Bumpy Ride

Do you ever feel like as soon as you decide to do something, everything works against you? This is usually the case when I decide to join a gym; inevitably as soon as I pay the membership fee I get a bad cold that keeps me from going for the first few weeks. Then it turns into one excuse after another why I can't make it. When I *actually* do go, I realize I'd rather be doing something outside than stuck indoors with a bunch of other people working out while trying to ignore each other.

Last week, I decided that I should be walking to work every day rather than driving a mile. It seems so wasteful to start the Jeep for a 5 minute drive when I would benefit (body and soul) from a 20 minute walk twice a day instead. But this past weekend we got a bunch of freezing rain that has done horrific things to the sidewalks. At first, they were glare ice ~ much too dangerous to walk on. Then the ice melted a little bit and an inch of snow was added to the top of the slush. The slush eventually froze when temperatures dropped yesterday. Now there are thick ice-slush sculptures growing out of the sidewalks. Bumpy and slippery.

The walk to work this morning was an exercise in concentration. Instead of absorbing the world around me, I was absorbed in watching where I was going; head down the whole way. The sidewalk terrain varied so much from one house to the next that I really needed to pay attention. Sometimes it would look like dry sidewalk, but really there was a thin layer of very slippery ice, some houses had not shoveled the snow or slush which actually provided good traction, some houses were on a slope and a river of frozen ice flowed across their lawn and sidewalks. Treacherous conditions. But I'm proud of myself for doing it instead of taking the easy way to work.

The skies are gray today and the snow is flurrying. The landscape is a collage of varying shades of gray, white and brown. But the snowflakes that landed on the dark sidewalk in front of me were their own little works of art and I had to stop and bend down to take in their beauty before entering my office building. Hopefully their whimsical shapes will keep me going through the day until I can get outside again for the walk home.