There’s been a sharp uptick in outdoorsman in this neck of suburbia.
Outdoors doesn’t amount to much where I am: fragmented preserves with gravel paths ambling around artificial lakes, the first spring leaves on trees that host endless flocks of robins, and occasional endangered prairie plots. Doesn’t matter; lockdown started and people became claustrophobic. Maybe 20% of the outdoorsman wear masks. Immediate intuition strongly insists that aerosols and droplets get lost in the wind and one’s experience of the fresh, grass-filtered wind is blunted by the breathe through fabric, no matter what pre-print studies or viral twitter animations say.
It’s unnatural to be indoors; I forget that most of the time. Indoors usually offers us not something better, I think, but something with less of what we call ‘inconvenience.’ There is no wind pulling at your limbs in the office, no chill disrupting sleep ensconced in synthetics, no rocks or wet grass. But on occasion, we remember our natural state and yearn for a walk.
Our state’s opening plan is to be executed by region, and ours seems to be about two weeks from first light. The forest preserve is a short walk away for thousands of people in this area. They are using it, more than ever. Lone children bike past me as I walk the dog, headed for the same gravel path I am. Families, seemingly new to the whole ordeal, set up lawn chairs near the water and experiement with fishing poles.
Recent rains have flooded the river. Yesterday I biked down to a preserve’s entrance to see the bench and bridge submerged. A woman, middle-aged and straight-backed, stood and smiled at the impromptu rapids for the 15 minutes I spent doing the same. I left, and she was still there.