‘Well that’s not right’, I turned my head to take in again the view across the field through the hedgerow. ‘Wow! ‘
Stripped bare, only yesterday the same field had 8-foot-high maize covering every foot of it, now completely gone.
Quickly my mind began its logical processing… ‘well, it is October after all’. Then thoughts of when the crop was sown back in the spring and how I had observed it grow as the weeks had rolled by on my regular running route. A sense of mourning was growing for the loss of summer. In fact, this was my first evening run, as it was now too dark in the mornings; winter is here!
Feeling a sense of contraction, as if an old foe had just appeared in the distance. My mind conjured up dark mornings and nights, how the temperature reading on the dashboard of my car never gets into double figures. Recalling a cancelled birthday party when I was six years old due to snow (where did that memory come from!) settled nicely into the storyline of gloom my mind was quite happily constructing.
Then I caught a glimpse of the rising moon shining brightly through the silhouette of a thin tree. A noticeable cooling of the air, as I dropped down a small hill, just leaving the fringes of town. Snapping out of my daydreaming about the miseries of winter, I became aware of how quickly my mind had been whisked away on this train of thoughts, including a brief stop at the station where I was six years old!
I was also struck by the level of negativity and foreboding it had brought up. All completely baseless, simply steeped in the selective attention of my mind, finding the negatives to fit with its storyline. It prompted me to be curious about these coming days, weeks and months; to take this winter at face value, no pre-judgement required.