This evening I attended an event hosted by the library I work for. Elizabeth Berg, one of my favorite authors, was in town speaking about her life and her writing. What a wonderful thing, to listen to her heartfelt words about her work. So much of what she said resonated with my own internal writer. The thing that struck me most was that she has a physical need to write. She said that writing was a release, something that had to be done, that she’d write even if she wasn’t published. I agreed – so much so that my eyes teared up as she was talking. Because that’s exactly the way it is. Sometimes there are things that just have to be put on paper, that keep me up at night, the words rolling around in my head, words that distract me from my work, that worry at me until I can’t stay away any longer and I sit down and let it out.
A painter has to paint, a dancer must move. And a writer? A writer has to let the words flow.
Listening to the lake sigh this evening as another perfect day winds down.
This morning I was looking at the calendar, checking to see when I need to be at work today. Katie was wandering around between my feet as usual, because…well…that’s what Katie does. Absentmindedly I picked her up while I studied my work schedule for next week. I shifted her in my arms and realized that she was staring intently at the picture attached to the calendar. Because of course my calendar would feature shelties. And she was very interested in the two representing September. I know that on occasion she will notice a dog on TV, but I mostly thought that was about the sound. But here she was very obviously studying the photo of two pretty shelties. It’s a cool calendar. A couple of months ago I thought the photo sort of looked like Ludo and Katie. 
We’ve had a series of really beautiful days, warm and sunny, makes a person (and a Sheltie) want to go camping again, even though all the camping equipment had been put away for the season. So on a whim I put up the little tent because it’s easier than the larger one to assemble. Of course this little tent doesn’t have a doggie window, and it’s too small to put my inflated mattress inside. So I dragged out a bunch of pillows and a couple of blankets and we settled in. The first night we made it until 6 a.m. when I woke up FREEZING cold. The temp outside was just under 50 degrees. I reached for my second blanket and found that it had been taken over by Katie who was curled up in a tiny little ball, her nose in her tail, sound asleep. I tried to go back to sleep but I was too cold, so I woke her up and we went inside. It was worth getting cold, though, because the stars at 6 a.m. were absolutely amazing.
The first mile I spent thinking about why I felt that walking somehow wasn’t as good as running. How I seemed to think that if I couldn’t run then I wouldn’t do anything. Seemed to me to be a silly attitude, but there it was. I did notice that I saw a lot more beautiful things along the way when I walked than I did when I ran, but I have to say I liked being able to say that I was a runner. I liked the way I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted when I was a runner. I liked to watch people’s faces when they found out I had completed marathons. But I didn’t really like to run. I was always talking myself into getting out there, and I was always glad when I was finished. So maybe walking would be a good compromise. Maybe.
Mile one I noticed some beautiful gray blue berries near the edge of a swamp and some stunning red Virginia creeper. I’ve been reading a book about painting intimate water colors and these two would make a nice little painting. Along my dirt road leaves, fallen from the trees overhead, had become embedded in the dirt. I thought how these leaves, giving the last of their life were still making imprints in my life. A lot like some people I’ve known.
Mile three is my favorite mile of the route, mostly downhill, a tunnel through the woods. As I was running under the trees, a squirrel leaped out of the woods and ran toward me. Suddenly realizing I wasn’t another squirrel come to play, he turned and ran ahead of me for awhile, then leaped back into the woods. Two chickadees cheered me on and I smiled at the last little bit of the squirrel’s red tail gleaming in the morning sun as it scrambled up a tree.
Change Is Hard 