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I know it's completely insane, but nothing gives me
greater pleasure than walking during a hellacious
storm. A couple of years ago, during the October
surprise, when we got a big heavy wet snow while the
leaves were still on the trees, I went walking to
enjoy the sound of the branches and trunks;
every 20 seconds or so, a loud crack. There were
flashes of blue light from the transformers shorting
out. Some of them exploded, but I didn't get to see
any of those.
Another one was the storm in 1979 when the Kemper Arena roof collapsed. I had to walk down the middle of the street because of the rain of falling branches. A lot of trees fell over that day. Nothing gives me greater pleasure. I feel safe and secure - an illusion, I know, but I don't care. It's just such a marvelous sensation, seeing nature at its most extreme. It's delightful. I do hate it, though, when I'm climbing and a storm comes up; there, I feel vulnerable. Or hiking, because I know I can't turn around and go to a warm dry place when I feel like it. And I didn't enjoy the huge storm that hit Estes Park and caused the Big Thompson disaster, where so many people died. I suppose the pleasure is in enjoying extreme weather, but unless I know I can turn around and go home, the fun is spoiled. ------------------------------------------------ Mrs. Van Gundy's bookstore. As kids, we always walked to the bookstore on Saturday, and we'd browse the books and each buy one and Mrs. Van Gundy would put it on the family account. She would talk to us about the different books and recommend things. I loved the science books. I love everything about that memory - walking there, reading the books. That's probably the source of my love of the printed word. ------------------------------------------------ Chasing birds. Not necessarily a great pleasure, and something I almost never do now, but some of my strongest memories are of trying to spot elusive birds, or of seeing beautiful birds unexpectedly. This is especially true of Costa Rica, and also especially true in the early mornings. I remember trying to find a bird near our place in Monteverde before the sun was up; every time I got near, it would leave, and some time later, I'd hear it in a different place in the trees. Never did see it. Or the day Colin and I were walking, and I kept hearing what I knew (though I'd never heard it before) must be a three-wattled bellbird; never saw it that day, but a couple of days later in the reserve, birdwatching with some other Americans, I managed to spot one we'd been hearing - way, way off and way high up in a tree that stuck up above the other trees - a tiny spot of chocolate brown and white. I only saw that bird because I was determined, absolutely determined, to. Unlike the quetzal, which I looked straight at when it was pointed out, but which I never saw, except the tail waving in flight when it took off and flew through an opening in the trees. And the white hawk, an exquisite, exquisite bird, that landed in a tree when I was walking on the path above the stream at Drake Bay... And a wonderful brown thrasher in Wichita when Colin and I were at the boy scout camp. I followed it for most of an hour early one morning, listening to it sing its brains out, and as far as I could tell, it never repeated itself. ------------------------------------------------ Mastery. The sensation of doing something so well that it simply flows from you; instead of thinking with your brain, you are thinking with the activity itself. ------------------------------------------------ Massage. Everyone deserves one. A good masseuse will put your body, and your mind, in a completely different state of being. ------------------------------------------------ The west side of the Sierras, along that highway that runs through the old gold-mining towns. The scattered oaks and boulders, and in the spring, the meadows drowned in green grass. ------------------------------------------------ |