By Wilson Kerr — Columnist
As life flies by and the years add up, the traditional Valentine’s Day options can feel a little stale. A dozen roses from a local florist (not the grocery store). A date night reservation at her favorite fancy restaurant (and recalling which restaurant that is). Jewelry from a local artisan (was it white or yellow gold she prefers?). Breakfast in bed (shoot, did that last year).
While special occasions are important to honor, and everyone loves a thoughtful gift or surprise night out, age seems to highlight the significance of smaller, everyday moments. My wife seems to already know this, and I too often miss what the marriage guidebooks call “bids.”
For example, she walks most mornings in the conservation land near our house. After we get the girls on their respective school buses, she often asks me to join her. Some mornings, I accept, but far too often, I decline, opting instead to head into my basement office and start in on something that’s spun up in my head overnight or to respond to an email I just saw on my phone.
Pines, pools, and trails
A little-known gem of 21 acres, West Concord Park is accessed off Conant Street, at the intersection of Domino Drive. It’s just the right acreage and hilly enough to get your heart pumping. Featuring white pine groves and vernal pools, it’s a beautiful patch of New England woods with a nice little loop of trails.
A walk in these woods together is no small thing. It might appear to be “less” than roses or a dinner out, but it’s far more precious, especially in aggregate. It gives us a chance to reconnect, to hash through parental operations. To forge a plan for simultaneous log-ins to the Concord Rec website at 7:29 the next morning for Shamrock Ball tickets. Or just to be out there, in the woods, as a couple, taking in the crisp morning air. And maybe even hold hands on the way home.
At 94, actor Clint Eastwood recently said: “Luxury is laughter and friends, luxury is rain on your face, luxury is hugs and kisses. Don’t look for luxury in shops; don’t look for it in gifts. … Luxury is being loved by people … luxury is what money can’t buy.”
In fact, a walk in the woods is a kind of luxury. To find the time, to make the effort.
Health benefits abound
There are also real, tangible physical and mental benefits. Science says a walk in the woods reduces stress levels and releases internal feel-good serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Connecting to nature in this way can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression and can foster a higher state of mental acuity during the day that follows.
The benefits of simply “saying yes” to an offer for a morning walk in the woods can literally spell the difference between a good day and a bad day. And anyone who is married or in a life partnership knows how important this can be.
This February 14, I thank my wise and beautiful wife, Lynda, for reminding me about the importance of these little moments. I will reciprocate and ask her to join me on a walk in the woods to start our Valentine’s Day.
It will be Time Outdoors well spent, together. Luxurious even.
P.S.: To the Mute Swan Society:
First of all, thank you for reading and your response, all the way from Ontario. Further research warrants a correction regarding mute swans’ role in causing the original near-extinction of trumpeters. (It was just hunting.)
Rather than add to any international tensions via a rebuttal regarding aggressiveness or overall negative environmental impact, I encourage interested readers to Google “mute swans invasive.” Thanks again for your letter.
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Wilson Kerr lives in Concord and is an avid outdoorsman and amateur naturalist. This monthly column is written to help grow awareness of the wonders of nature. In this increasingly fast-paced and technology-packed world, it is important to stop and take in the beauty of our area and the animals that inhabit it. The author hopes this column will be read by families and used as a teaching tool and that you will spend more … Time Outdoors.
