Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2019 13:14:38 -0400
From: Brad Page
Subject: Junes in North Carolina`
I had expected a scorcher month leading into July what with the hot days in May. Yet, here we are weather wise, smiling at each other as the beautiful, low humidity days roll by.
Today I walked, just an old man putting in a few laps to grab off a few more days (years?) as life winds down. This complex of single-story, low cost apartments is surrounded by a wall of pines and oaks and poplars, bushy on their unmolested flood plain.
If you hear gratitude in my voice it comes easily from living in downtown Pittsboro and during my walk talking with other residents I would not normally know had I not put one foot in front of another today. When I complained in a phone call to a close friend of 43 years of the long winter and my sedentary ways she said, “Hang up the phone and go for a walk.” Talking about walking, thinking about walking, just go do it. No big plan but one added instruction.
She also said, “Don’t just go out the door and start walking with your head down. (That’s the evil we call ‘exercise’). Stand outside for a few minutes, look around, see what you’re stepping into.”
As the trips around the complex continue I’ve become aware that at age 78 I’ve come full circle in many ways. In 1948 my family moved from LA to the mountains of Northern Arizona, a place Mom called God’s Country. My step-father, a man who had known nothing but the smog of LA often stopped in his perambulations about the countryside to look up and mutter an amazed “Look at that!”.
At 5000′ the sky rose around us like a flawless blue jewel, radiating it’s glory against the mountains and hills and their ponderosa pines and golden aspens. In North Carolina we lay claim to the “Carolina Blue” skies but to this man working out his final years it’s just the sky.
Your thoughts?
Brad Page