Last week in the van when I was driving Liam to basketball practice, I asked him to check the calendar on my phone and confirm we were going to the right gym. When he opened my calendar, April was in view. I had spent that day with my son Will planning college visits for spring break. Liam was shocked, “Mom, you’re living so far ahead of yourself!”
And that was only what Liam saw on the calendar, never mind all the futuring going on in my head. Honest to Pete, that’s what it is… “futuring.” It’s as active a word as “googling.” Some of that brain power is spent in planning, but if I don’t have my calendar at hand, whether I’m driving or going for a walk or even in the middle of a conversation, I start futuring. Thinking about plans without actually making them.
Last week, the unsettledness from this verb that’s filled with mental calisthenics collided with the lack of a snowy winter. I’m a woman who thrives on the change of seasons — the routine and predictability of that change. My seasonal calendar paints the picture of January and February covered in white. But there is no snow on the ground. In Massachusetts right now, I’m living a cold version of an English winter. My surroundings are stranded in the dreariness of late November when all the grass is dead and the trees are leafless.
I tore this quote out of magazine last week; it’s from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America… “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” Indeed.
My snowshoes lay dormant as do my Yak trax, those spiky metal contraptions that I attach to my boots so that I can walk on frozen, icy terra. One cloudy, 40-degree morning last week, I pulled out my backpack that holds a reservoir of water linked to a hose that clicks neatly in place on the shoulder strap. On the end of the hose is a valve/mouthpiece for hands free drinking. I was going for a hike, not a walk, so I didn’t want a water bottle in one hand. Hiking means having both hands free to hold on to trees or crawl over rocks.
I knew the trail I needed: the rough one around the lower lake in Breakheart Reservation. I walk the paved path often, but I needed something else. I couldn’t put words to what that something was until I was on the path. The trail follows the water’s edge. As I started hiking, the futuring stopped. My eyes picked a path, scouting just six feet in front of me. My internal energies flowed to the physical movement over roots and rocks. If I let my mind wonder too far from these obstacles, I would trip and fall.
A quarter of a mile into this three-mile journey, I had a thought: coyotes. Hadn’t Bill just told me about a rabid coyote that had been spotted in this area? I cussed and scanned the rocks to my right. All was in sepia, so a still coyote would’ve blended in perfectly. Not ten paces from this thought, I saw a thick, short stick laying a few feet up the hill from the path. I climbed using all fours and grabbed it. Whether shed from another hiker or just dropped naturally in the right spot, it was the walking stick/weapon that I needed. The coyote futuring stopped as I continued on, trusting in my ability to ward of coyotes with this stick.
Nearly half way through the hike, I heard another hiker coming toward me. We were only ten feet apart before he finally realized I was there. He didn’t startle but rather greeted me with a calm, “Oh, hello!” As if we had just bumped into one another on a sidewalk. This man had a real walking stick and based on the intensity with which he walked, I knew he often hiked this trail. There was no evidence of futuring on his face.
I maneuvered over streams, around downed tree limbs, and over boulders. When the path occasionally vanished, I stopped to scan the terrain and look for a tree with a blaze marking the path. The splotch of paint was reaffirming: I was still on the path. Funny that I felt comforted by that splotch; after all, I was on a trail that ringed the lake. I couldn’t get too far off track. I stuck to the path until I completed a full loop; then I took an offshoot path through the woods that dropped me back onto the paved path near the parking lot.
Purposefully clambering over roots and rocks pulled me to the earth. Closer to where I was – not so far ahead of myself.