Stroll Meditations

This morning I took my first Stroll of this season and it was along some used-to-be familiar streets. I am staying for a bit with my Mom in my childhood home and this morning’s walk took me past the WayMarks of street signs that I knew when my 12 year old self biked the same roads.

However, I know that 50 years ago I did not pay attention to the myriad birds singing their hearts out as they flitted from branch to branch. Or marvelled at the tiny flowers adding a new bit of colour to some front yards alongside the slower growing companion plants just peeking up from the soil. Fifty years ago I did not notice the various shades of pale green as the huge trees overhead begin to leaf out. Then I  realized that those trees would have been scraggly saplings when I biked past as a scraggly pre-teen myself.

And just as the streets are similar while the trees have grown, so that oblivious young girl biking furiously along, intent only on meeting up with friends at the local park, is still part of the over 60 year old woman striding mindfully along. All of “me” on a springtime Stroll…….

I am back in PEI again now and, as I said earlier, trying to stroll every day despite the weather. Very different WayMarks I see as I cruise along rural dirt roads, beside beaches and through wooded acres, but always a little more reflective thanks to your (both) Stroll prompts.