I often listen to podcasts as I walk. It is my way of getting my mind of the pain and onto much deeper thoughts. Today was no different. It was a gorgeous day that I spent procrastinating by doing a bit of spring cleaning consisting of purging of what seemed to be quite a vast unneeded wardrobe and wrestling with the washing machine, which chose at the point in which I was headed out the door to decide to cry itself a damn river all over the laundry room floor. Hey, at least I was home to witness the mess and was able to shut off the water before I had the contents of the local water supply in my basement. I futzed over the valve for a bit before saying screw it. I needed to get out and put some miles in and so I launched myself out the door and on my way.
The time on my feet felt pretty good today. I am surprised at how quickly time passes sometimes as I notice so many things at this pace. Back to the podcasts, what did I listen to? The first episode was about Barbara Rodbell, a Holocaust survivor who grew up with Anne Frank. It was an interesting listen and had me thinking a good deal about our recent trip to Erfurt and how much Europe as a whole was really effected by the war, and then subsequently the Cold War. The Story usually is divided into two parts, the second half was this little reminder from a book I am currently savoring by Robert McFarlane, called The Old Ways. I am loving this book, so much so that I have decided to read it very slowly, so I can let the words sink in. At this point in my walk my mind was drifting to an invitation of sorts that came from my friend Alicia, not unlike one of the journeys McFarlane describes in his book, she wants to hike along a literary route in the UK next summer. I am so intrigued that I have to say that my bag is already packed. The next episode of this podcast was about the right to bear arms, and I found myself really quite agitated. It was not over my opinion about guns, as I think they do have a place in our society, but over the fact that here was this newly naturalized citizen of Chinese decent in a public forum talking about how he proudly owns a gun. He does not believe that guns should be for hunting but rather to protect himself from the government and things like eminent domain and then he went on to say how he doesn't trust our government. My question to him, then why the US? Why did you emigrate here? I was just about to turn it off when the second half of the broadcast came on. I started to giggle about this one, it was another story I have been following closely. It was Ken Llgunas speaking about the end of his journey on the Keystone pipeline. He spoke to those sentiments that Rod shared with me. Check his account of his last day.
I am home now, a bit startled at the fact that I only had walked 5.8 miles despite trying to be creative with my route. There is vegetable barley soup on the stove and a small spiral ham, less than 4 lbs, in the oven, a fixed washing machine and a hot shower waiting so until next time…
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