Tuesday Evening

I am done with my counseling and I think, "It is wonderful to be able to prescribe hugs and it actually is helpful". I am sitting at my desk now writing a little something before I start doing some much needed work on my files. In one and a half weeks I will be able to start exploring again because my summer vacation will begin. I will quite possibly be moving out of my house into transitional housing soon until I get married in October. It is going to be an interesting four months. I have done my fair share of hiking in Chicago. The scenery is quite predictable. Flat, paved or crushed gravel paths, in the better spots I find trees but it made me wonder. What makes a really good trail for me. Let me wonder down this path.

A good trail has to have a certain sense of mystery to it. Mystery can take on subtle forms. A small chapel standing on the shore of a vast lake or ocean gives the sense of mans vulnerability and insignificance when standing sentinel before the wild crashing waves and the gail.

If my trail crosses that scene it is a good path.

If the trail passes by the remnants of a foundation from some ancient dwelling overgrown with the relentless progression of creation.

That is a good path.

If the trail follows some ancient thoroughfair or passes by a tree that is much larger than the surrounding woodland giving a sigh at the memories of a time long faded in the mists of the ages. A time when that tree was a sapling in the forests of trees untouched by modern man.

That is a good trail.

When your trail passes through a vast wilderness where nobody is seen for miles and you hear the rumblings of an avalanche and thunder and you feel small.

That is a good trail.

When you see a warm light and smell baked goods and see someone waiting for you with a smile that dances like moon beams on the water and eyes that light up like the emerald waters of the Indian Ocean....

That is a good path