Walking. Great Point & Hallowed Ground.

~ Live & Learn

Friday, September 17th, the streak was broken.

I hadn’t known the numerical significance of it at the time — I was only regretting that the day would eventually come.  So, when I ran the math this morning, it was startling.

Start date May, 5, 2020. End date September 17, 2021. 500 days. 500 consecutive days of morning walks at Cove Island Park. Like in a Row. 

500 days of Anything is Something.

A joke, sad, and tiresome that it is, swirls around the house that I get anxiety attacks when I’m outside of a 50 mile radius of home. So, between the breaking of the 500 day chain, and the Road Trip outside of the comfort zone, we were swimming against unease.

Eric (Son) drove. Susan was the co-Pilot.  And I sat in the back, quiet, moping, thumbing through my iPad.

Fast forward. To our last morning in Nantucket. Steve & Andrew (Rachel’s future Father-in-Law and Fiancé) drove me out to Great Point in Nantucket. To get to Great Point, it was 15 minutes on the road followed by a 30 minute drive on the beach.

Richard Powers, in a podcast interview, described his first hike into the old growth in the Great Smoky Mountains in the South Appalachians: “It was like somebody threw a switch. There was some odd filter that had just been removed, and the world sounded different and smelled different…And I feel like it’s the luckiest decision I’ve ever made and a great, great luxury to wake up every morning and to belong to a place, to feel like I’m slowly daily learning about the affordances of that place, what it wants to do, what its indigenous plants and animals are. And it’s really the first time in my life that I have lived where I live, if that makes any sense.”

The entire trip to Great Point couldn’t have lasted 90 minutes. But someone’s giant hand gripped the circuit breaker, and slammed it down. The switch was thrown.

Wind gusts cleared the cloud cover. Yellow sea grass rustled as I walked the pristine beaches. Seals bobbed in and out of the surf, fishing undisturbed.

The feeling, indescribable by me, fully describable by Richard Powers:

“I feel like I belong here… There we were. Nothing. Everything.”

Notes:

38 thoughts on “Walking. Great Point & Hallowed Ground.”

  3. Wonderful! 😊 I’ve tried not to have a comfort zone, but staid sh#t happens. How you (and Powers) felt is how I felt on the western shores of Ireland: it was a different everything. 20 years later, I can still feel it, smell it, rest in its embrace. I hope Nantucket is your Ireland –until you get to Ireland!

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  6. I experienced that same “feeling” last summer in Alaska. I just surrendered to the place, the experience, the scenery and let others take charge. I actually like it, and felt relief

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  7. A nice round number to end on…and for new beginnings ahead. Ironically, I just ordered my first Richard Powers book this morning. New beginnings on this end. Thanks for taking us all along.

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  9. This was a magnificent 500 day journey for you and for us, that has taught us all a great deal! (Continuing to be inspired by Mr. Kanigan!)

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  11. Breaking the streak might have been the second greatest gift of the day…the world kept turning, your fans were indulgent (ok, perhaps not if you were going to skip more than a day or two) and the result – the everything of it all – resonates deeply.

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  13. Records have a way of reminding me of the tension between time and eternity. Of course, we can’t have eternity, yet, at least, so there’s time here for records. Here’s to 500, David!

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  14. It was a brilliant run, David. We have enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy whatever you choose to share with us.
    That feeling of belonging? I had it in Tuscany. I need to return.

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  15. Damn, pal, somehow missed this post in my weekend feed and playing catch-up now. Like so many others, I applaud your lengthy run (500 consecutive days is nothing to sneeze at), but also delight in the fact that the interruption led to new revelations. I hope that you return to the Cape soon. It suits you.

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  16. Isn’t that always the way? We start something… whether as a challenge or just a ‘thing to do’ and then it becomes embedded in our psyche and our habitual patterns we don’t question it’s doing until one day, one thing, one view, one place says, “Wake up! Look at me! Be here now… or forever…. your choice — and suddenly, that wee circuit breaker opens up a whole nw vista of thought, ideas, vistas, possibilities.

    Have you ever been to Tofino? that’s my belonging place.

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  17. Don’t usually read your comments, but these are great. I know the Everything in Nothing better than most. And I am also the type of person who refuses to get habitually hooked into anything. And lest you think it admirable, it carries its own load of suffering along with it. It’s compulsion in quite another form. We humans are SO complex! Glad you took time to break the cycle, though. 😉 xo

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