ShoeDog

For my grandchildren, so they will know In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. —Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind DAWN I was up before the others, before the birds, before the sun. I drank a cup of coffee, wolfed down a piece of toast, put on my shorts and sweatshirt, and laced up my green running shoes. Then slipped quietly out the back door. I stretched my legs, my hamstrings, my lower back, and groaned as I took the first few balky steps down the cool road, into the fog. Why is it always so hard to get started? There were no cars, no people, no signs of life. I was all alone, the world to myself—though the trees seemed oddly aware of me. Then again, this was Oregon. The trees always seemed to know. The trees always had your back. What a beautiful place to be from, I thought, gazing around. Calm, green, tranquil—I was proud to call Oregon my home, proud to call little Portland my place of birth. But I felt a stab of regret, too. Though beautiful, Oregon struck some people as the kind of place where nothing big had ever happened, or was ever likely to. If we Oregonians wer......