oriens/occasus

I walked to work today, for the first time since March or April. The air was crisp and cool when I left the house, and though work is a couple of miles away from home, it was a lovely walk -- very grounding -- and it reminded me why I really like walking to work.

I made mental notes of the things I wanted to share about my walks to and from work, but I've forgotten most of them already. Here are the things I remember:

• I saw both the sunrise (oriens) and the sunset (occasus) today, though I effectively recorded neither. I got a couple of lovely dusk photos that I'll post sometime.
• Every sunrise that I see is special to me, if for no other reason than that I'm so seldom up and out of the house that early in the morning.
• As I rounded the corner past the miniature store (a store full of miniatures, not a store in miniature), I saw three birds lined up: a white pigeon, a grey and white pigeon, and a black grackle. I was going to take their picture and entitle it "greyscale," but they flew off too quickly.
• I far prefer exercising when I feel like there's a real-life benefit to it. Like getting to work.
• Any shortcut is a good shortcut, as long as Rachel isn't mown down by oncoming traffic.
• I break my walk into conceptual thirds, the divisions being made at major intersections. I have no idea where the boundaries for geographical thirds would actually lie.
• There's a garden on the way that I adore. The flowers are healthy and in bloom, as though it wasn't just summer and all the flowers in Texas didn't just fry. It's beautiful, with native plants and succulents all mixed in together, and the most wonderful spectrum of color. It's attached to a house with a real, traditional front porch, with an actual porch swing, and if the effort were made, one could easily fit two or more porch swings on that porch. There's a screened in side porch, as well.
• "we are our experience,
  our experience is what it is of;
  we are that."
  
• There was a little girl, no more than a toddler, playing in the yard of a day care. She called out to me, "Come here!" but I waved at her and kept walking. I have very strong opinions about adults hanging around day cares where they have no child enrolled and have not been specifically invited.
• It's this walk that reminds me of the color collage that I meant to put together in the springtime and never did. There are flowers of every possible hue on my path.
• The best thing about my path to work is the Taco Shack. Their potato and egg tacos are my achilles heel -- I can never resist them. And they sell Sweet Leaf sweet tea, which is liquid crack in a bottle. Really.
• When I got to work this morning, the elevators were broken, so I had to climb 107 stairs on top of the two miles I had just walked. My legs felt like jelly at the top.