16 Days Into the New Year and What Does it Look Like
Where do you find yourself today, sixteen days into the new year? Do you see the promise in the world around you? Are you still looking for the unexpected? Join me on a mountain hike....
A Hike Into the New Year
“I can’t believe I left my headlamp at home,” I mumbled to myself as I snapped the leash on Mollie, my hiking companion for the morning. Little puffs of breath showed in the car’s dome light in the thirty-six-degree morning, one hour before sunrise at the Pima Canyon Trailhead on South Mountain.
A lone hoot of an owl joined the echoing calls of two coyotes as Mollie hunched next to my legs, unsure of herself in the enveloping gloom. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, we headed west toward the junction at Beverly Canyon on the way to the Ridgeline Trail.
With only the gray outlines of saguaro, barrel, and cholla cacti in front of me, I found myself glancing over my shoulder again and again as the eastern horizon deepened from peach to tangerine to burnt sienna. Each time I turned to gaze at the spreading dawn, my eyes had to adjust to the darkness at my feet as Mollie and I headed continually west.
Ten Minutes Before Sunrise
Ten minutes before sunrise, the sky blazoned in a streak of red, layering the trail with golden light. The fuzzy berries and yellow flowers on the creosote bush appeared, as well as the edible orange berries of the Wolfberry. Jets flew over Camelback Mountain to the north as I stopped to take a photo of a scorpionweed (phacelia), the purple flowering stems curled downward, earning the plant its nickname.
A hint of deep yellow caught my eye, and I stepped closer to investigate. A poppy? Impossible. Poppies belonged on desert trails in springtime, not winter. Yet, in the distance, I saw not one golden flower, but dozens, the blooms closed tightly against the morning chill.
I gently opened a blossom. One. Two. Three. Four.
The correct number of petals.
Still in doubt, I checked the leaves. Fern-like. Blueish-green.
Two white-haired hikers paused near to where I crouched on the ground.
“You okay?” the men asked, leaning on their trekking poles.
“Poppies,” I said, as if that was enough.
They nodded. “Noticed it too,” said the taller one.
“I’ve never seen poppies in December.”
The shorter one wiped his forehead. “Lots of rain this fall.”
“Maybe that’s why.”
“Maybe.”
Satisfied, they headed down the trail, but I remained a bit longer surrounded by wildflowers that grew simply because the conditions were right for the day, with no guarantee for tomorrow.
Do You See the Promise of Mysteries?
Last March I had hiked nine miles on an intentional poppy quest and had found only one bloom. Now, when I was not even looking, I discovered a hillside of them. I couldn’t help but think the new year holds the promise of mysteries known and unknown, of adventures sought and spontaneous, and sometimes all a person can do is take a moment and celebrate. So, I did.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV
This post recently appeared in the Ahwatukee Foothills News, The SanTan Sun News, and the East Valley Tribune.
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ABOUT LYNNE HARTKE
I share stories of courage, beauty, and belonging--belonging to family, to community, and to a loving God. I am author of Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places.I teach the online writing workshop, Reclaim Your Scattered Story: a 6-week Online Writing Workshop for Those Touched by Cancer. I also teach in-person at Ironwood Cancer and Research Center in Chandler, AZ.