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Tag Archives: hiking


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wisdom of the stanchion. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

one of the coveted front spots beckoned. it is pretty unusual to arrive at this grocery store and for there to be a front spot open. we don’t mind walking from afar but when it’s 150 degrees out with humidity tilting the charts – and you don’t personally have central air conditioning – and you just came from a hike where you nearly melted into the gravel in the parking lot – you take the coveted front spot because from there to the door of the pretty bitterly cold air-conditioned store is merely steps. steps, i say! i pull littlebabyscion into covetland and start to jump out of the car – ok, slither is more like it – when i see the sticker on the stanchion in front of the covetedspot.

“you are beautiful”

in this moment – when my hair is plastered to my head, my lake-geneva-tjmaxx eddie bauer first ascent sun protection UPF50 lightweight moisture-wicking trail guide capris are two-way-stretch-stuck to me, my injinji coolmax no-show toe-socked-toes are screaming for freedom, my eyes are watering from coppertone spf 50 dripping down my forehead – unchecked by my meager blonde eyebrows – into my eyes – which makes my nose kinda run – and i look wrung out, not at all fresh or pressed or glowing from being outside and from having exercised – i do not feel beautiful.

“you are beautiful”

i laugh aloud, get my phone and schlither myself somewhat-debris-flow-ish out of the car and to the front of littlebabyscion so as to take a photograph of this sticker, prolonging by at least 45 seconds my entry into the much-anticipated cool-dom of the store. two young girls are walking by – looking fresher and definitely tan and glowing – while i position my camera. i’m pretty sure they were wondering why this melted woman was taking a picture of the metal post in front of her car.

i take a closer look as i get ready to click.

below the sticker that reads “you are beautiful” is another sticker. this one says “visitor” with a smiley face as the “o”. sheesh. i nod. i soooo feel like a visitor to this place. particularly right now. and i’m not talking about this grocery store. everything that is happening is hard to understand, to grok, to even slightly wrap my head around.

visitor. yep.

because what i really believe – in my rainbow-bubbles-sunrise girl kind of way – is that if we could all embrace each other – respect each other – treat each other kindly and with equality – rights, privileges, care and concern – if we could really truly look at the words “you are beautiful” and believe these words about all people – all people – regardless of any – any – differences – we could stand a chance of survival.

anything less makes us visitors to a land of ill intent, a land of corrupted souls, a land of immorality and sociopathic narcissism. and nothing about that is beautiful. we are privy to that.

nevertheless, i show my photograph to david as we walk into the store.

“you are beautiful”

he gets a cart and stops for a second. he looks at me and says, “you are.”

i hook my arm through his – as he begins pushing the cart toward the baguette aisle – and – for these moments of freon/puron/HFC/HFO/other-refrigerant-bliss – all is right in the world.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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sage the morning glory. [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

we hike along this trail often, so often we know it well, its curves and windy way through the trees, the meadows, the boggy areas, the marshland near the river. only when we go earlier in the day do we see the morning glory. only when the sun is not too high in the sky are these beauties wide open, begging for attention on this, their day.

morning glory blossoms only last one day. they bloom in the early morning and by late afternoon have closed their fragile petals. the star in the middle of the glorybloom is stunning, the vine winds willy-nilly through the underbrush.

i always feel fortunate to be witness to the morning glory, though i am haunted by a song about morning glories that i cannot remember and haven’t ever spoken about. it was written by a man who stole morning glory moments from young women – from me – in vile self-serving predatory hunger.

i can hear the strains of finger-picked guitar, the croon of his easy, practiced singing voice. i know the lyrics ‘morning glory’ are in the lyrics of the song – i can practically taste it every single time we pass morning glory. but i cannot come up with the song and, since it was probably not published, i likely won’t be able to find it so it remains amorphous but potent.

and now, passing the pink and white glory holding hands and stepping together, i think it is probably time to sage the morning glory. it is time to exhale, to ease my mind into different lyrics – like the lyrics john denver sang in the song today, the lyrics of gentleness, of soft reverence for the other, of sweet love, of gratitude and appreciation, of new dawn, of fleeting time, of presence.

