Without the always-on duties of a care partner now for less than a week, I’m finding it surprisingly hard to fill my time with meaningful activity. What will take the place of my eating when she wanted or only going only places she felt safe?
I am already aware of the tendency to withdraw and isolate, when I know I must do just the opposite right away: to move out of my comfort zone, take the initiative, and build a life according to me.
So far I’ve visited a new church, a new bar and just yesterday, a new park.
While I understand there are wooded trails nearby, it was the open expanse all to myself and the fact that Gans Creek Recreation Area is five minutes from home that boosted my spirits when they needed boosting. (See landscape, then the map below).
And most remarkable: this 320 acre park was the quietest place in the county I have been, with barely any road noise. The sky is unobstructed in all directions. I saw no signs prohibiting visits after dark.
I really need to see the night sky again after almost nine months of not bothering to look up into the gray city-lit starless space overhead.
But a lawn chair and my binocs strapped to a tripod here while the Summer Triangle is overhead: I need this. Cygna. Altair. Deneb. Be there.
Our new “home” is situated on the southern perimeter of town (map below), with more trails nearby than I will ever walk; but I can try. Also the Missouri River is less than a half hour away. She would not be comfortable exploring there; I will plan several visits soon to places like Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area.
I want to write more about Eagle Bluffs after I’ve visited. Its history is a land-use success story that demonstrates the conservation values here that would have made Aldo Leopold proud to have his “land ethic” so influential in Missouri and Boone County for the past 80-plus years.
Documentary recalls 30-year-old fight for wetlands wastewater treatment at Eagle Bluffs
I told somebody yesterday that these are my “Forrest Gump” days; or weeks; or months. I just started walking. When I don’t know what to do with myself, I walk. And I’m walking a lot.
I’ve added a few more birds to my local list. I’ve come upon a few wildflowers that were new to me, like bluestar pictured below.
But what I discovered on the very first very alone day last week was the delight it gave me to come across familiar plants in bloom that surprised me on my walking loop.
There really was something of the same feeling one gets when rounding the corner and being suddenly face to face with a friend not seen for ages and not expected in that moment.
I have been thankful to have my “old friends” to lift my spirits and make me feel a little less unmoored. I am sorry for people who can’t call their fellow-creatures in forest and field by name. My world is richer for it.
And I am thankful for light and form and beauty that can be found in the everyday places and objects around me.
Ann’s new space is just a few paces beyond the chapel, so I pass there often lately, all hours of the day. And one morning, the lighting stopped me in my tracks. I sat alone and was thankful.
While the woods that borders this community is not immensely rich botanically, it is just a short walk from my apartment. And I am finding places to sit and ponder. Almost always, I am the only one there.
There is a bench near this massive gnarly (burr ?) oak tree (named after a former resident). This is one of my sit spots, listening for new birds and trying not to be bothered by the roar of traffic.
So just to let you know I am attempting to be an object in motion.
Tonight I will be free for the first time to attend an Audubon gathering—a pot luck. I don’t have a pot. I will take a bag of chips with apologies. This is the last meeting of the season, but it might introduce me to kindred spirits who can suggest other groups and activities that could keep me from growing roots into the sofa here at Fred’s Pathetic Bachelor Pad.
This IS my first rodeo.
– Fred First is an author, naturalist, photographer watching Nature under siege since the first Earth Day. Cautiously hopeful. Writing to think it through. Thanks for joining me. Subscribe to My Substack HERE.