A Cinquain Chain: March in Los Angeles

And reflections on walking under the Puffy Yellow Puffball Trees

Golden Trumpet Tree — photo by writer

She says:
I love gray days.
I invite her outside
underneath the Golden Trumpets
with me.

She says:
I am too cold.
She rests her head on me —
we are warm here under blankets,
inside.

I love to walk. I try to walk every single day, at least 9,000 steps. I often follow the same path through a relatively quiet, hilly neighborhood that leads to a relatively quiet and beautiful city park.

I begin slowly, even begrudgingly, almost as if I have to force my legs to move forward. Quickly, though, my mind moves out of my body into the world. I silently describe the world, perhaps finding words to color the sky, testing my memory of the flowers’ names — hibiscus, geranium, iris, oleander, and I remember that it is called dafne in Greek, and then maybe I think about the myth, one of the my favorites, and I see the girl as she turns into a tree.

I wonder about the names of the plants I do not know. I take photos for reference for later research. I make up silly names in the meantime.

Puffy Yellow Puffball Tree.

Crazy Cotton Candy Tree.

Sometimes I write as I walk. The sentences follow the rhythm of my steps or the beat of the city or the whistle of the wind.

And then, finally, I let my mind wander, and usually, I land on reflections of my current life; I think about concerns, problems, solutions, the parts that are working, the parts that need work.

A good bit right now needs work.

This past week especially, I’ve needed to walk.

In the book Architecture from the Inside Out, Franck and Lepori describe what is called “a desire line,” which is “the path people mark in the ground by repeatedly taking the same route.”

I love this. For me, walking is a meditation. It is a time to breath, one of the only times I am truly off the grid, my body moving, my mind…