Routes and Roads

Take a walk with me

This is Clouds Form Over Land, weekly writing about resilience, imperfectionism, and our relationship to the earth.

Our walk begins by crossing the parking lot — a grassy area with cars arranged at random. Sometimes a man wearing a blue hat with some sort of feathers wields a weedwacker, cutting artistic shapes into the grass. When the grass is high, it leaves hundreds of burrs on the pant legs worn to avoid bug bites and in our cats fur. She seems to have an easier time at removal.

After a roundabout of sorts, the road hits its stride and provides a watering hole for thirsty engines.

This spine of a path, cut through the dense greenery, allows us to be in the jungle as well as apart. The clear path lets the body enter autopilot, considering more than the next footfall while dodging branches and brush. The road reminds me of sailing along the Pacific coast, a straightforward path south and south east.

The frogs get really loud around a particular bend in the road. Pools of water from an unseen stream are home to fish the size of your forefinger. Some rustling up above materializes into Geoffroy’s tamarin, a playful group of small monkeys named after Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a French naturalist who preceded other evolutionists by positing the “unity of composition”. Four toucans appear to be on a double date.

There’s a house with a rotating family member outside on the phone or hanging laundry or playing with the dog. The laughing of children can be heard from within.

You wouldn’t know it by the sparse population and infrastructure, but Nombre de Dios is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the continental Americas. Originally a major port of call for the Spanish treasure fleet, it was the most significant port for shipping in the Americas between 1540 and 1580. Today it is still inhabited by sailboaters of European origin. I suppose my presence supports this record?

Cars stop occasionally to ask if I need a ride. A procession of vehicles poured in over the weekend to celebrate Panamanian independence, a day shared with Colombia over their mutual freedom from Spanish monarchy.

Two guys forwent the comforts of personal space to ride together on a motorbike with their spearguns over the handlebars. They peeled off down a driveway leading to the water.

The hills and lack of a shoulder remind me of walking 7 Mile Road with my mom when I was in elementary school. The elevation gain provides tiny overlooks to the Caribbean Sea through thick foliage.

I saw a barred forest falcon resting on a branch overhead at the top of a hill. It flew a few trees further down the road as I grew closer and repeated this a few times. Tropical kingbirds zip around asking to be seen. I get to know them thanks to a tip to use the Merlin app.

The breeze accelerates around curves and the patches of shade pull me along through the sunny stretches.

Sometimes when I’m feeling like a grump, Scott challenges me to go for a walk and bring back a mystery item. This technique has turned up urchins, cowary shells, purple rocks, trash, mystery seed pods, and just as many mood shifts.

Emotions last 90 seconds in the body. After that, they are reabsorbed and can only continue by re-living the trigger.

Walks have a way of sloughing off thoughts and feelings, whether taken alone or with a companion. The stillness and stimuli let ideas breathe and clarify which ones are worth repeating.

Can Do List:

1. Take a walk. Take a hike!

2. Learn the origins of an everyday item. Mine to share -- cinnamon is tree bark!

3. Play Osmos or some other ad-free game to unwind.

4. Take note of the frustrations of election week in a two party system. Revisit next week. What is the smallest first action you can take to bring more choice?

Written in the spirit of not letting what we can’t do get in the way of what we can.

Did you try any of these? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.