June 19, 2024

Footloose

We were off work today, so we didn’t get out of bed until almost seven o’clock. That was the latest I remembered sleeping in for probably a year. The dogs were hungry since it was past their normal feeding time. We fed them, made coffee, and went outside to sit down and watch nature start her day.

After half an hour, my wife and I put together a miniature picnic table she purchased at Lidl. While they designed the table for small children, she wanted to place it in the feeding area so we could watch the raccoons eating off of it. My wife followed the cryptic directions, using a drill to fasten all the screws. In twenty minutes, we had the cutest little picnic table ready to go.

We went inside the house to clean up and when I saw my wife’s face; I knew she was feeling a little down. Besides her upcoming end-of-year and national certification exams, she was trying to figure out which field she wanted to work in, where she wanted to work, and for which positions she should apply. I pulled her in close, held her for a while, before we gave each other a long kiss. Then I suggested we drive out to Lake Wilson for a walk. It had been a long time since we last visited, and I knew from my experience the best way to get out of my head was to get into my body.

She was excited at the proposition and we quickly changed clothes and headed out the door. When we arrived at the lake, the number of people walking there surprised me. During the winter, we walked this trail daily, and when the temperature was in the low twenties, we didn’t see many people out. This morning, people were walking, running, and fishing. The lake wasn’t congested, but the place was definitely bustling with activity.

We started our walk by the dam. There was no water flowing over the side, showing the lake levels were low. I couldn’t remember seeing the water at the dam so still. There were a few people fishing there, including a couple that used to fish at Buckhorn Reservoir all the time. I remembered they worked at the small shop that had been closed for a long time now. I wanted to stop and ask them about the shop, but I wasn’t sure if it involved some unpleasant experience for them, so I just smiled and kept walking.

The vegetation in the area was full and all the trees and plants had filled out the once bare branches. We stopped at a small bridge where the trail curved to admire the water, which was extremely clear this morning. There were two large turtles poking out their heads, munching on plants. A tiny turtle raced by underwater, and there were several fish swimming, unbothered by their amphibian friends. As we peered over the bridge’s railing, a small eastern bluebird kept flying underneath us, passing between the bridge and the water.

The low water level made the east side of the lake look like a marsh, but I didn’t see any waterfowl. Last year, this area was ripe with blue herons and white egrets. I hoped they would be back soon. We continued along the trail until we arrived at the large bridge that crossed the lake.

The bridge was always a welcomed sight. I loved the look and feel of the wooden structure that curved across the water. On the railing, we watched a pair of dragonflies mating, flying around while connected. Just south of the bridge, a small group of Canadian geese flocked together in one of the larger pockets of water. The entire area was a soupy mix of water and vegetation.

At the end of the bridge, we saw a lone blue heron fishing in the marsh. While people usually fretted over the low water levels, the waterfowl seemed to love the environment that provided more areas to wade and hunt. I imagined that less water meant the fish were more congregated than when the lake was full. I looked forward to returning to take pictures once the waterfowl returned. 

By the time we reached the bridge, it felt hot outside. We continued moving along the trail, ready to arrive at the car as soon as possible. At the small inlet on the lake’s west side, we watched a duck flying at full speed, skimming just above the water, its wings almost touching the surface.

Near the main parking lot, there was a group of people with remote controlled boats. I had seen the boats from across the lake when we arrived, thinking it must be a group of children, but when we arrived at the location, we saw it was a group of older men racing the small boats around some buoys. I saw one man arriving with his boat in hand. The small remote controlled boat had a foot long stabilizer that sat underneath the hull, but the small sailboats had no motors. The remote was used to control the sails as the boats raced around the course, powered by the wind.

Before we made it back to the car, we passed by a law enforcement dive team that was walking around the lake. They looked just as tired, hot, and hungry as we did. We commented on their buoyant appearance. Before driving to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, we sat in the car, cooling off with the air conditioner blowing on high.

In the afternoon, my wife left to Raleigh for a dental appointment. She arrived a couple of hours later with a numb mouth, but in good spirits. We talked about how medieval dentistry was and how much we disliked lying back in that chair that made us feel vulnerable. While we hated the shots, we admitted that life must have been miserable a hundred years ago when there was no real pain medication to administer. We cut our losses and moved on with the evening.

For dinner, we reheated pizza and enjoyed the cooler evening temperatures. On the deck, we listened to new bird songs coming from the forest. I imagined several migratory birds were arriving in the area. My wife thanked me for helping her pull out of a funk today. Spending time together this morning and walking at the lake seemed to do the trick.

I told her about a lesson I learned while working with horses in Idaho. A trainer there taught me that when a horse got mentally stuck while doing an exercise, it would always seem to freeze. When this occurred, the best thing to do was to get the horse to move its feet. When the horse started moving, it snapped the horse out of its confusion and put in back into its natural state of mind.

It was my experience that people often got stuck in their own thoughts and worries. And just like the horse that needed to move, we needed to get out of our head and into our body. I found that the body had a special characteristic of being constantly locked into the present moment. Only our minds could drift off to rehash the past or imagine the future, but the body only existed in the here and now. 

When I felt anxious or worried about something, it always helped me to do something physical to pull me back to the present moment. This present moment was important, because it was the only thing that was real, and it was the only place where we had the power to take action toward solving a problem.