August 16, 2003

• So instead of Discovery Park I went to St. Edwards state park and wandered around.
  
  On a tip, I took the south valley trail, which was extraordinarily beautiful. Part of why it was so beautiful was the quiet; the walls of the valley are as close to vertical as they can be in a place where the rains are mostly unceasing during the wet season, and the foliage soaks up any noise foolish enough to try to echo around.
  
  So it's quiet. Silent except for a faraway jetliner making a dull rumble barely audible over the sounds of my measured footsteps. Faint chirping from a nest far, far up in a tree. Squirrels and birds making minute noises amongst the ferns. I was in the most ancient forest ever discovered by humans, walking along a trail that had been there since before time began. The moss on the trees had always been there, and one could assume that the whole rest of the world was carpeted with trees and ferns and moss. And a silence from before there were humans to hear it.
  
  It was like this for about a quarter mile, half the length of the trail. I rounded a bend, into a place where another ravine joined the one I had been following. This ravine pointed straight to what once had been a Catholic seminary. There was a class reunion going on up there at the top, and someone was playing 'Feelings' on the amplified piano.
  
  Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. Trying to forget.
  
  Barry Manilow, it turns out, writes the songs that make the forest sing.
  
  I enjoyed it. It was surreal in the kind of way that makes me happy, and thankfully the music stopped soon and they began making toasts, which were far more bearable, and much more earnest than 'Feelings.'
  
  Soon made it to the mouth of the valley and waded around in Lake Washington. The water was exceptionally clear; I've seen it much more nasty in that spot. Seagulls and Canada geese were having turf wars out in the middle of the lake, so their exhultations drowned out what little of the reunion was still audible.
  
  Watched some little kids toss the ball to the dogs while their parents looked on.
  
  One kid was trying to play frisbee with his dad, but didn't quite understand how it worked, and he'd end up tossing it into the lake, or the woods, or someone's face.
  
  One of the dogs was terrified of the waves on the lakeshore. He would slowly advance toward the waterline, curious to see what it was, and when a wave would break he'd run for cover. You could see it in his eyes: The constant desire to stretch outside of one's boundaries.
  
  One of the down-sides (so to speak) of St. Edwards is that no matter what trail you hike, you'll have to hike back up to the top of the hill to leave. I decided to take the trail marked 'most difficult.' Har. As if.
  
  Admittedly, I was panting a little, and my heart was racing, and I probably looked like I was having a heart attack, but I took the opportunity to practice something like I to do when I'm out for a walk. It's modified from some lectures by Thich Nhat Hahn I once read, and an essay by William Burroughs called 'Do Easy,' and about ten thousand other obscure metaphysical sources. It goes like this:
  
  The feet and legs are spikes planted in the ground. The abdomen is a hoop, balanced on these spikes. The head is on a string, like a marionette, being pulled ever upward. The breath is a river that enters your mouth or nose, runs down the inside of your frontside, to your groin, around and up your spine, all the way up around the top of your head, and then down and out your mouth or nose.
  
  There is no task but to plant one spike in front of you, and then shift your weight to it. Then you plant the other spike. This goes on until there's a reason to stop; what that reason is doesn't matter at the moment. That reason could happen at any time; it could be before your next step, or it could be three days from now. There's only planting and shifting, planting and shifting. Even as you near the top of the hill, there's no top of the hill, no reason to stop paying attention to how you walk.
  
  And so, when I eventually got to the top of the hill, even though I was sweating and having to regulate my breathing, I was ready to climb another one. But I got in my car and came home instead.

  • 8:52 pm
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