Mission Creek

Like many Canadians, I find myself unable to stay inside if the sun shines on these fall days.  Winter's cold breath is already frosting the windshields in the morning.  I've always found being outside alone or with friends preferable to being inside, weather permitting of course.  Lately I've been mostly alone, but I share Thoreau's sentiment although I'll probably mangle his prose, 'I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it to myself than be crowded on a velvet throne."  I've walked every path on Knox Mountain, and in the last while walked and biked along the Mission Creek Greenway.  This morning the sun was bright, so I left after breakfast to walk the last part.  It winds along the creek and up to the highlands above a canyon.  I got to a certain high point and was resting on a bench after about an hour's walk, wondering what to do next when a couple came up.  I did what I've been doing a lot lately, asked them where we were and what was beyond.  They said, 'Layer Cake Hill,' and asked me if I wanted to join them.  I did, and we walked together for another hour and then back.  It was fun, and I enjoyed their company.  Here also I dare to compare myself with Thoreau.  Jim was reading him off and on while we were in the condo, so I took up the book after Jim died.  When I first read Thoreau years ago, I was not impressed.  I thought that he was just vacationing in wilderness life and that he made a big deal out of the fact that he could make 'the earth say beans,' when I knew from my own bit of gardening that there was nothing the earth would rather say.  This time I was not so young and dismissive; I paid more attention to his ideas, many of which are still beyond me, and his expression of them which is often wonderful.  And I wasn't so critical of the fact that Walden was just a walk from the company of people.  I realize now that I am most at home in nature, but it's nice to have some people over every once in a while.

 Layer Cake Hill