Falling
Essay 20, Finite
by gayla mills
This Saturday I decided the dogs deserved more. More than the snippets of love they’d been getting from me when I happened to notice them. More than the shortened walks and the promises. So there we were on Buttermilk trail, which winds south of the river, hidden between the railroad trails and Riverside Drive. We often walked a portion of this trail, but today I planned to go farther west to the Nickel Bridge, roughly an hour round trip. Somehow those extra twenty or thirty minutes would make the whole day seem different.
Why, I wondered, did those few extra minutes matter? Maybe because I had consciously decided to spend the morning with these dogs of mine, not simply the amount required, but extra time we could simply enjoy together. It wasn’t to be a dog walk so much as an adventure, a time to just be.
And when I thought of it that way, I found myself noticing more of the world around me. It was a lovely fall day, a bit brisk, and I appreciated the light cotton gloves on my hands. The air was warm enough that it didn’t feel unpleasant, but cool enough that I didn’t miss my forgotten water bottles. The leaves were still mostly on the trees, clinging for a few more weeks, but their multicolored hues had softened. Some were ready to jump, but it was a leisurely trip they took to reach the ground, and I marveled at their gentle journey. Meanwhile the dogs leaped around me, sensing my mood and relishing the moment even more than I.
Here we were, on a glorious trail we had all to ourselves, and I had simply walked out my front door to reach it. It was almost too much to believe that I lived in a city and yet all this natural beauty lay so close—five hundred acres of wild parkland along the James River, in the heart of the city. How often did I fail to fully appreciate these walks we took? It had become simply another thing I did, on the alternating days when it was my turn to take the dogs, carving out time from my work day for this commitment I had made.
But today I breathed, then looked around. Fall can be so charming, with skies richly blued and filled with intense clouds full of feeling. Colors burst before fading. The wind picks up and makes us notice the air. Critters scurry in anticipation. Everyone runs around gathering nuts to munch on during the long cold days.
As I walked along that autumn path and felt the energy in the air, I also did my numbers. If all went well, I might have thirty or so fall seasons left. That seemed like not nearly enough. Only thirty? And what about those years when I was too busy gathering nuts to notice the leaves? Would those get subtracted from my thirty?
And so I watched more intensely as a yellowed leaf fell before me, then landed on a spot where it would no doubt decay and merge with the others that had fallen before it. The years lay in a soft carpet underfoot.
Maybe a deer would find it a pleasant resting place when the snows began to fall.
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Why, I wondered, did those few extra minutes matter? Maybe because I had consciously decided to spend the morning with these dogs of mine, not simply the amount required, but extra time we could simply enjoy together. It wasn’t to be a dog walk so much as an adventure, a time to just be.
And when I thought of it that way, I found myself noticing more of the world around me. It was a lovely fall day, a bit brisk, and I appreciated the light cotton gloves on my hands. The air was warm enough that it didn’t feel unpleasant, but cool enough that I didn’t miss my forgotten water bottles. The leaves were still mostly on the trees, clinging for a few more weeks, but their multicolored hues had softened. Some were ready to jump, but it was a leisurely trip they took to reach the ground, and I marveled at their gentle journey. Meanwhile the dogs leaped around me, sensing my mood and relishing the moment even more than I.
Here we were, on a glorious trail we had all to ourselves, and I had simply walked out my front door to reach it. It was almost too much to believe that I lived in a city and yet all this natural beauty lay so close—five hundred acres of wild parkland along the James River, in the heart of the city. How often did I fail to fully appreciate these walks we took? It had become simply another thing I did, on the alternating days when it was my turn to take the dogs, carving out time from my work day for this commitment I had made.
But today I breathed, then looked around. Fall can be so charming, with skies richly blued and filled with intense clouds full of feeling. Colors burst before fading. The wind picks up and makes us notice the air. Critters scurry in anticipation. Everyone runs around gathering nuts to munch on during the long cold days.
As I walked along that autumn path and felt the energy in the air, I also did my numbers. If all went well, I might have thirty or so fall seasons left. That seemed like not nearly enough. Only thirty? And what about those years when I was too busy gathering nuts to notice the leaves? Would those get subtracted from my thirty?
And so I watched more intensely as a yellowed leaf fell before me, then landed on a spot where it would no doubt decay and merge with the others that had fallen before it. The years lay in a soft carpet underfoot.
Maybe a deer would find it a pleasant resting place when the snows began to fall.
Back