Up On Hawthorn Hill
Walking unveils a world of hidden wonders
Two days ago, after visiting a friend in the village, I walked home, a jaunt of about five miles.
I am a walker by nature, but it has been a while since I have taken a walk of any substantial length. Most of our walks around here are two to three miles. That, coupled with working in the gardens and doing chores up here on the hill, usually serves as a worthy, and tiring, supplement to longer walks.
However, that walk a few days ago reminded me of the salutary rewards of a long, leisurely walk, a walk Thoreau so sagely described as a ‘saunter.’
As I started my way up Pink Street, a neighbor stopped briefly to chat. After a bit of neighborly catching up, he observed I had two walking sticks. At that moment I was only using one, saving the other for the uphill climb ahead. I informed him of my wife’s encouraging me to walk with two sticks, believing it might help improve my posture.
He paused for a second, I suspect to gather up his philosophical wits and, with respect to my wife’s concern for my posture, said, “that’s why I don’t have one.”
One of life’s enduring options.
