Star Shadows…

I awoke this morning at 2:24 AM exactly and sat wide awake on the edge of my bed. My shirt and my sheets were just soaking wet. I have had the worst night sweats lately. Maggie was lying at my feet and sleepily looked up at me like, “kid, we have got to get you some sleep aids.” I rubbed her on her belly as she submissively rolled over and walked into my kitchen to start some coffee as she followed me. Coast to Coast AM was softly playing on my bedside alarm clock and I could still hear it in the kitchen and den. That old familiar Art Bell was hosting tonight from the Philippines.

I got my old fashioned coffee percolator percolating and soon the rich aroma of those ground, roasted beans filled my home. That smell brings back so many fond memories of country mornings eating breakfast on my grandmother’s farm before we were to set out to tend to immense gardens filled with tall stalks of sweet corn, watermelons, and vines of tomatoes spread out down in the fields below her house.

“What to do?” I thought as I then sat at my computer with my fresh mug of coffee and a cigarette to check my email and then my blog comments.

I immediately thought again of Laurent and the advice he gave many mornings ago. I will just hike until I am tired. I decided to let Maggie accompany me with it being so early in the morning and there being no traffic. I can’t say I didn’t have second thoughts about her stubby little legs being able to keep up with me for such a long walk. I donned my forty pound gear laden Kelty backpack, opened the back door to step out, and Maggie went bounding out upon my driveway only to abruptly turn around to look and see if I was going to follow. She knows that backpack means that it is travel time.

“Come on girl,” I told her. “Let’s go take a walk out into God’s country.”

I headed out spring road this time. It was a briskly cold night. I walked for many miles until the glow of the street lights finally faded behind me and the neighborhood homes vanished into forestland and pastures beyond the city limits. My eyes became acclimated to the dark night with only a brilliantly starry and clear sky casting soft, muted shadows in front of me upon the almost pitch black road. I walked and walked as Maggie ran and barked, protecting me from the unseen, dangerous denizens of the night that only she could see and hear.

Several hours passed until we came to the point were the asphalt ends and the road turns to dirt. A lone, small African American Methodist church stands out there with an eerily lit graveyard by its side. I shuddered as I walked past thinking of all those long dead people lying decades dormant in their coffins feet under the ground. I had to concentrate to get it out of my mind that I would one day lie in that same predicament as well; such morbid and macabre thoughts.

I finally got tired of walking and Maggie was as well. Her jubilant running and barking had devolved into a slow gait right by my side. She was determined to keep up with me though. I stopped and sat down on the edge of the dirt road in the dew covered grass as Maggie sat close to me in the cold night air; her ears and eyes alertly primed to look for danger and anything amiss. I pulled off my backpack to get out my platypus water bottle. I took a long drink and then took off my gloves to put some in my cupped hands for Maggie to drink and she lapped it up greedily. That water was freezing cold and my hands quickly grew numb. I dried them upon my pants and re-donned my gloves.

Far off down in the woods, the pensive call of a lone male whip-o-will echoed out into the night. That bird’s call always reminds me of my nights spent living in a tent in the woods when I was homeless. I would lay in my sleeping bag, lonesome, listening to that haunting and wistful sound sometimes crying myself to sleep lamenting my dire situation. Those forlorn thoughts can come rushing back to me so vividly upon being reawakened by certain sights, smells, and sounds such as these.

I and Maggie finally started our walk back home as the first pink and orange light of sunrise was on the horizon. The sun finally rose just above the distant tree tops and the heavy dew on the grass in the pastures surrounding me twinkled like little sparkling jewels in its early morning light. Black and white Holsteins were already busily grazing their morning fodder of bright green fall grass in the expansive pastures spread out around us.

Finally, I trudged up the seemingly endless street to home with Maggie following far behind as a heavy fog had started to roll in off of the Chattahoochee. I turned around and called her to catch up. We both walked inside my warm home and now I am going to collapse in my comfortable lazy boy recliner and go back to sleep while the drone of the television softly plays most likely tuned to the Weather Channel. Maggie is already lying on her side sound asleep at my feet once again. She is tuckered out. It does seem that this exercise and these wonderful walks are reinvigorating my spirit and soul and doing far more good for my mental health than any medication for mental illness has done in years. I feel I have a purpose in my life once again; to walk and experience the wonders of the world around me.