One of my 2011 goals is walking several mornings each week before work. Most mornings I head out between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. The world is incredibly peaceful at this time and I love the stillness and being in the midst of it.
It has been a learning process knowing how to prepare for the weather and what it takes to get noticed by people on the road. I feel silly in the reflective vest, but it only took one morning of not wearing it to realize how hard it was for cars to see me–even with a headlamp and walking against traffic. The same style vest is also worn by the garbage service people in in our neighbourhood.
The other morning I got back from my walk and pulled out the trash cans for trash day before going into the house. My wife commented later that she’d looked out the window and wondered who the “good looking garbage man” was, only to realize it was me putting the cans out! We had a good laugh about it.
A few days later I told my wife about this post and the reason for taking my picture so early in the morning. According to her, what really happened is that she looked out window and thought to herself, “what a nice garbage man, he’s putting our cans out on the street.” Naturally I prefer the version of the story as I originally recalled it. 🙂
This raised an interesting thought for me… how often do I carry thoughts and understandings away from conversations that add more than is there? Apparently in this situation I took her comment and expanded it in my mind to encompass more than she’d said…. or maybe I was just “playing old tapes” in a good way from previous compliments she’s given me in the past.
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