I have always loved brisk walking in nature.
Many mornings, I take the path around the lake near my house. The path circles the water beneath tall trees and small bushes, with wooden bridges along the way. Joggers. Cyclists. Dogs pulling their people toward whatever smells most interesting. Mallards resting on the bank like a feathered society.
Lately, though, my left knee has had an opinion about this.
It is not an intense pain. More like a lingering nuisance, especially on stairs, the kind of discomfort you can still walk through if you decide not to listen to it. So last weekend, I got up early and went to the lake for my usual brisk walk.
Everything looked the same as always. The same lake. The same trees. Bikers. Joggers. Dogs and ducks.
Everything seemed the same except for my pace.
My left knee kept telling me: slow down.
I tried to push through it.
That did not work.
So I slowed down.
Almost immediately, another voice appeared.
Don’t walk like an old lady.
I knew that voice. She grew up with me. It was not my knee speaking anymore.
I tried to shake her off and keep walking. But she followed me down the path. Every time someone passed, she found something critical to say. That woman with the headset who just walked past you looks older than you. This walk is going to take twice as long.
She despised my left knee, calling it weak.
The knee jabbed back with a sharp little cuss.
The knee won the argument for a moment.
Without the usual pace of my brisk walk, the path felt different. At first, I thought I was simply covering less ground. Then I started noticing things I would have walked straight past.
Near the edge of the lake, a turtle was slowly climbing onto a piece of floating wood. It pulled itself up with remarkable determination, then slipped back into the water when the wood tilted. The rising sun caught its wet shell, turning it golden for a moment.
Farther along, a white water bird stood perfectly still, watching something move beneath the surface with great intensity and patience.
A flock of mallards rested along the bank. Some were standing on one leg with amazing balance. Others tucked their heads into their feathers, wrapped in their own natural down comforters.
Then a squirrel raced up an oak tree and stopped on a branch above me. Its head faced down, its tail flicking rapidly, as if announcing its new territory.
I kept walking.
I had almost stopped noticing my knee. The inner voice was finally quiet.
Under one of the trees, a cluster of pale blue eggs caught my eye.
There were several of them gathered together like a small wreath. They were larger than ordinary chicken eggs, with a soft blue tint that seemed almost precious against the dried grass and leaves.
Duck eggs? I thought.
I moved closer to see them more clearly.
They were just lying there, so precious. I thought about the small lives forming inside those delicate shells. Something completely hidden was already happening. Wings, beaks, feathers, all quietly becoming what they would become.
I squatted down, marveling at life itself.
That was when I heard the warning.
Two mallards were suddenly heading toward me with considerably more urgency than the leisurely ducks I had been admiring earlier.
I understood the message immediately.
Apparently, they also believed in boundaries.
I backed away.
They kept charging and quacking at me.
So I ran.
There I was, the woman who had spent the morning being instructed by her knee to slow down, suddenly running down the path with two indignant ducks behind her.
My knee did not love the running. But I was laughing the whole way, and somewhere in the middle of being chased off by two furious mallards guarding their nest, I noticed I was happy.
Not despite the slow morning.
Because of it.
