thispresentsojourn

Drive thirty-five miles an hour.  It seems a small task, but this sort of thing has been anything but that.  Maybe I ought to shoot for thirty-four.

Surely I can do thirty-four.

I pulled on the gravelway just as the sun was setting.  Grass spilled over and into the driveway so that it was difficult to tell where the gravel ended and the green began.  Some water stood in a puddle about six feet away.  It had rained this Easter morning, and I suppose I was a little disappointed by some ideal-led desire to see a new dawn on the day of New Dawn.

I hopped out of my car and started down the walkway.  This was a walkway I’d passed down no small number of times.

The spillway is a place of great personal meaning especially in terms of my thoughtlife, and it has been quite the assistant to seeking the discipline of Silence and of Slowing — neither of which have I been able to consistently practice well.  Many evenings last summer just as the sun had begun to dip below the horizon, I came here to seek the mind Right and the spirit Renewed. Petition, Pardon, and other sorts of same-Things I began to associate with this place.  Of course I probably will never not.

Carried by my thoughts, the walk was shorter than I’d remember, and soon I’d located my place — the direct center of half-mile-long concrete wall that boundaries White Rock Lake’s rippling current, sending it back into itself, cycling over and over with no sense of intelligible order save the moments it crashes hard onto the green shore, or, forms in ripples aside the current of the wind.

Of course a person can cause some disruption by tossing a stone through the surface, which spins circle upon circle upon circle upon circle until the diameter of each is so large that finally the shimmering black layer of glass smooths out and returns to its random cosmos.

Looking across from the spillway, I watch cars pass along Gaston Avenue — taillights that pierce long red nails of Reflection on the surface — which are quickly eluded by the grandfather oaks far off in the distance.  Though the sun is gone from plain sight at this time of day, it still spills some pink and purple pigment vertically into the western sky, leaving only traces of its power and reminders of the night’s mystery — when we anticipate a time the earth will be turned, the Sun will Rise, and no small thing will be left shrouded.

Some thunder screams in the distance, and not too long after a twig of lightning is thrust into a set of cumulus clouds, igniting them if only for a short bit, like the match that is struck against the flint but fails to ever grow completely into a flame.

A few meters below where my feet hang over the ledge and swing, the wall transforms into a slope, more than splitting in half the 90º angle into some 30º, which more easily transitions the concrete on into the water beneath.  Waves break more softly this way, of course, and during the day turtles and a few ducks may more easily rest on this slope to find the warmth of summer’s sun.  Other than these things, I’m not able to think of other reasons why the concrete would be engineered so, which is another reminder of how little I know.

Slowly, I usher my body down from the wall — down the few meters of steep — and stand on the slope.  It’s not the first time I’d done it, but after all, that was during the day.

I safely made it down, and my feet were positioned at an angle congruent to that of the slope.

Not too long a time had passed when I heard the scuffling of a few people on the walkway above, and a half-lit cigarette soared over my head, landing about 6 feet to the left of where I’m standing, which too is about 6 feet from the breaking of the white-crests on the concrete surface.  I sat down on the ground, and dug my feet into the surface to avoid slipping any, and watched the cigarette’s orange ember roll slowly down towards the water.  When it stopped on a pebble to the left of a weedy undergrowth, I was compelled to stand and to help it finish its journey into the water, where it would finally be extinguished and put to rest.  But I didn’t.

After around an hour of Hearing and Asking and these things, it’d grown a bit colder so close to the surface; it’s always a bit windier here than anywhere else.  It was also a bit more humid here than elsewhere, and my hands had become moist — if not from anxiety, then surely it was the humidity.

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I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be a long distance runner.  Maybe it’s that I’m better designed for middle-distance running.  Or powerwalking or something.  Last summer, I’d been disciplined enough to run upwards of six miles a day, here at this very spillway.  Some days were easier than others — for instance if my allergies were attacking or if I hadn’t had six shots of espresso or if my roommate wasn’t there to keep me accountable to my goal — a goal which was simply, run six miles every day.

I found while running a large number of truths about my-self — if not limited to the clarity of mind that such a physical undertaking produces or at least assists.

One simple but very telling piece running brought to light is that longer distances are more difficult when I am thinking about the distance.  I quickly learned that in order to continue in the discipline — to decrease my time each day and eventually reach better Health — then I needed to start focusing on the two foundational items that propelled me on: take a measured step at a time, and breathe.  And do these things well.

The biggest hindrance to my running — and perhaps why I could not keep to the task for however many years — is that I would be so caught up in the entire distance of the run that I would be limited in my ability to focus on the very things that characterized the very act of running — taking measured steps, and breathing.  And thereby ignoring (or, at worst, managing) the anxiety of some inability to breathe or to go on with the amount of burn that characterized my calves.

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I finally climbed back on to the wall where I have sat so many evenings (and upon which I’d set this very one), spun my body around at the top to face away from the lake, preparing to follow the long path up a hill and around the curve where my car silently rested.  The friction grinded my jeans, and offered some temporary heat beneath my thighs.

As I started on the path, I found myself walking very quickly, thinking about the distance ahead.  Looking at the Dallas Utilities Plant off in the distance.  I forced myself to readjust to a slower pace, which I rarely do, and decided for the next few moments to look down at the ground directly in front of me, and peering up ahead in small doses only to guarantee I wasn’t headed in the wholly wrong direction.

I want to feel like I’m entering a New phase, because I think the promise of growth and of movement would allow me to deal better or understand the immediate past.  But more than anything, it feels like a re-entry into something I’ve already experienced.  It feels strangely like I’ve acquired back something I’d already given up.

+

A watched pot indeed does not boil, and before I knew it I’d reached my car.  I typed 3-4-3-3-5 onto the electronic pad on my driver’s side door, and watched the space beneath my rear-view mirror illuminate.  I stepped in, welcomed by the scent of fresh pipe tobacco, and started the engine.  Driving on down West Lawther a bit, I pulled into a parking lot which accompanied a small marina, and made a U-Turn.

Thirty-four.

Surely I can do thirty-four.