“today while the blossom still clings to the vine/i’ll taste your strawberries, i’ll drink your sweet wine/a million tomorrows may all pass away/e’er i forget all the joy that is mine today.” (today – randy sparks)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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of being alive. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

when you hike a trail a lot, it becomes a member of the family. like when you recognize something has changed – someone had a haircut, someone has new glasses, someone has lost weight, someone looks tired – it is no different. the trees have leafed, the underbrush has been knocked over, the game trail is tamped down, the may apple has flowered, the wild geranium is prolific, the river is high, the river is low, the turtles have come out, the beaver dam is bigger.

we talk about our river trail a lot because we hike it a lot. though we’d prefer it to be different, we see it more than we see any member of our family.

this particular day – when the sky was a perfect sky-blue, when the river was high enough to cover the logs where the turtles sun, when purple fleabane budded next to its white-daisy-bloom predecessor, when the great blue heron joined the cranes flying the river, when the color green had more hues than any person might imagine – this day was a reminder of how well we knew this trail, its turns, the gifts of the familiar and the magic of the unexpected.

and there is this high spot on the trail where we stand and look out over the meadow, over the marsh, over the river. and i stood – still – looking at where the trees met the sky, all glorious, listening to the sounds on the breeze, feeling the sun on my face and my feet on the ground – standing still – and felt the insanity of being alive.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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tiny nails. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“may i be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.” (mary oliver)

it was astounding. we were on a hike and heard a crack in the woods. we looked to our left – where the sound had come from – and watched a towering tree fall onto the forest floor. powerful. humbling. just stunning to witness.

naturally, we looked it up – is there meaning to being the sole persons witness to a tree falling in the woods?

in what would seem narrative written for the moment, these words: transformation, renewal, release, resilience, cycles of life, interconnectedness, impermanence.

we sat – later – on our deck – and talked about these words.

the experience of something so rare fell right in line with another experience we had this week. for the first time while hiking, we encountered a bobcat. the big cat was on the trail and watched as we approached. it didn’t take too long before it glided into the underbrush, over toward the river. but it left us just as stunned. such an elusive creature.

and…at a time when looking for meaning in what is going on around us seems so difficult…we wondered, is there any? we found that our very rare bobcat sighting was a reminder to acclimate to shifting circumstances, to embrace change, seize new opportunities, to thrive though all that is ever-unfolding.

now, that’s two stunning events in less than a week. i might say we are paying attention. we have been present to the rare; we pay homage.

so as we carry on here – doing the best we can to be tiny nails – to make a tiny difference, our theme song is one of adaptation. in variations on the theme we do what we can to seek new beginnings, to shore up our inner strength, to be useful, to be aware of the profound impermanence of it all.

to be witness in, to and with the universe.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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gnarly. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“ooh child, things are gonna get easier

ooh child, things’ll get brighter

ooh child, things are gonna get easier

ooh child, things’ll get brighter

some day, yeah, we’ll put it together and we’ll get it undone

some day when your head is much lighter

some day, yeah, we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun

some day when the world is much brighter…”

(“ooh child” – stan vincent 1970 the five stairsteps)

it is hard for me to avoid. i simply cannot help it. or maybe i just can’t resist the impulse.

we play rummikub every monday and thursday with 20 after we share dinner together. and – every single time – something one of them – d or 20 – says, makes me break into song.

we were talking about the obvious – you know – the state of our country. it was in an unusual fit of optimism. it was right after we talked about bernie sanders and aoc and the pushback of intellectually woke people against authoritarianism etc etc etc (i know you hear that line now – from the king and i – uh-huh, uh-huh – etc etc etc).

it had been a week since we had seen 20 (which is also unusual) and much had happened – on both sides – so there was a lot to talk about.

in that week we had found a different trail. it wound its way through a rural landscape and we enjoyed its newness. and then there was this tree. one sturdy old gnarly oak in the forefront of a blank field. stunning. perhaps a hundred years old. perhaps more. its silhouette against the sky so intense, strikingly gnarly in a good way.

we have such an appreciation for these lands of space through which we hike. we have hiked out east, down south, out west, up north. we’ve hiked in county parks, state parks, national parks. we dream of thru-hiking one day on one of the national trails. we hold these places in high regard, grateful for the glorious beauty, the potential for peacefulness, the celebration of the wild.

and so our conversation of late and of that night – of course – is also about the threat to these places (in addition to all the other gnarly-extremely-twisted corrupt threats of the administration too long to list or even grok in any conscience-based way.) we talked about our new forest preserve hike and we talked about national parks. and it feels sickening inside to think of the decimation of any of this. and all for the wealth of the wealthiest.

in the middle of our rummikub game – me…stuck with gnarly chips – a double of black 13s and a double of 1s and the grasp of the plastic trophy seeming bleak – and in the middle of the accompanying punctuations of news-chaos-of-the-day conversation – it suddenly came to mind, rose to the top.

the song ooh child was written about times of strife.

i started singing.

and hoping.

that some day we – this broken country – will put it together and get it undone. and then we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun – when the world is much brighter.

they rolled their eyes, poking fun at the records spinning in my brain. and, for a few minutes, we all laughed.

