Morning Walk
Every morning between 5:30 AM and 6:30 AM, Maddie (our dog) and I are out for our morning walk.
Our neighborhood is very residential, which is one of the reasons I originally bought the condo here. We border a huge nature reserve and the closest store or mini mall is about a two-mile walk away. So, besides a little highway noise at night, we don’t have the blinking lights of a restaurant or gas station out any of our windows. Almost makes you feel like you are not in a big metropolitan area after all. It does create an issue for Maddie though. She hears every noise that’s made and growls to ward off any potential threat.
Sometimes we just go out in the yard and sometimes we take a stroll around the neighborhood. We have a pond near our house which frequently becomes one of our destinations for our walks. This morning, we took that walk.
The pond is down from the street level. And there’s a smaller part of the pond surrounded by trees. Every time I see it, I think of a secret and quiet place for a kid to go and hide from the stresses and dramas of life. Kid drama can be a lot smaller in the grand scheme of things, but to them, it is everything.
This morning it was a beautiful 60° and the dew was still sitting on the grass from all of the humidity in the air. Both her paws and my sandals got a little bit wet.
I also take note of the outfit I am wearing. I tend to walk the dog in a hoodie and comfy pants in the spring, summer and fall and a big winter coat and long underwear under the comfy pants in the winter time. I think about the tv show, What Not to Wear, and I’m sure that my attire would not be acceptable in their eyes. But I figure, that I’m just walking the dog and the people in the neighborhood have seen me dressed like this walking my dog for almost twelve years now. And no one has said a word. At least not directly to me. Maybe they are sitting at their breakfast tables looking out and saying, “there’s that lady out walking her dog again. She looks like she just rolled out of bed.”
There have been many animal sightings around our pond. A few years ago there was a family of foxes that were living there. Maddie and I walked by and I saw three little triangle-shaped heads pop up near a fallen tree. We have also seen quite a few deer, raccoon and coyote roaming the pond and the neighborhood.
My neighbor has pictures of an otter that was roaming around on the pond when it was frozen this last winter. I know that some of these creatures are coming over from the nature preserve, so it tells me how quiet and safe our neighborhood must feel for them to be here.
I thank God that we have Maddie in our lives. She makes the morning walk a requirement. So that everyday, is not only a new day, but also a new experience together, watching the people and animals wake up in our neighborhood.