes to the same meditation group as me. No explanation necessary. No feeling of 'he'll think I'm crazy' for wanting to sit, eyes closed, surrounded by tree dressed up for fall, meditating on a hillside.


We did well. Until two young boys burst through the trees. Mounted on mountain bikes they careened down the hillside beside us. Ellie growling and barking. Brakes screaming. Laughter. They dropped their bikes at the bottom of the gully. Ran up the side of the small knoll in front of us. Inspected a discombobulated bike hanging from a tree.


I wondered about the rider who ditched their bike to the elements. Broken apart, they'd hung it in pieces like a sculpture adorning several branches.

I hadn't noticed it when D. and I had first sat down in Ellie's and my 'secret' spot.

Like so many things in life -- I don't notice them until someone points them out. And then, through their wonder I see the wonder.


This is my favourite park -- 280 hectares of sprawling hills and plains. I am intimate with so many of its trails, yet yesterday, D and I ventured on a new trail through the trees I'd never before explored.

When I came home, I worked all afternoon into the evening creating an artspace in our basement.

I am happy.

I wonder what creations will appear from this space where I can work and leave my work in situ as I create.

I wonder...

(And yes, this is a different format for me - I'm trying something new!) :)