Riverside

In the early morning I wake. I dress silently and slip out of my sleeping bag. I slowly unzip the tent flap, trying to let my tent mates sleep. The morning air is cold and biting, and a deep fog encases everything around. Scott and Asa are already awake, like always. The ground is soaked from last night's dew. Someone left a shirt out, and now that’ll never dry. I walk quietly to an old wooden picnic table at the edge of the campsite. I look out over the river bank to the wide, flowing Connecticut river. This is the life I tell myself. The water rushes by in a meditative way. I watch a leaf fall from a tree. It lands in the water and I watch it until it flows out of sight. A wedge of ducks glides across the water on the far side. The world around me is still. It is almost as if it is holding her breath. I sit for what feels like eternity, waiting, watching, feeling the earth's heartbeat beneath my feet. I don’t get to do this often, so I absorb all of the peace I can. Slowly my little world breaks down. Others begin to stir and wake, and Scott sings his song. 

Oh, I like to rise when the sun she rises

Early in the morning

And I like to hear them small birds singing

Merrily upon their laylums

And hurrah for the life of a country boy

And to ramble in the new mowed hay

The sun breaks through the fog and the camp becomes a nest of activity and movement. We have another 20 miles to go today. That’s a different kind of meditation. Tomorrow I will wake and enjoy my little world of peace and solitude. I only have so many mornings left. Until then I whisper into the soft wind, until then.