Perspective: A Walk in the Woods

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Five days. It’s been five days since the 2024 election, and only today – for me at least – it’s finally feeling like the stress is going away. And, yeah, the stress was considerable. This was kind of a big year; this was a big election, an election that is already having far-reaching consequences. Not only on the political scene, either; people are losing family and friends over this, which is not only sad but unnecessary.

Following the election, a cloudy, dreary spell set in here in south-central Alaska, and I’m afraid that, even though (as you will have read) I’m pretty pleased with how the election turned out, my mood kind of reflected the weather. The sudden release of tension didn’t happen as I had hoped. All of us here at RedState – as fine a bunch of people as you’re likely to find anywhere – were still busy as all get out, covering all the aftermath, all of the post-election drama, all the implications, and all the lunacy from the losing side.

This Sunday afternoon, though, I found myself without a lot of stuff in my hopper to write about. My wife was out, having taken her visiting parents to a Christmas craft show down in Wasilla, so when the clouds cleared away for a while and the sun, low in the winter sky, came out, I went for a walk in the woods.

I really recommend that when the mind is suffering from the brain-in-a-squirrel-cage syndrome.

It was still cold; this is Alaska in November, after all. The snow was crunching underfoot. Our yard, just now, is crisscrossed with moose tracks and… other signs, from a big cow moose and her yearling calf who have been hanging around. I followed their tracks around, coming across the tracks of a red fox while I was doing that – then went back on the ATV/snow machine trail that leads from our little neighborhood into the black spruce bogs on the Borough land to the east. 

The trees were quiet. The air was clean. The snow, white. I stood still for a while, feeling – really feeling – the stress just bleed away. On my way back, walking up the drive past our lilac bush, I saw another set of tracks – a weasel. Herman the Ermine has moved back into his winter quarters under the lilac, so the local voles will have to be on their guard.

The Alaska winter sun casts long shadows. But even so, things seem a little brighter, just for that short walk in the woods.

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So now I’m back in the office. There are still election issues outstanding that I’ll be covering; the Alaska at-large House seat is still technically undecided, although it’s looking good for Republican Nick Begich III. Our ranked-choice voting repeal is still winning, narrowly, and it will be at least Tuesday before we know the result of that. 

The birches and the spruce, the snow, the tracks of ermine, red fox, and moose, will all be here, every year, no matter what the machinations of we humans go on. It’s important, now and then, to remind ourselves of that. That was, I realized after the fact, precisely what I needed today.

I feel a lot better. 

Go for a walk. Get outside. Forget the troubles and tribulations of the human world for a while. I wager you’ll feel a lot better, too.