Two days after going away and then returning from a week-long trip to the Enchanted Isle that is Puerto Rico, I finally went out walking my few acres of property.
Guess what? I kept finding new paths, new bits of nature I hadn’t experienced before. I discovered small plants, large trees with small budding spring leaves, diverse fungi, scattered tracks of deer and rabbits and dogs, the mazes of forest paths carved out by animals not in any particular hurry to go in a perfectly straight line. I was surprised by the songs of new birds I’ve never heard before. And the thought struck me: I could look through huge tracts of national parks and national forest and eco preserves, and discover all the diversity of nature I’d never seen before. And, yes, all these things are wonderful, but then this realization hit: It would also be okay just to spend my time in this small area, exploring what’s right in front of me.
Going Away, Coming Home
I wondered how many times we go abroad or overseas, or even drive away for a day trip or a weekend, and look for new and different things, and wonder at the magnitude and the diversity and the beauty of the world, when we haven’t really stepped off our front porch and wandered through our own yards and listened to the birds and the babbling creek and the lake’s waves and the wind through the trees and the rustling and waving leaves and grass. We haven’t heard the buzz of the bees or smelled the scents of the flowers that are blossoming all around us.
Although traveling and admiring the world’s beauties is truly wonderful, eventually we must pack up our bags, put our stinky wet and muddy hiking shoes in a plastic sack, throw them in the back of a trunk or in the belly of a plane, and get back to the real world. Our world. And we leave that awesome place that was so full of magic and wonderment, hoping to return, but who knows if we ever will? And we come back to our own yard and our own house and our own space and we plop down exhausted in the our bed, and start dream and planning out our next exotic trip.
But what if we plop exhausted into our bed, and then, early the next morning, we get up and travel out our front door and step down our well-worn and familiar steps and walk all the way around our house and listen to the birds greet the sunrise and discover the buzz of the bugs and smell the blossoms that are growing outside of our own front door.
Because, after all, how big was Walden, anyway?
For more reading:
You might check out some of my going away experience creative writing / poetry postings at CyranoWriter.com/Creative.
I’m also posting reviews and suggestions of travel, art, museums, dining out and more elsewhere on this blog, in Reviews of the South.
