Dogged by a document

Fall break is nearly over and what do I have to show for it? Sticky shoes, a wounded knee, blurred vision, and pages--publishable, I hope.

One of my goals for fall break was to do a lot of walking through the rapidly changing countryside, where leaves are changing color almost before my eyes. I've walked something like 18 miles in the past four days, marvelling over just how much racket a measly little chipmunk can make when it runs across a forest floor covered with dry leaves. To get to the good parts I had to walk across fresh patches of tar and chip, leaving my shoes marred with globs of sticky goo. On Saturday morning, at the most remote point on a six-mile walk, I slipped on some loose gravel and slammed into the ground knee-first, twisting my back and causing my entire body to cry out in pain. Nobody was listening except the cornfield and it didn't care, so I hobbled home.

Today my knee still looks ugly but the pain is gone, so I ventured out again, hoping to rest my blurry eyes by looking at something more interesting and varied than a Word document. At first I couldn't see much except that same document that seemed to be dogging my steps, banging on my brain cells, and demanding attention, but finally I put it behind me, and behold, there was autumn--an amazing show and all of it free.

And now I'm back home with my sticky shoes, wounded knee, and blurry eyes, and I'm ready to print out that pile of pages and send them off to an academic publisher first thing tomorrow. Best of all, putting some concentrated time into this project has jump-started my thinking on the next stage, so once I get this bit into the mail, I'll know where to put my energy to best effect in the coming months. It feels good to reach this goal...but it feels even better to have another goal calling me forward.

Now if I can just get my shoes unstuck from the tar, I'll really be getting somewhere.