JUNE AFTERNOONS AND SUMMER HIKING TRAILS

Remember when you were a kid on summer vacation and warm afternoons felt endless?

I’ve rediscovered that feeling these last few weeks. As I write these words, I am sitting on our backyard deck. A robin sings somewhere nearby. No, I’m wrong; upon listening more closely, it’s a cardinal singing, whistling, chirping. Sunlight comes through the birch leaves on limbs leaning over the deck, dappling on the deck planks. A small gray spider skitters along the bottom of the sliding door on the back of the house while a helicopter chk-chk-chks overhead. A motorcycle buzzes down what I’m guessing is Snelling Avenue by the direction of the sound. 

The garden has burst open with its usual June abundance. My partner Mick created packed-full deck containers of pansies in yellow and purple. Catmint waves in the breeze behind the garage, its stalks full of bumblebees. My favorite deep-toned wind chimes sing in that same garden, while our resident wren sits on top of them to sing his own tune. He’s been singing and singing for weeks, making me worry that he hasn’t found a mate. In other years, the arrival of wren babies by this time would have caused the wren to be quiet and watchful.

That I have time to notice all these things while sitting still is a gift. There has been much busy-ness over the past six months, flitting here and there like the birds I’m listening to. There has been travel – packed bags, crowded airports, taxis on unfamiliar roads, beds not my own, food sampled for the first time. There has been childcare – days spent with my toddler granddaughter Maeve who is the very definition of “terrible twos” while being infinitely lovable. There have been poems to read and edit, blog posts to write, fellow creative crones to cheer on. 

And now it is summer. Maeve’s parents are on summer break from their teaching jobs, so Mondays and Tuesdays are my own again. Mick and I have no further big trips planned, opting for journeys closer to home. I’ve only got one poet conversation for One Minnesota Crone scheduled for the next few months (August 1 – Wilda Morris) and I’m not taking on any more than that. 

It’s time to relax. And hike.

We’ve already done three nice hikes at nearby park reserves: Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve near Savage, Minnesota; Lake Rebecca Park Reserve near Rockford, Minnesota; and Spring Lake Park Reserve near Hastings, Minnesota. If you don’t live near the Twin Cities, you may not realize that hiking trails are everywhere around here. On days when we don’t have time to go very far, we often take a walk at Vadnais-Snail Lake Regional Park in Shoreview, Minnesota – just up the road from us. In fact, that’s where we went last Friday after realizing we had a few other things we needed to pay attention to. We were rewarded with this:

Here are some snippets from the other trails:

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Part of what makes these summer days now upon us feel endless is time spent outside, without attention to what the clock says. Whether it’s time spent on my own deck in my own yard or time spent on a trail somewhere, I feel a luxurious slow-down, as if the only thing important in this moment is to observe and absorb the beauty I don’t see when I’m busy. That beauty is there with me or without me; it doesn’t care what else I have to do. It’s on me to slow down, be still, notice.

all photos by kcmickelson 2024