Sharani

With the Fall Equinox only 2 days away, I shouldn’t be surprised that my habit of taking a daily constitutional (a.k.a walk) at around 7 pm would mean that the sun sets and darkness rises before I finish. Today’s warm summer-like day inspired me to journey on the bike path along the water located only a short distance from my house. Since the sun was setting even as I headed out, I left my camera at home - quite uncharacteristic for me since I love to take photos of nature and birds along this well-worn route, this shot of the moon over the path being one of them.

After staring for a while rather wistfully at the half moon as I walked, the darkness slowly enveloped me and led my thoughts to wander to a recent reference question at work. The patron (a.k.a customer) wanted books on visual and auditory learning. Once I determined that our library catalog used the subject heading “cognitive styles” to tag this subject, I unfortunately determined that we did not have any books particular to that topic. My colleague with more years of reference under his belt than myself took over mid-stream but we did not end up meeting her wish to walk out the door with books related to this topic. I wondered what type of learner I was - visual or auditory and this dusk to darkness transition seemed a metaphor for the visual to auditory shift.

As nighttime caused my visual sense to recede, I spontaneously turned my evening walk into a symphony of sounds. Like a child discovering her environment with newness and awe, I concentrated fiercely to see what sounds surrounded me. It was an eye-opening — or should I say ear-opening — experience to notice just how often I am focused on the visual when I walk on the bike path with all its stimuli of flowers, swans, clouds, marshes and water. Soon my focus swam instead in the chorus of crickets, the cry of a seagull, the wind rustling in the trees around me and the lapping of the waves against the river and marsh banks on each side of me. The shipyard on the other side of the Providence River added the noises of human civilization with its punctuated addition of cargo contents loading and unloading off of large ships. I decided that the auditory sense tends to get neglected when our surroundings offer charming visual feasts. The musicality of the sounds around me seemed just as worthy of attention and the darkness of night provided a shortcut to that particular destination.

The true test will be my vantage point during a daytime walk along the path. On a glorious fall day with a gentle breeze, the tactile sense may crowd in as well when that breeze glides into my heart. Have you ever tried to determine your learning style? Are you a visual, auditory or tactile learner? You might try my experiment and walk through a favorite environment during both day and night and see wherein you find the greatest charm.

One last note - it only seemed fitting that I should write this post while listening to music. I picked another theme song of sorts for this girl on a road. I hit repeat on Itunes and wrote with the song Never-ending Road (Amhrán Duit) from the Ancient Muse CD on playback loop. Loreena McKennitt, another Canadian vocalist genius lyricist and singer, writes/sings:

The road now leads onward
As far as can be
Winding lanes
And hedgerows in threes
By purple mountains
Round every bend
All roads lead to you
There is no journey’s end.

I was looking for a fun outing with a friend of mine from the Sri Chinmoy Centre for the beginning of Labor Day weekend. Living in New England near beautiful vacation destinations such as Newport, Rhode Island and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, we decided against going to some of these familiar haunts. We feared that many others might be trying to enjoy the last weekend of summer before school starts by going to the beach or other popular locations. A day trip to Boston also beckoned but with colleges on the verge of beginning it seemed foolish to go anywhere near Harvard Square, etc.

She asked where I had taken my parents whenever they came to visit from Michigan and Arizona. I thought of Jamestown - a small island between the southern Rhode Island coast and Newport. I said let’s go to Wickford first and then bring a picnic dinner to eat at the Beavertail Lighthouse and Park in Jamestown. Spontaneously I added, “let’s watch the sun set at the lighthouse.”

My friend had never been to Jamestown or the lighthouse and it had been a while since she had visited Wickford so our itinerary was set. Before we knew it, a short half hour drive brought us to Wickford, a town on the ocean’s coast with all the charm and flavor of Martha’s Vineyard or Bristol with many houses bearing historic plaques dating them back to the early 1800’s and cottage gardens spilling over with flowers.

Because I am in seventh heaven when photographing the likes of flowers, butterflies and other aspects of nature, my friend quickly lost me to paparazzi mode in front of a delightful cottage garden of flowers. Then further down the road I encountered a monarch butterfly and bumblebees and finally had to ring my companion up on my mobile phone so she would know where I was - crouched over in front of the monarch for at least 20 minutes.

Once we hooked back up, I finally switched into shopping mode and couldn’t resist some of the sale items at Green Ink where they sell a wonderful line of comfortable linen clothes called “Flax”. I bought this wonderful jacket and after we got frozen hot chocolate drinks at Wickford Gourmet (their brownie was featured on Rachael Ray’s cooking show on television) we were finally ready to drive to the Beavertail Lighthouse.

When we arrived at the lighthouse and its surrounding park, we joined others who had the same idea. People were perched on portable camping chairs and many had their cameras out. As the time for sunset approached, people arrived in droves and sat facing the horizon across the bay where the sun would bid farewell to the day. Most left as soon as it set. When I said let’s watch the sun set in Jamestown at the lighthouse, I was only guessing that this might be a picture perfect spot for a sunset. Boy was my intuition right about that!

We headed home shortly after night fell and marveled that yet again a treasure chest of delights awaits the explorer in the wonderful state of Rhode Island.