“Let’s go for a twenty-mile walk tomorrow,” I said to the family one evening in April.
My people and I had lived the day as a bunch of snack-noshing sluggards, flickering screens of entertainment dazzling us for hours. Our eyes were bleary from TV, our backs sore from inactivity. Enough was enough.
“Let’s do it,” Flicka said.
“I’m in,” Husband said.
But the next morning, April 9, my bold proposal from the day before scared me.
“How about not twenty miles?” I said, fingers threaded around the cup holding my Italian roast. “That might’ve been the junk food talking last night.”
“Oh, I see how it is.” Husband chuckled. “Backing out now. Got it.”
I waved a palm in the air. “No, no. I’m just saying how about ten miles instead?”
I strode to the living room window to gather my own weather report. White precipitation pelted our sidewalk at a slant.
“Whoa.” Husband stood next to me. “I didn’t know this was coming.”
I grimaced. “We can always cancel the walk.”
“Let’s just see.”
And we did. In minutes, a new world loomed outside the glass. Snow gone, the sun shot arrows of blessing on the day.
We tugged on our jackets, tied on our shoes, and grabbed our water bottles.
We parked the car in the parking lot at Wirth Lake, and Husband, Flicka, and I started our long walk. At Cedar Lake, the sun warmed our faces. My down jacket was too much. Unzipping it, I contemplated losing a thermal shirt, one of my four layers.
“I didn’t know it would be this warm,” Flicka said.
Our path curved around the lake and delivered us to Lake of the Isles. The wind slashed through my layers, and I zipped up again. Covid-19 had reduced the foot traffic around the chain of lakes on this day—or was it the fickle weather?—and a twinge of sadness streaked through my thoughts. On a normal spring day, the lakes would be loaded with runners, bikers, and dogs tethered to their owners. Not today.
In Uptown, we waited for the crosswalk light to change, the sun heating the stocking caps on our heads.
“We’re at three miles,” Husband said, pointing at Bde Maka Ska ahead. “Let’s walk around the lake and head back.”
The circumference of Bde Maka Ska, roughly three miles, would put us at six after we looped it. His calculations would be just about right to hit our ten miles back at the car.
I opened my jacket again. We strode along the west side of the lake. A lone woman perched on a rock—decked out like winter—and gazed at the ripples, gray and moving. We rounded the south side of the body of water.
“Look at that skyline,” I said. The buildings in downtown Minneapolis were all shades of blue-gray, the waters of the lake, gray-blue. A world of melancholy beauty. “I’ve never seen it in those colors.”
“It depends on what it’s reflecting—and the sun that day,” Flicka said.
Great gusts of wind ruffled the waters, and the day grayed to slate. A chill took a bite into my clothing. I shut my jacket. Was the weather today imitating life?
“I didn’t know it would be this cold,” I said.
“Didn’t think it would be,” Husband said, “but at least it’s not raining.”
The skies opened up their storehouses and scattered white on us. The water next to us whipped in its hole; the clouds darkened. Up went my jacket, and I fastened it at the top to cover my mouth. I tugged my hat closer and pulled up my hood.
“This is actually a squall now,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
The three of us went silent. It would take yelling to communicate, so we didn’t. Snow blasted our left sides as we spanned the south end of Bde Maka Ska. The winds drew tears from my eyes.
Count it all joy.
“You okay?” Husband said, eyeing me.
“This is miserable.” I clenched my abs against the cold, grateful for my gloves.
Silent again, we plodded into the wind. Angry waves churned. Bicyclists, trapped like us, pumped against nature, maybe trying to get home—or to other shelter. A young boy in shorts strained at his pedals, the squall reddening the bare skin of his legs. At least he had a scarf wound around his head, leaving only a sliver of face exposed.
We were exactly half-way into our ten-mile walk and at the farthest point from our destination. No choice but to trudge on. Memories of labor pains lit up my mind. There was a point back when I pushed life into the world—three times, actually—when I thought it was too much. But there was no getting out of it. And not now either.
Count it all joy.
There were those words again. The theme of my year. My phrase for 2020. Because the new year would be too big for just one word, and I knew as much in December when the phrase dropped into my spirit.
We already had a pandemic on our hands. What else might come?
On the east side of the lake, winter fled; spring had come again. Snow, crusted onto my left side, melted away, and nature snapped the sunshine back on, drying my jacket sleeve and leggings.
We cut through neighborhoods, rounded the east side of Lake of the Isles, and at seven and a half miles, soreness crept into my muscles. Maybe I’d feel today—both effortless and arduous, cheery and depressing—tomorrow.
Back at the car, logging some tenths of a mile under our goal, 2020 surfaced in my thoughts. What more was to come? And if it were like our walk today, would we feel the ache of it still in 2021?
Maybe we would. And if so, what could we do?
Count it all joy.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.