In the Evening

It's easier to sit around the house, to scatter our own ways. To play a mindless game on Facebook or send a few emails while the kids play in their own rooms. If you are a parent, you know how it is. We are tired in the evenings. Introverts like Dr. H. and me crave down-time, without chattering activity. For us, an after-dinner walk keeps us from cocooning.

For years and years we've ended our day with an evening walk. We've walked countless blocks in Ohio, Iowa, and Tennessee. I can remember perfectly all the different places we've lived and the routes we've walked with a baby in a stroller and one riding a tricycle; or one on a bike, one by the hand, and one in a stroller; or just all of us on foot.


Something about an evening walk lets us be together quietly. We comment on the new plants in a neighbor's yard or wonder why that yellow dog on the corner lot isn't out barking. The temperature finally cools down to a bearable point, and the sky takes on the evening softness.


We nearly always have the same destination: a big open hill just a half-mile from our house. Laurel finally feels confident enough to walk the dog, who is strong and not particularly well trained.…

and Randy carries a plastic sack in his pocket for the dog's evening deposit.


When we reach the big hill, we let the dog run free. She and Duncan always take off together for the first run. Because she is part Australian Shepherd, she herds us. It's awfully cute and a bit annoying.


Sometimes we bring along the frisbee.


Sometimes we just sit and talk about nothing much, like how dry the grass is…


and watch the train go by and the airplanes take off.

An evening walk is just one of those things that grounds us, that makes us take a breather from the busyness of life and the buzz of technology.

“Few people know how to take a walk.
The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Linked up on Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting with the Sky and Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer