Once in a while, everything comes together to create the perfect walk. There was an afternoon in Los Angeles in January of last year. I’d spent the day in a conference listening to brilliant people talk about their hopes for the future of human progress. I was high on contagious optimism and altruism. One of my new friends offered to show me the way to Griffith Park. I followed her through rush-hour traffic up into the hills, then she showed me where to park and where the running trail started. As I walked and jogged, the sun went down over the hills on one side and the San Gabriel Mountains faded to deep purple on the other. James Taylor sang “That’s Why I’m Here” on my iPod. I break into a grin from ear to ear / and suddenly it’s perfectly clear. It was an ecstatic moment. I’m sure that my feet never touched the ground.

And I recall an early spring day at Memorial Park in some recent year. Dappled sunlight was coming through the deciduous trees, just beginning to fill in with tender yellow-green leaves. The breeze was warm, and I knew it would only be a few weeks until it was too hot to walk at midday. But on this day, the sun felt great on my pasty-white skin. The soundtrack: Indigo Girls, “The Wood Song.” No one gets to miss the storm of what will be / just holding on for the ride. And for a moment, maybe 30 seconds, everything seemed to make complete and perfect sense. Friends I’d made, and lost, the ebb and flow of my career and my love life, the passage of time, the inevitability of change—I understood it all. And then I guess the sun went behind a cloud, and I was back to trudging along on sore feet.

But these moments and a few others are always with me. They remind me that the reward for hard work comes in many forms. There’s the delight of buying the next smaller size of clothing, the knowledge that I’m steadily improving my health, and once in a while, moments of ecstatic happiness.

In writing and exercise, sometimes there are moments of pure, unadulterated joy, and no amount of struggle seems too much to endure.

But on the other hand…

When I started sensing that I’d gone too far, I exited the freeway and drove in the general direction where I thought I might find the lake. But I wasn’t seeing any promising signs—“This way to White Rock Lake” would have been most welcome—so before long, I gave up and resorted to asking for directions. I called a friend back home, sent her to Google maps, told her where I was, and she steered me the rest of the way to the lake. Who needs a smart phone?

Once I’d reached the lake, it took no time at all to find a parking spot a dozen steps away from the paved trail. I had encountered some disagreement among the web sites I browsed, but the consensus on the circumference of White Rock Lake is about nine miles, which is too far for my feet to walk on pavement. So I decided to head in one direction for 50 minutes, then turn around and return to where I’d parked, which would give me a distance about equal to my usual 6½ miles.

The outing at White Rock Lake cleared away the cobwebs of the previous evening’s disappointing walk. The day was beautiful and warm, with a nice breeze and fluffy clouds occasionally blocking the sun. I passed lots of fisherfolk, ducks, and picnicking families, and I was passed by joggers and dozens of cyclists whizzing along the broad asphalt trail that winds all the way around the lake. When the 50 minutes was almost up, I decided to prolong the experience with some “communing with nature.” I chose an empty pier in the distance as my stopping point, and when I got there, I rested my feet and watched gulls fish. They’d hover a few feet above the water in the stiff breeze, scanning the waves, then plunge suddenly to the surface. Every once in a while, they’d use the wind to climb higher for a better view, then pick a new spot to fish. “They sow not, neither do they reap”…and it was wonderful to share their lake.

I hiked back to the car, a little sore from the extra distance, but contented and mildly sunburnt. Overnight a cold front blew in. Saturday morning was cold and rainy, and the evening brought a rare first-day-of-spring snow.