along the way

There is a walking track along the flood levee. It follows the river inland, a path liberally dotted with bridges and elevated walking platforms. 

Initially, along the way, there are grand old buildings that belong to a bygone era. Restored and re-used, everything from offices to a brewery. 

Then the track begins to dissect, tracks leading off tracks, each following a water causeway. Grand old buildings give way to industrial estates, the stately for purposeful and the beautiful for practical. There are hills for a background and paddocks for a foreground. There are shades of green and brown with a ribbon of water that can be blue or silver or a muddy brown running in between. 

It is quiet, the crunch of gravel under walking shoes often the only sound. There are usually other people out and about, the walkers and joggers and riders and many a four-legged friend. There is something soothing and peaceful about gravel paths, winding waterways and the green and brown of living things, something restorative about an open sky and distant hills.

I wonder how long it will be before I don’t see these things anymore, when new becomes commonplace and interesting becomes mundane. I wonder how many times I will walk these paths and when I will stop looking and seeing, when my mind will start to take me away from my senses and walking becomes thinking rather than being…