To Take a Walk, Where Waters Flow

Why, on an overall good day, do I let little things get me down? On my way home from school I was in a bad mood. Reflecting over it as I drove, I realized it was based on three little annoying things that happened:

1. The kids said that my hair didn't look as good today as it did yesterday. (Why even bother to mention that, kids?)
2. A friend sent me a text saying she was going to do something that I thought was a bad idea, but I didn't feel I had the footing to tell her so.
3. I caught a student with a phone five minutes before the last bell rang. She wouldn't give it up, and, after some other drama, ended up getting suspended from school for a week for insubordination.

This kind of bad mood always compels me to go for a walk/jog. (I jog until I use up all the extra adrenalin, then I walk.) This time I left my phone behind so that I would have nothing to distract me. I just walked and thought.

It picked me up again this time, although it took a little longer than usual. I was determined to walk down to the river, which is about a mile, I guess. I walked down the street where I used to live as a teenager. (Oddly enough, I saw a childhood friend at his mother's house, where we used to shoot hoops in the driveway.) I walked by my old home that's the same, but different. I walked by houses that used to be there, replaced by houses that are new. I walked by trees, and looked up into their crowns to see if mistletoe still grows there. I walked down to the river, the river that is always different, yet the same still. At the river, I watched men loading a rusty barge with grain so that one end sunk down into the water, and wondered how many tons it could hold. I walked by the school, and wondered if someone in this school was wondering who I am, the way I do when I see someone at my school who is not a student. I walked by the old barn, where there used to be goats, but there are none now, and the roof is falling in. I walked by the cotton gin that my great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather ran many years ago, but now is just a brick skeleton.

By this time, I began to get very cold and tired. The wind began to blow harder, and the sun was too low in the sky to be of any help. I had to tie my hood down to keep my eardrums from throbbing. That's when I stopped thinking of anything other than, man, I wish I were home now!

Now the little things aren't bothering me so much. I left them behind somewhere between here and the river.