Kimberlee K.

On Saturday morning, the swell of the sunrise filled my room up with bright light.

I opened one eye, thinking it might be the headlights of a car, or the motion sensor of the house across the way. But no, it was the day announcing its presence seemingly all at one. 

While I hadn’t had a bad week, the dark mornings characteristic of daylight savings had made my work alarm feel offensive. Surely, it’s still the middle of the night, I thought, accustomed to the sun and my alarm working in tandem each weekday morning.

But Saturday seemed to recenter me, to put my circadian rhythm back on track as it woke me up more kindly, more gently.

So I went for a hike.

In the summer, hikes in Southern California can be…a lot. Unless you wake up early to beat the heat, it only takes a mile or two for the sun—so delightful and welcoming in the spring—to feel like a weapon of mass destruction.

So I try to hike as often as I can when there’s a high of 78. When the trail starts out even the slightest bit cold. When you can’t help but realize, wow, this is kind of a perfect day.

Now, one look at my phone, at the news, at the overwhelming stream of information available to me, would tell me no, it’s NOT a perfect day. Not for her, not for him, not for this country or that city, or these families or those children.

No, no, no.

And while it’s important to take note of what’s going on, to stay vigilant in the ways the world is broken so that we might seek ways to fix it, I think there’s also value in going back to basics—in intentionally seeking the smallest sources of good and wonder.

The parking lot at the base of the hike was full, which, if you think about it, is already something good. Because every person there had the same internal battle that morning—should I go, should I not? And every person chose yes, chose the sunshine, the outdoors.

And now there we all were, smiling at each other and waving, saying, “good morning” and “no, you go ahead!” Dogs walked with their owners, happily panting with the low hanging tongues and splashing in the river crossings. Butterflies of all colors flew in front of me and around me, landing on flowers and disappearing in the rustling leaves of trees that danced around in the slight breeze.

Big swaths of yellow, purple, and green lined the trail, announcing in capital letters that SPRING HAS SPRUNG, and little cotton tailed bunnies hopped in and out of bushes.

Some people walked in pairs, others in large groups that would fade seamlessly into a single file line, like a flock of birds, whenever someone needed to walk by. Bikers rang their bells and runners offered grateful hands whenever you let them pass. Sometimes lizards slithered along the trail beside me, like escorts, before disappearing behind a rock. And even the pesky gnats, that kept my hand constantly waving in front of my face, made me feel as though they were saying, we see you! You’re here! Look at you! You’re here!

When I reached the top of the hike, I kept walking, looping around to an additional incline my family found a while back. I wanted to see the majestic tree I knew would be up there, but I also wasn’t ready to turn around, to go back home where the information can get so much louder, and the temptation to scroll can get so much trickier.

I wanted to spend more time in a part of the world that, in that exact moment, at its most insular level, was perfect and beautiful and in desperate need of noticing. I wanted to remind myself how amazed I was by the trees and the plants and the flowers that turn so vibrant in the spring. I wanted to see the growth that is happening all around me and celebrate it, so that I might better find the blooms in my own life, in my own body, in my own mind, and celebrate that, too.

Each person I passed remained a stranger as they got close and then farther away. We didn’t exchange names or phone numbers or anything more than a simple greeting and a smile. But to me, it felt like we were all acknowledging the collective choice we made. We were all celebrating, in those brief moments we saw each other, the goodness we were experiencing, both together and separately. Because amongst the bad bad bad, there we were, seeking and finding the good good good.

We were sharing the “it’s beautiful, isn’t it?!”

And the moments afterward when we looked around to agree, yes!