Day 6 (Take 2): Never Underestimate the Power of a Walk

Stressed?
Anxious?
Simply inundated with work?
You can tell yourself that pushing through will get the work done, but it's not always true.
We sit at our desks for unbelievable amounts of time, "working," but the human mind can only take so much.
I realized that I had been looking at the same e-mail from one of my students for the past 15 minutes, jumping up to get a drink of water, fiddling with my stack of Learning Logs, etc. I need a walk, I told myself.
Sometimes I think the folks who are smokers lead a better, less-stressful day because they listen when their addiction says, "You need a break." Non-smokers aren't that "intelligent" or "in-tune."
So I unlocked the door, and took a stroll around the complex. The evening was bitterly cold compared to the few days of March that have faintly hinted at Spring. The sky was clouded over, and I could make out a pink tinge from the city lights - I love that. I walked for about 5 minutes, trying to concentrate on full breathing and the feeling of cold air in my lungs. 5 minutes wasn't enough. My mind was still trying to process the hundreds of student e-mails I have been viewing. So I turned another corner on the lighted platforms, and decided my walk wasn't over. Providence and Nature had their way; I ran into a Canadian goose, 5 feet away from me at my eye's height, nestled atop her nest on a raised cement garden block. Although I think the mini trees whose trunks begin 5 feet in the air are a bit odd, the goose didn't seem to think so.
"Hello," I said, "are you protecting some eggs?"
She had that matronly look, her beak pursed together, ready to hiss at me - the threat at hand.
Perhaps the Transcendentalists were right - Nature calls us higher and pulls us out of the worldly ruts we work ourselves into so quickly.