I have a delightful twenty-minute walk to work every day near the edge of a large university campus, beside a forested park. This morning’s was particularly revitalizing. It was cool, around the freezing point, and I could feel the pricks of winter’s final needles in my face, ears and fingers. My hair was slightly wet from my morning ablutions; I could feel the air attempting to freeze the ever-thinning follicles, and my moustache was damp from condensed nostril-exhaust.
All in all it was a lovely morning; I realized that all these sensations were signs that I was alive, vibrant.
Birds sang their morning arias, echoing within dark trees silhouetted against the morning sky.
The sky was surreal; sunrise was imminent. The eastern sky was a luminous indigo; overhead, deep cobalt. Several stars were visible, but they would soon vanish behind dawn’s blush.
The sun was reflected as a crescent moon, but the rest of the moon’s disk was barely darker than the firmament. The crescent hung dreamlike: I could almost detect the string that held it from above — it couldn’t possibly sit there, quiet and still, without spectral support from the heavens.
The morning walk set the tone for the day and my worries and insecurities vanished; like hallucinations, like phantasms born in a dream.
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May the path be flat before your weary feet.
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db johnston
almost falling 