An Autumn Walk, Two Days Before 30

I took a walk around my neighborhood. Here are the observations.

Let me tell you about my walk.

It’s nearing noon, so my dog Oliver and I decide to break up the day. Working from home requires at least a couple jaunts around the neighborhood. We live on a dirt section of street that dead ends just beyond our house. It’s a street lined with bush and briar. Lilac and witches, the main hangs, with assorted deciduous tree splayed about. Massive elms in the yard across. Apple tree in our front yard. A willow drops to the east. No shortage of ponderosa pine along the horizon, either. All these, except for the ponderosa, are currently in their most brilliant shade of orange and yellow. Their shedding crunches under Oliver and I’s feet.

As we empty out of our portion of street, dirt transitions to asphalt and we have a decision to make. Turn right or left to walk the one-mile-long circular road our house sits in the middle of -- where old estates of large homes on immense property and a tunnel of trees to walk through awaits? Or proceed straight… waiting that way the livelier hangs of coffee shop, brewery and bookstore.

Straight is our choice today, as the three days previous we have looped. Onward we go.

There is a steady climb on this route. Not much, but there. Usually, 2/3 of the way up the ascent, Oliver has worked up enough stamina that he has to poop. Today is no different. He does. I bend down with bag in hand and pick it up (I’m no monster) as a car drives by. This is always a funny interaction to me. Someone in a car, going between point a and b, on their way -- and I, a man bent over, picking up the waste of his animal – lock eyes.

Bag tied, car gone; we walk along some more.

Houses along the way contain signs for a wide array of political candidates and causes. All these homes have had their lawns cut, for the most part. They have people living in them. Have cars in the driveway. Later will have food baking in the over. Have butts on couches and laughs at tables and songs in showers.

Four blocks in, we reach the old Methodist church that towers above the rest of the houses on the block. This is where I pastor a community. Not of the Methodist bent, but we share the space with them. Ours is a “river-centric, tribuatrian spiritual community” (which we have a lot of fun telling people, ha!) of no specific religious ideology. Spiritual, but not religious… it’s the thing of the times.

In this space during the week, there’s a Montessori pre-school. Children laugh and play in the yard off to the side of the church building where there is a playground set up. Oliver and I mosey off the sidewalk into the road. A line of parents and caregivers has formed to pick the children up for Friday’s noon pick-up.

At the end of this block is the main street of our neighborhood that runs north / south, the one I have been venturing down running east / west.. Right before it, we pass the old house turned book shop, Wishing Tree. Through the window I see cashier and customer smiling as a world is being purchased. I can smell the inside if the store in my mind, it’s inviting scent that urges you to linger. The back area with novels of such thought through curation. Up front, children’s books focused on trees and rivers.

We take a right at the main street by the brewery, our most frequented establishment in the area. Over the speakers, they are playing a familiar song… Just One by the band Blind Pilot. Serendipity being too simple a work for such moments, I smile, as the lead singer of that band will be at the church in just two days. Playing a show on my 30^th birthday that he and I have arranged. The fact that his music happens to be playing out of these speakers now in the moment I walk by? Too good.

Across the main street now, heading a block north, I pass the new Indian/Mexican fusion restaurant. We have yet to try this, but Emily and I can’t wait. I look over the menu and see sweet potato enchiladas, banana leaf wrapped salmon, and an array of other dishes that have me salivating.

Keeping the feet moving, we turn left toward the park at the end of this block.

Underneath the gazebo, a pile of blankets drapes over a sleeping person. They are pressed into a corner, attempting to remain hidden and out of view. We walk by some distance away. I wonder if they are a client listed somewhere in the system held on my computer back at home that I have stepped away from. I wonder about where they may have stayed last night or if they have a plan for today. Right now, they’re just under their blanket. Like a child keeping out of sight the uncertainty of a dark bedroom.

I don’t know what I think about prayer, but I know that something arises from my awareness that acts like what I think it might be.

We walk further.

Exiting the park, we head back up the brewery / bookstore / church street that our house sits at the dead-end of. With one other establishment smack in the middle of the walk between park and house that I didn’t mention walking past the first time around… the coffee shop. It has the treat I’ve been debating making a pit stop throughout this whole journey.

As it gets closer, I consult Oliver, the Australian shepherd, for his input regarding my desire for a Pumpkin Patch Latte. He looks up at me with a big dopey grin. “Not even a question,” the response I assume from him. Know that had even the slightest semblance of a treat presented itself to him on this walk, he would have gobbled it.

I loop his leash to the railing out front and I enter. People smile out the window at him as he, uncharacteristically given his jackal-like tendencies, lays on the concrete patio and looks adorably inside. Not barking, just watching. The barista comments that she loves my dog. I thank and I order.

As the drink is being made, I look at the community board of announcements. So many different wellness-oriented services and events. A fall folk festival. So much language around care and community. For a world so obsessed with thinking it’s all going to hell in a hand basket, the local coffee shop bulletin board sure seems to be displaying a different picture.

My name is called, and I pick up my drink. Oliver and I make our way back the remaining two and a half blocks to home. I promise him a cookie when we return and he gets all sorts of excited, grinning and galloping. As we walk up toward the house, I pause again to look at the array of autumn color. We have had a truly stunning Fall. I breathe it in, as much as I can. I step inside, unharness Oliver, and I give him a cookie.

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In a couple days, I am turning 30. A lot of people ask me about this. How I am feeling, what my thoughts are around that. I don’t immediately know.

But what shows up often is the recognition that I have rooted myself quite steadily in my 20’s.

And based on the walk I just took; I think all I’m really interested in for right now is seeing what else those roots might bloom to the surface.