and then the lyrics sank in…

…sigh.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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streamers. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

though we love-us (as they say) a familiar trail, we found a new trail to hike recently.

it was a really windy day and we set out knowing we would not-know what we might find along the way. that – in itself – is one of the gifts of hiking. even on trails we know like the back of our hands.

i knew being a minister of music like the back of my hand. and, as the easter holiday just passed by, i thought a lot about the 35 or so easters for which i had been responsible – the decades i had shaped the music of these seasons. i always believed it was my job to help people connect to that which they could not see – thus, ultimately, to touch faith, to touch love.

a dearest friend of ours retired this past week. with great joy, we celebrated his new freedom and listened as he told about the party his colleagues had thrown for him. he told of their stories, their comments, their appreciation – it was a powerful validation for him and for all the time and energy and life he had spent working in that place. he finished with a flourish – full of affirmation – ready to walk into next. one door closed, others ready to be opened.

it brought up personal grief.

for my very last days – of that career – one of the professions in which i used my knowledge of music – that spanned three and half decades – these days were not lined with validation or gratitude or even a nod of thanks. instead – for me – they were fraught with being fired, what felt like a plethora of undistilled meanness, full of unanswered questions, betrayal and shock and – then – absolute quiet. an assault.

i never finished. there was no brunch, there were no casseroles, no sheet cake, no jello mold. there was no t-shirt, no mug to carry off and use each morning, warmed by the memories of time spent.

this was an awakening.

i suddenly realized that i wasn’t done.

for all the sorting and cleaning and throwing out, there was still something incomplete.

there was no flourish; there was no affirmation.

this was an epiphany.

since i can’t go back literally, there is something in me that wishes to find a way to closure. maybe it is to go back to this place we found on this new trail. to this gate that stands in the messy field of wild grasses next to the birch tree just a bit back from the meadow. maybe if i lift up that gate and just step – even just one step – into what is past it – what is on the other side – maybe it might feel – in some metaphorical-retirement-party-crepe-paper-streamers-strewn way – like there was a little flourish. that i will grant myself the validation, the affirmation – the acknowledgment of a great deal of dedicated time of my life – that others tore from me, disregarded – that i will know – deep inside me – that i gave that place – and all the 35 years in that particular spoke of my sedimentary-layered life of music – giant pieces of my creative soul and that i can finally – finally – leave the familiar behind and get about the new. whatever their agenda or issues – in an end that was not of my choosing – it should not detract from my own celebration of me.

i will never be a minister of music again. that part of my life – that arrow of dedication of the music within me – has finished. and – i was damn good at it. i understood it. i knew it like the back of my hand.

and now it’s time for a new trail.

right after i pull down all the streamers and toss them out.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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the woods. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it had been two years. two years plus since we last hiked there. after the woods added a high ropes/adventure course we were less inclined to go there, less eager to go hike its trails. the tranquil quiet was interrupted with the sounds of groups on the contrived course, the echoes of planned adventure bouncing off ancient trees and the forest floor.

but the other day – on a blue-sky-slightly-warmer-less-windy day – we decided to go back. because it is still merely early-spring, the course wasn’t yet open, though the staff was there training. one of the guys – suspended in a harness on lines high above us – called down to us, telling us how happy he was to spend the day in the woods.

we set out on our trail, a bit eager to see how things might have changed, how the familiar might be a bit less familiar after so many seasons had passed.

seeing this much-trod-in-the-past place was sheer joy. there is something about knowing the bend in the path, something about knowing where the tiny ponds are tucked in the woods, something about knowing certain trees and where the green glow might be starting.

we took our news-weary eyes and placed them – instead – on the roots crossing the trail, on the rise and fall of our breathing. we focused on spring arriving in the woods in this place where we have spent so much time.

we were – gloriously – nowhere else for a couple hours.

“and into the forest i go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” (john muir)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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the truth of the cattail. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the sun was getting lower in the sky and was shining through the marsh as we walked past. we hadn’t hiked a long distance that day – only about five miles or so – but we had started late and it was time to mosey home and think about making dinner.

the shadows on the path ahead made me grab my camera to capture a picture. cattails.

their shadows so clear it left little doubt as to what they were, the cattails punctuated the gravel as the end of the trail led up to the trailhead. patterns across the path were spaced like college-ruled spiral notebooks or full and half rests scribed on staff paper.

throughout our hike i kept drawing attention to our shadows on this beautiful blue-sky-sunny day. they changed from a short-stumpy pair of people to two elongated-legged tall people. in every moment, clearly – people. those two people were us, but – were those shadows stamped in time – you could only tell that we were people. nothing more.

