outdoors – I Write

I started the day in pain, physical pain. It was taken care of with a couple of Advil, but it slowed me down for the morning. Later, despite the lag in energy, I got out for a brief walk to the nearby store.

In just that 20 minute walk to and from the store, I saw 5 things to lift my mood:

1) Despite the drought, I still saw many flowers that took my breathe away. A few I hadn’t seen before like orange daisies and a lighter colored sun flower.

2) I admired a child’s “take-one, leave-one” display that I’ve seen before, but keep forgetting to bring something with me to exchange, (next time).

3) I saw a man walking his pair of goats. I wanted to take a picture, but I was too shy. As the goats walked, they nibbled and weeded yards. Cool!

4) On my way home, since the sky is cloudless today, I saw in the distance, the mountain range, beautiful.

5) Also, in the cloudless blue sky, I saw a series of airplanes that will probably be part of the Seafair festival out for a practice run. I know it’s a big deal here in Seattle this weekend.

My friend and I started out our day with breakfast in the neighborhood cafe eating mushroom scrambles with potatoes, yum! And then we decided to drive to the Washington Park Arboretum. We strolled and took our time through the park enjoying the serenity in the breezy, sunny day. We decided to make the effort to go a little further to see the Japanese gardens and they were worth the walk. We sat in a shady gazebo admiring the variety of green shades and natural beauty.

One of my favorite parts was noticing a young man sitting alone on a bench in what seemed to be deep meditation. He was sitting so still for a long time. Watching him inspired me to take some time in the coming week to just be. Not do, but just be and to listen.

When we got hungry, we decided to drive to Ballard for lunch and local shopping. We strolled along visiting the unique shops filled with clothing, books, and art and jewelry. Funny, we found nothing that we couldn’t part with. Being together catching up on life was what we’d longed for more than filling our bags with stuff.

Instead, we ended our day stuffing ourselves full of the rich desserts at Hot Cakes-Molten Chocolate Cakery.

Though we could barely move our bodies, our taste buds were happy.

It was a fun Sunday.