The realness of walking a seal-coated road past oaks and boats

I was thinking while walking … and dog has seemed pretty tired since — but then he was up shivering part of the night. M said when she came to bed (after my 11:40 p.m. (approx.) bedtime) that he was shaking so much — just from rainfall, not even lightning (I don’t think), that his teeth chattered. And M said she wants to take him to vet or somebody to calm him during storms. We could try another Thundershirt, but the last didn’t seem to do much for him. So, I’m walking and the world seems sweet, good — not exactly — it’s more like the world felt real this morning — which of course is bullsh!t — the world’s not feeling anything, it’s not projecting any mood. Only a person — in this case, me — a mind (dogs, too) — can sense a mood, which is to say, I also more-or-less author my moods — not exactly. I’m not saying I consciously choose a mood. I often feel I’m not choosing — my moods just exist almost as much as a tree that I might see and touch just exists. But, maybe moods and feelings seem real because they arise from parts of my mind I’m not aware of. If I’m tired or sick or whatever, certain moods arise to consciousness. My point is, it feels like my moods are a result of external factors — that when the day is gray, I feel calm (though I might also feel depressed after too many days of gray) — and these moods might arise from my body or brain — so, external to my mind’s scope — but not from weather or the relative niceness and tidiness of the houses and yards I walk past (though I very often judge those and have feelings of jealously or superiority). 

And so how can I convey that sense of being alive in a real place? I can’t. Even now, I’m sitting here in a house (where it’s dry) writing about damp walk of an hour or so ago. Funny thing is that I keep trying to convey through words the realness of walking a seal-coated road past oaks and boats (not sure if I saw a boat today — perhaps — but I did keep the O-rhymes going). 

So, yeah, yeah — and I think the realness I felt also was just my bemusement, almost, at being outside, and realizing that it wasn’t so bad, even in the mist, and also, how here I was (am) — “here I am, outside” — when I spend lotsa time indoors thinking abstractions.

[From journal of Sun., 29 Sept. 2019, Journal 309, page 77-8]