As always, the morning run starts my day on the right foot, and not just literally. Just me and my dogs, no podcasts or music to interrupt the swirling thoughts of the coming day. Simply the pre-dawn quiet padding of our feet down the road or trail with an unfettered brain allowed to wander farther and deeper than my feet can take me. This morning, on a quiet residential alley that winds its way up to the trail, we paused as Meg squatted to relieve herself of last night's digested dinner. As always I diligently pulled a bag over my hand to retrieve her deposit. Once I made the grab and began to invert the bag, I noticed a pretty little pebble embedded in one of the soft, steaming logs. I felt a twinge of guilt as I tied off the knot and sealed the fate of this lonely bit of stone.
This diminutive rock had grey-and-white stripes with a jagged edge that sparkled in the beam of my headlamp. I looked around and noticed that the humans who own this parcel of alley had blanketed the driveway in many such pretty little pebbles, likely ordered from a quarry and delivered to the address in the back of a dump truck, or perhaps purchased from the local hardware store in several 50 lb bags, hauled home in an SUV and spread lovingly and evenly with a rake.
How long had these tiny rocks congregated along this strip of alley? Decades? Crunched under the feet of school children walking to school, scattered by an occasional tire peel-out by an anxious driver, frozen into ice sheets in winter...these pebbles have endured.
Before they were small bits, did they all belong to a single boulder before being blasted into bits to be sold as gravel? Or did they come from a number of large rocks, with subtle different colors and textures, chosen together in a visual recipe proven to please the eyes of the humans who would purchase them?
These pebbles have stood side-by-side for years, and possibly came from one or more mother rock. Today one of them has been removed from its cohorts. It no longer fills its spot among brethren. How would it feel to be separated from the place you've belonged for so long, that brought you comfort with simple familiarity? Will the tiny rock be missed by the new, tiny gap in ground cover?
Is it such a bad thing to be swooped up into a mass of organic matter, sealed up and deposited into a public garbage can? Then transported to a landfill to be mixed with other filthy, used and spent items that humans will never put thought to again -- all of these items taken away and no longer exist as far as we humans are concerned? Maybe the tiny stone will become part of something again, or stand out as an individual, beautiful treasure to be found by wondrous eyes and itty-bitty
fingers some day?
Most days we do things. We run, we eat, we drive, we pass humans and other creatures during our journey through the day. We leave bits of ourselves, physically and in our actions, wherever we go. We consume. In all of our endeavors, we encounter things big and small. Our actions have consequences, from miniscule to huge, whether the outcomes are immediate or well into the future. Whether we are conscious of it or not.
