(The butterfly is a paid crisis actor.)

Took a walk to my favorite pond the other day, and this shot turned out pretty all right:

 

With the world the way it is at the moment, I am happy to be in a place where I can just walk out the door and be at this sort of place within ten minutes of leisurely walking. I’ve never been a big fan of exercise for the sake of it, but walking out in nature never fails to improve my mood…unlike reading stuff on the Internet, which never fails to make me anxious. However the next year or two are going to go, I’ll probably be doing a lot more of one and a whole lot less of the other.

Walking is also great for listening to audiobooks or letting your brain resolve plot knots with its background processes. The Internet is useful for a lot of things, but for me it’s mostly great for realizing it’s 5pm and I got very little done because I hopped on the information overload train all day.

My favorite season is just around the corner, and I have a plan to walk a few miles every day to really squeeze the most from autumn this year. I feel like I spent most of last year’s autumn cooped up inside because I had a novel overdue (like so many other writers in 2020.) This year, it’s all mine.