Brothers Walking
“My drawers are empty again. Has anyone seen my pants?” our older son has said in frustration countless times. Autistic younger son Sean loves nothing more than rearranging everything in our house. Drawers of neatly folded shirts, pants and underwear are transformed into overstuffed spaces that get jammed closed, often in someone else’s dresser drawers. “I’m keeping my clothes in the office in plastic bins,” our older son declared one day, tired of having his chest of drawers constantly raided and emptied. Some things get squirreled away into the oddest places. “Has anyone seen the TV remote control?” After the twentieth day-long search to find the remote, we started hiding it, a tough task in a house where our compulsive searcher-and-mover gets into everything. Sean moving large objects of furniture on a daily basis means our poor hardwood floors have taken a beating. One day we found that he’d opened various vitamin containers and mixed the contents. All those went in the discard pile, and we found a new secure place to keep medicines. Despite his little brother’s frustrating behavior, our older son still reaches for Sean’s hand when we go hiking. His move to England for a work assignment has been looming, but paperwork delays have given us all a few extra weeks together. Every hike, I try to stifle the thought, “Is this the last time he’ll be on this walk with us?” I watch him lead his little brother hand-in-hand, and hope that face-to-face screen time from afar will give Sean some sense that his big brother is still here in the world. In the meantime, we will enjoy the handful of family walks left before he goes. We’ll keep hiking when he’s gone. Sean will just have to reach for someone else’s hand. And as we encourage everyone else, we will keep putting one foot forward. This week’s Hike Notes, Jug Handle Headlands Loop -Mendocino, introduces an easy half-mile loop walk along the bluffs at Jug Handle State Natural Reserve in Mendocino. Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes on the main Hikes page or on the Hike Search by Area (was Quick View Hike List) page. Click World Walks to see or share favorite family-friendly walks! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. Check the Home page for the broader background story. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photo galleries at the bottom of each hike page! Please feel free to share, and follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism New this week: Hike Notes 142: Jug Handle Headlands Loop-Mendocino
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Familiar Paths
Walking along a trail for the first time, I’m sometimes struck with an uncanny sense that I’ve been along that path before. The way the path curves, the feeling of the trees lining the way, the steepness of an incline, the way old roots have risen into the footpath. Each trail has its own undefinable essence, but that essence sometimes reverberates in other trails. A path in Point Reyes reminds me of a trail in the Marin Headlands which reminds me of a favorite walk in San Francisco, which then again reminds me of a trail in Pacifica. Feeling you know some essential part of a new trail just by its ambience is reassuring. The crossover doesn’t stop with the trails I love in Northern California. Sometimes I get this instinctive feeling about a trail from my childhood in the Adirondack foothills. The precariously leaning barn at previous Hike Notes Burleigh Murray Ranch Trail reminded me of the fallen down barns in the farmland behind my childhood home, where my brothers and I used to amble in winter, spring, summer and fall. My oldest brother, who lives in a scenic part of England, has sent in a series of World Walks contributions. We live halfway around the world now, but it’s nice to imagine my brother walking on peaceful trails in England with his beagles, the same kind of dog we walked with in the back fields as kids. The first highlighted share from his favorite walks in England is Bacton Wood. This week’s HikingAutism archives Hike Notes features Burleigh Murray Ranch Trail, which not only reminds me of the farmland where I grew up, but also features paths I was reminded of as I looked at trail photos in the Bacton Wood World Walks. Do you have a favorite walk? Share with readers in World Walks! Two or three sentences and photos allow other readers to share your special hike. See the World Walks link for how to submit your walk to share. It’s easy! This week’s Hike Notes from the Archives: (Original Hike Notes 128): Burleigh Murray Ranch Trail Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes and photo galleries via the main Hikes page or the Hike Search by Area (was Quick View Hike List) page. Click World Walks to see or share favorite walks from readers! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. Check the Home page for the broader background story. Please feel free to share, and follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism Hanging by a Thread
