I’m in an odd sort of mood. I can’t recall how long it’s been since I’ve felt like this – pensive, thoughtful, with an edgy undercurrent. I used to feel this way a lot, or I think I did, back in my teens and early twenties. Most of those nights (occasionally days) were spent writing bad poetry or drawing strange pictures. Very rarely, I would try to put my thoughts down on paper – long, rambling monologues. I’ve long since lost those reveries, but their marks remain on my soul. Much of what I’ve become as a writer starts in those disjointed, random scribbles.
Recently, my creative urge just stopped cold. The fire is not out, I can still feel it, but it’s banked back – I have no access to it. I finally stopped trying to fan it back up, realizing that my brain probably just needed a break. So, I’m catching up on my reading, refinishing furniture, and spending time with family and friends. All these things are helpful – they add fuel to the reservoir. But I feel the need to do something else as well – I need to walk.
Whether it’s going out for a jaunt with the dogs and my wife, or taking a stroll on my own, I find walking to be relaxing, healthy and mentally energizing. Some of my best ideas and most creative impulses have come to me during a ramble. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I start out relaxed or tense, with an idea in mind or no mental activity worth the name. I’m quickly loose, warmed up and wandering in my thoughts as well as my shoes. If I walk out the door grumpy or angry, I’m usually fine after half a mile or so. But, if I’m not okay by the time I get back to my front door, I go around again. The quality of my thoughts also depends on the light.
Daytime walks are fun, relaxing, full of little questions and observations. When the sun is high (and not too hot), it’s the best time for social walking – with pets, friends and loved ones. Conversations are free and easy, and range all over. We have a park a couple of miles away where we take the dogs for a romp. It’s big and green and open – lots of other dog owners walk their dogs there. There’s a small pond with ducks and geese. Watch your step.
Nocturnal walks are very different. If taking the pooches, we have to be more vigilant – they’re both black and disappear quickly in the gloom. But I really prefer to walk alone at night, even if I don’t go very far. I rarely take a flashlight, because I live in the suburbs, and the streetlights are everywhere. This is the kind of walk I take if I want to unwind after a long day, or if my brain is all a-rattle with issues and questions. But there is another kind of nighttime walk.
If I’m out away from the city, whether camping or just escaping the noise of a communal campfire, I sometimes take a walk in the dark, usually by myself. I take a flashlight, but I try not to use it. Man-made light ruins your dark adaption, so it’s hard to see the stars when you switch it off. I don’t see the Milky Way often enough. But it’s also hard to see the nighttime world around you, whether the light is on or off. This blue-grey world of dim shapes and deep shadows only appears when your eyes have adjusted to a world without artificial light. And it brings with it a whole host of wilder, deeper and darker thoughts.
You come in contact with primal fears while walking in darkness. Whether in woodland or desert surroundings, your base impulses start to grasp at every sound, trying to make sense of what you hear. Then your sense of smell goes into high gear, trying to categorize the world around you. At a feeble, logical level, you ‘know’ there are no cougars or madmen in the area, and the snakes will all try to avoid you – but that is not what you feel. For the first ten minutes or so, your poor, over-civilized brain will scream at you to return to the others, to go back to the tent, to turn around, damn it! Then you step into a pool of moonlight.
The moon, when close to full, is almost unbearably bright to look at. It blocks out the stars. Sometimes there is a ring around the moon. Again, the logical brain has an answer for these apparitions, but the primitive feeling of awe overwhelms it. You begin to understand why the Moon has always been seen as a goddess. The night terrors recede. The world is suddenly magical and strange again.
The world seen in moonlight does not look like the same place in daylight. All the colors are different. Trees and rivers and grasslands are misty and slightly out of focus. The shadows are sharp and black. The mountains seem carved out of ice. You can hear the sound of running water, even if you can’t see the stream. Owls call each other from the surrounding trees. The world seems to be holding its breath and you catch yourself doing the same. Rather than thinking creative thoughts, or scary or even angry thoughts, you find yourself simply soaking up the night and the breeze, the moonlight and the stillness.
Eventually, you return to the fire, you return to the tent or the camper. You return to other people and the civilized way. But you have changed. No great themes or ideas have come to you, but you are not the same. You can never return to a humdrum, slightly anesthetized, average everyday way of being. For a moment, you have touched the wild, and it has touched you. Welcome to the first step on the road to real Freedom. There is so much more to discover.
Be well.
bcd