what will the shadows of this time look like, later on down the road? when the sun has completely set on a day when the values of this country are no longer upheld, how will those shadows appear? will they show the truth of all this malfeasance? what does corruption look like in a shadow? what do greedy, evil, soulless humans (and i use the term ‘humans’ loosely) look like in their shadows? can you tell they are greedy, evil, soulless?

there is no way to tell – by looking at the shadows of these cattails – the state of their inner being, the truth of the cattail. should we really wish to know we must be careful to discern their health or dis-ease by examining them more closely. we must be willing to know more about cattails and measure their well-being by applying this knowledge. we cannot simply look at their shadows – and not look at them, their environment and their impact on that environment – to determine their vigor, their fitness, their soundness, their dedicated synergy with the rest. the shadows don’t tell the story of stagnant water, dying ponds or an over-abundance of cattails toxically crowding out ecosystems, the risk of flooding or being a prime pest habitat, a dangerous breeding ground of illness.

we must be willing to look at the cattails for what they are, what they represent, how they are sharing space. we must be willing to discern their true impact – good or bad. we must look at the cattails themselves and not their shadowy shadows. anything less could kill the marsh and forever pollute the pond.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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slow-blinking with the opossum. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

it seemed to trust us as we approached on the trail. this sweet opossum calmly stayed where it was even as we got closer. eventually, it ambled into the brush nearby, but, still, really close. we spoke to it in hushed tones, trying to reassure it that we meant no harm. i took a couple of photographs as it slow-blinked at me from under some grasses. it was a wonderful start to our hike, grounding us and pushing worries back.

“get outside!” kristy always ends the wander women video with this directive. she and annette have created a lifestyle of activity, of the outdoors, of community, of simple values. i’d venture a guess that we could be fast friends. they do not concern themselves with fashion or decorating trends or competition or vast material possessions. instead, their living is based on the certainty of mortality – of doing the best they can, the most they can, exploring and tapping all the goodness out of each day.

we were at REI the other day. we pored over backpacks and all-things-trail-friendly. we studied sunshirts and sleeping pads. i purchased two pairs of toe socks for hiking – my toes have issues with each other inside my hiking boots so we are hoping that these will help – in lieu of bandaids and walking funny. we are dedicated to our trails, even the local ones. tapping as much goodness out of each day seems a good plan, particularly in light of all the uncertainty that surrounds us.

i’m not sure how we could handle everything going on in the world if we did not get outside. even cold wind in our faces makes us feel more alive, more centered than anything else might. these days of beautiful weather have been gifts and – for a few minutes here or there – have helped us to set aside our worries and angst about the direction of this country.

i happen to know – really – that the sweet opossum did not have the same fixation on the state of the nation. it merely had basic needs to be met…safety being one of the most basic.

i suppose we are much like this critter. from somewhere high above – looking down at us – we probably look much the same. cautiously watching as others approach, trying to discern whether or not they are safe or if they pose a threat. retreating to the underbrush, slow-blinking at the intruders – still trying to discern their intent, whether or not they will interact.

it sounds a lot like going to the grocery store these days.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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evidence. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

there is something deeply rewarding about hiking on a snow-covered trail.

at any moment, you can turn around and see evidence of your having been there, evidence of your passing-through. there is no question. you have been there.

for us, the imprint of our hiking shoes meshed with a couple other boots, hoof prints of deer, tiny handprints of raccoons, the triangular prints of bunnies, the familiar prints of squirrels with a few dog paw prints and horseshoes. we had all passed by. separately. together. in community.

in the quietude of the snowscape, we pushed on a bit further. it had been a bit since we had been hiking outside – the weather was frigid and there were other things on our plate. but the peacefulness of the woods, the partially-frozen river, the familiar wind of the trail kept us going on this day.

though there is less variation in color on this winter’s day, there are innumerable textures and the fine differences in muted tones are peaceful, surrounding us in hushed comfort – like an old quilt – despite the cold wind.

this particular trail is an out-and-back. and so, we encountered our own footprints in every turn of the path on our way back. anyone hiking after us would wonder who had walked before, just as we wondered the same.

arriving at the trailhead and then littlebabyscion we were tired. but ever reminded that we each choose our path. we choose what to leave behind – our prints on the world – our existing – from the boots we wear to the care we have for all else on our path. we are cohabitants on this good earth. it is up to each of us us to sustain mutual respect in the all-too-finite.

there will be some evidence of our passing-through. it is my hope that what we leave – in the snow, in the dirt, in any wake we leave from our time here – will be as peaceful as this muted winter day on our trail.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

INSTRUMENT OF PEACE – mixed media 48″ x 91″

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