My Monday and Tuesday Walk

note: The book I finished reading, The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. It’s a story of loss and redemption, courage and perseverance, humain frailties, survival and acts of kindness. It’s a love story. An inspirational story.

The day as it happens

My day starts late with a walk to the river

Counting the black birds on the tree

They come down to feed on feeders

Thrown by a woman on the sidewalk.

Our activity continues to the downtown

Where children and adults parade their lanterns,

Light attires, jellyfish lighted parasols, costumes. 

Their route passes along where lgihted arts

Are projected on buildings complete with music and narrations.

We end the evening under the huge moon

As if it falls down from the sky

Which is what one child asks her mother about.

Vanishing point

Pearls of laughter, precious and soft
The laundry hanging, rhododendrons of peach and purple
Photos of them together next to a giraffe
Arranged themselves in her mind
While she walks on the beach
with no vanishing point
Where children are playing,
Two are chasing the gulls
and laughing
They will not be at the tea ceremony
dainty mountain of gestures and formalities they want no part
One day the memory will rise
And remember one own’s happiness
Like a child waking up
Her eyes looking at her mother
Her mother smiling at her

She turns around and walks back
The children and the birds are gone
The sands are changing colors
Someone waves from a distance
She continues her walk on the beach
With no vanishing point.

Saturday walk

My Monday walk to fitness

For the last 2 weeks I started to walk everyday with two days off a week. Today is hot with a mild cool breeze. What did I see today?

From top of Maxwell Bridge in Imola Avenue looking down Napa River are kayakers.

I climbed the bridge and down to Kennedy Park where the trail joins the Napa River Trail and I met a gentleman pushing a stroller where his big dog is riding. Sometimes the dog rides a surfboard, sometime the dog walks and other times rides the stroller he said.That’s the bridge I climbed and down.

Napa Downtown’s renovation includes a new hotel, Archer Hotel and new stores and wine tasting venues. The hotel has a simple modern architecture. Very pleasing to the eye.

On the way back I passed by a samll garden with pink trumpets.

I made my 10, 000 steps for the day.

Find a way

Walk and empty your pockets of loneliness
the day is 69 degrees with cool breeze
red flowers are greeting the sun
meet bichon frise and bernese mountain dogs
or a man carrying a float tube on his back.

note: My Friday walk to the river: 9, 670 steps, 3.7miles

Flowers on Memorial Day

Mrs. Abstract and I are trying to accomodate only one car. She has more activities every day than I do. She has the car this morning.

There is a Memorial Day celebration today at the Veterans Park in Downtown Napa on the Riverfront. The day is warm in the mid-80’s with a light cool breeze.

I walk to the Veteran Park, watch tpart of he ceremonies then continue my walk to Oxbow Public Market like one other day.

nasturtiums

On my way to the Veterans Park I talk to a barechested man pruning his nasturtium. We talk for a bit. I learn that nasturtium is edible and has high nutritional value. He says one of the restaurants in town uses the blossoms in the salads.Are the leaves protective of the flowers from the sun?

The Veterans Park is all sunshine and has plenty of people, dignitaries and
speeches.

Memorial Day celebration honoring the veterans
On my return home I selected one of the streets lined by tall redwood trees for the shade. Many front yards are planted with roses, white, pale pink, and red. I find one garden with yellow lillies. One frontyard has a white magnolia tree with blossoms on the top.

With all these colors I’m empty of poetic lines.

After posting I will take a nap.

A question

I count the trees
To measure my pace when I walk
Birds fly away from me.
How about the wolves?

What the page says

Since the big flood
The huge log remained in the river
Like a whale that forgot to breath
A home for fish
A resting place for birds

I read a few pages from a book
I carry during my walk
The page says:
“May love find you when you least expect
Where you least expect.”

I resume my walk
A white heron alight on the log.

note:Books I’m reading: When Breath Becomes air by Paul Kalanithi and
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Beach walk

Sunny and cool day. We walked our 8,000 steps on the beach.