On a visit to the Mendocino Coast, we walked through a cemetery to find the path to a famed sixty-foot deep hole in the forest. Walking up to the fenced edge of the Little River Blowhole, I felt a dash of vertigo looking at the steep drop to the cave opening and ocean waves below. The next most jarring visual element was the image of large trees clinging to the edge of the erosion line. Grand trees held their proud vertical stance despite their precarious grip on the soil. The forces of nature will eventually topple these trees down into the depths of the blowhole. Their trunk-skeletons in the wet sand below become artifacts of geological history. But for a very long time, perhaps many years, the long-cultivated roots that helped these trees grow to maturity will keep them standing. It is astounding how long a living creature, plant or animal, can hold on to functional life despite the most challenging of circumstances. Unlike trees, as part of the animal world, we humans have the option to move from immediate threat sites. We can’t dodge danger entirely, and will eventually reach a final resting place, but we can make the most of both strong roots and mobility. Cultivating our roots—deep human connections, good health, engaging in meaningful activities—can make the times when we’re hanging by a thread a little less scary. Humans can survive remarkably challenging times, sometimes just dodging peril when the last thread of a root was about to break. In recent tumultuous times, it may feel collectively like we’re hanging by a thread over impending disaster. Take heart in making it this far. Reach out to someone who needs encouragement. Cultivate the things that make you stronger, and keep putting one foot forward. This week’s Hike Notes, Little River Blowhole-Mendocino, takes readers on a short walk around a dramatic natural phenomenon tucked behind a small cemetery on the Mendocino Coast. Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes on the main Hikes page or on the Hike Search by Area (was Quick View Hike List) page. Click World Walks to see or share favorite family-friendly walks! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. Check the Home page for the broader background story. If you’re not able to take one of these Northern California hikes, hopefully you can enjoy the photo galleries at the bottom of each hike page! Please feel free to share, and follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism New this week: Hike Notes 141: Little River Blowhole-Mendocino Calming Waters
Pummeled by the news in recent times, “tumultuous times” or “overwhelming challenges” is the first theme that comes to mind week after week. Individually and collectively, people around the world have taken a battering on all fronts: emotionally, physically, environmentally, politically, and on the health front. The term “doom scrolling” was coined in recent years, an apt description for those of us who find ourselves clicking the news headlines just one more time to see if there’s something important happening on all the dark fronts we’re following. At this point, it’s not a matter of looking to find the bad news. Any random change of the channel or headline view seems to be overflowing with disheartening stories, even as we hope to find something bright and hopeful. Hope is the magic word here. We can’t give up on the belief in goodness in the world, of which there is plenty. It just doesn’t make the headlines like bad things do. Take a break from the news and soak up a beautiful view when you can. A view of a calm lake or pond, a favorite forest view, a distant horizon sunset, the flowers in your yard or along your street, all of these can give us a chance to slow down our spinning minds and just take a deep breath. If it’s not possible to be outdoors when world news anxiety and depression starts to sneak up, catch a calming view from nature photos in a book, online images, or nature videos. Viewing calming images can actually make your breathing slow and clear disturbing clutter from your mind. This week’s Hike Notes are from the HikingAutism archives, Bon Tempe Lake Loop. I find a sense of calm at all the lakes in the Marin Watershed, but Bon Tempe Lake is a stunner from all angles. Do you have a favorite walk? Share with readers in World Walks! Two or three sentences and photos allow other readers to share your special hike. See the World Walks link for how to submit your walk to share. It’s easy! This week’s Hike Notes from the Archives: (Original Hike Notes 10): Bon Tempe Lake Loop Click Insights/Hike Update News for inspiring reflections. Browse hikes and photo galleries via the main Hikes page or the Hike Search by Area (was Quick View Hike List) page. Click World Walks to see or share favorite walks from readers! Stay in touch with Lisa Louis and HikingAutism via Contact. Check the Home page for the broader background story. Please feel free to share, and follow on Twitter at @HikingAutism |
Lisa LouisSharing insights and hiking highlights (Hikes, Hike Search by Area) from the special needs caregiver front in San Francisco. Archives
November 2024
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