A Foggy View

Most mornings I take a walk after my husband and kids leave for work and school. When I say I take a walk, I mean it’s my exercise and not just a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood. I’m not supposed to run (bad knees) but I like to walk just as fast as I can possibly go. I look like an idiot. I know. I don’t care.

I have a certain three-mile loop that I walk every time. My husband, who is a regular runner, claims it’s boring to take the same path all the time. I admit that it could be. I argue that it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on what you see. It takes me about 40 minutes every time. This is 40 minutes where my brain goes to all sorts of places. Sometimes I hone in on a project I’m working on. Sometimes I talk to God. Sometimes I really try to open up my eyes and actually see.

Today it was foggy. So foggy that I could feel the moisture. Frankly most of it seemed to settle on my eye lashes so that’s what I could see until wiped them clear. I always find that a little weird. I can’t see the drops individually in the air, but there they are at the end of my lashes. You have to be so crazy close to see them. Same path but all I could see in some moments was even closer than my nose. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there wasn’t much beyond those drops. This morning those drops reminded me of how important it is to remember to look beyond what’s immediate.

You know what else you can see when you wipe your eyes and look out inside the fog? Spider webs. Goodness they’re everywhere! Are there really that many spiders, and probably many more, all around me? I’m not deathly afraid of them but I’d prefer they keep their distance. It’s not uncommon to see them of course, but it’s not everyday that I notice dozens of them blanketing the tops of blades of grass. Thanks to the fog, I saw them everywhere.

Those spiders do some pretty amazing work when you think about it. We knock the webs down, they keep building them back. And they actually are pretty when you’re seeing them in that foggy, early morning light. Dew dripping off them just like off of my eye lashes. Maybe practice makes perfect for them, too. Some of them certainly seem like art work. I actually paused to look at a couple of them up close, which is not something I normally do – pausing in my speed walking or voluntarily getting closer to spiders. But all those spiders just living their best lives and doing what they’re supposed to do whether anyone notices or not.

I thank God for the fog this morning. It helped me see some things that I don’t always see. I enjoyed the foggy perspective today but I also enjoyed knowing that the sunshine I’m now looking at was just behind the fog.

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