Wanderings

I was out before 8 for my morning walk. It’s going to be a scorcher today and I wanted to do that before it got too hot. I headed toward the Rideau River and sat down on one of the park benches to look at the river and listen to the birds in the trees. A squirrel suddenly appeared through the underbrush directly in front of where I was sitting, saw me, and stood immobile for a few seconds until I shuffled my feet and it quickly scurried away. A couple from the condo building where I live walked along the pathway and greeted me using my first name as they passed by. It felt good to be recognized and acknowledged in that fashion. Three women cyclists sped by and I overheard one of them saying, “Some people hide behind COVID.” I wondered what lay beneath that fragment of conversation. Why would someone hide behind COVID? Did she mean they used it to avoid others or to justify lack of action? Was it a comment about one of our politicians or gossip about a neighbour? How does one “hide” behind a tiny virus?  Then, a young woman in her late twenties came along. One of her arms was raised up over her head and she was smiling at something I could not see. It reminded me of a scene from a movie about catatonic patients. It is only when she said, “Caterpillar” that I understood she was holding one up dangling on a fine silk thread. As she walked away, I thought I saw unsteadiness in her gait. Or could it simply be that my initial perception tainted the way I now saw her? I got up from the bench and continued my little trek. I passed a flock of geese munching on grass and watched them warily, remembering that rooster who had knocked the wind out of me when it launched itself into my stomach when I was ten years old and those news articles about irate wild geese attacking people who got too close to them. I finally got back to our apartment, refreshed after my wanderings through the wonderful life that is all around me.