Outside my place of work, there is a now-defunct golf corse. The northern 2/3rds is slated to be developed into another generic office park, while the southern third, which I can see through my window, is expected to remain as green space.
I have worked across from this green space for the better part of a year. Until a couple of months ago, it was reasonably maintained, but since then it has been allowed to lie fallow, slowly returning from its former gently-sculpted purpose to a much more natural, dissheveled state.
This afternoon, I went for a walk.
This afternoon is the first time I stepped out onto this space, after eleven months of parking my car not three feet from its threshold.
It was not a long walk, in time or distance, but it felt like both an instant and an eternity. I stepped out with my head spinning, both literally and metaphorically, needing to get out of the disconnected, artificial confines of a high-tech semiconductor design facility, needing something natural and real, needing to stretch my stiff limbs, needing to move about in the natural chaos of live.
I stepped out, not knowing what to expect; not knowing if the family of racoons would peek out at me from behind a weather-stripped fence, if a lizard would scuttle away from the crunch of my feet on the gravel path, if I'd inhale a swarm of gnats as I rounded a tree.
I went for a walk.
Why had I waited this long to begin to explore this slice of unnatural natural space a quarter mile from I-95? Every day I'd seen the birds landing in the water hazards, lizards basking on the now-overgrown sand traps, giant spiders weaving even larger webs between tall palm trees, insects gorging themselves on the sweet necar of wild flowers.
It was a beautiful walk.
I let my hair down, closed my eyes, stretched, inhaled deeply, and drew in the beauty around me. I tasted the air, I heard the dry grass crunch, I smelled the dog fennel's subtle scent lingering on my fingers, and from behind closed eyelids saw life emerge and spread out in an endless, infinite sea.
It was a walk in beauty.
On the way back up to the office, one of my colleagues remarked about how boring, ugly, and empty that old golf course was. He couldn't have been more wrong.