The Willow Tree

Wow I haven't written in a while. Sorry about that. I haven't been too busy, necessarily, I guess I just haven't felt inspired. But today I was.

Today I went on a two-hour jog in the Englischer Garten (not because I meant it to be this long, but because I got lost and accidently made a circle around the lake... which wasn't really a bad thing.) But by the time my trek had ended, I was back near the entrance to Prinzregentenstraße—the nearest garden entrance to where I live—and decided to sit down under a willow tree, dip my feet into the river, watch as the surfers rode the waves to my left... and I eventually got lost in the flow of the emerald water.

This is something I love more than many things—watching water. I was listening to the Celtic song, "Overture,"—a song I love so much it will be played at my funeral—and I watched as the rapid waves gathered up around my pale feet, seeming to be attracted to their warmth in the way that their splashes onto the side of the bank seemed to increase the moment my feet submerged into the frigid depths. But I didn't take my feet out. I let them flit to and fro with the current until they turned a deep red, and then I thought it time to let them feel the warmth of the fall air yet again.

What added to this moment though, was the way the air moved through the trees as I looked up at them. Gently swaying, back and forth, back and forth, as if to say I ought to have no cares in the world. Do you ever experience moments like that? Where it's like the time and place you are in is meant only for you and you alone?

That's what I felt today. That river and that willow tree were my sanctuary. Not necessarily a place in which I needed to seek solace, but I one I discovered with accidental intent, that left me with the impression that if I ever needed a place to escape, I had found it.