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| Lisboa Morning Light |
Walking in this morning there’s a slow steady rain. Light
precipitation not enough to stop me from putting in the work to get five miles
in a day, but it is a pain. About a quarter of the way in I walked by about 10
middle school age kids standing huddled together waiting for the bus. These pre
and early teens are subdued today. Usually they’re joking, pushing, laughing, jostling
or staring at their phones but nary a smart phone light is to be seen in this
black misty early morning. Further, they are silent as monks. The drizzle today tamps down life.
A couple carrying two golf umbrellas are walking their
pooch. He’s decided to relieve himself. I don’t look back to see if they use
the little blue bag is required here to pick up his waste. It is bad enough they must get up to take the
dog out, on a day like this, they don’t need silent judgment.
I’m thinking about the next post I want to do for my blog.
I’ve been silent for so long. When I’m not writing experiences and thoughts
out, things seem to drift out of focus. Writing clarifies my mind. Writing
purifies my thoughts. I’d say purifying in the sense that putting the words down
on paper strip away the little bits and pieces that attach over time to the
story as a memory fades. If I get my thoughts down now close to when something
is happening, later when I look back I see a much more real vision of the
experience.
Right now, I am thinking about two photographs that I must
pull off the role on my iPhone. One shot is the view out of the apartment I
stayed at in Lisbon. It’s a sunny day, (every day I was in Lisbon was sunny and
hot). The particular picture was taken in the morning light before things got
toasty. My mind tells me that what I saw and photographed captured the promise
of a new day. Much of my trip to Portugal carried with it a morning promise of
something new, of something interesting.
There is a second picture which comes to my mind. Captured
within was the sun fading over Coimbra on the second night of the trip. Francie
and I were having dinner of boar stew and wild deer loin when the sky just took
on the most amazing shades. I struggle for the descriptive terms; the faintest orange-pink, the growing indigo
of evening, these covered the horizon. A couple of college girls giggled and
worked their way through shared entrée and then a shared delicious looking
dessert. Their talk was animated, and their hands were circling and flying
about. What they were doing was irrelevant. The sunset at that day’s end was as
beautiful as any I’ve seen in years. Maybe it was travel euphoria, or maybe the
light at that time of day, at that time of year, in that place part way around
the globe is just special.
Normally when I walk in the work I cut across a pocket park
to get away from traffic on Harrison Road in East Lansing south of Grand River
Avenue. The people from Glencairn fly down the southbound stretch of this rain-soaked
road on their way to Michigan Avenue, where they turn heading to downtown
Lansing. I don’t mind walking up this hill in the evening because traffic is
coming toward me. However, the walk down is scary because people are flying in their
haste to get to their desks. It always seems like I’m one second away from a pickup
truck jumping a curb and shuffling me off this mortal coil.
Life is very short. I want to savor every bit that I have
left. Maybe I have 10 or 15 good years left. Maybe I have four months. I don’t know,
and it is not for me to know. But let me appreciate the good that is around me.
Let me feel the rain on my face. Let me walk putting one foot after another
from point a to point B with purpose and enjoyment.
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| Coimbra Evening Light |
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