Seeking nature's Silhouette: find your cloud shadows in your occupation.

Have you ever met an oncologist who smokes? I have. I've also met cardiac nurses who never check their cholesterol, dieticians who live on fast food, multiply divorced marriage counselors, and social workers whose family situations are, ran, a bit untidy. I also see quite a few leisure service professionals who are overworked and overstressed. It seems more than a bit ironic.

I used to be dismayed when I observed these situations. As a younger saw behaviors such as these as the height of hypocrisy. Now I'm not so sure that I do. Most of us can be a little hypocritical at times, however unintentionally. I am, even though I try not to be.

There's some irony in my life, too. One of the main reasons I chose this field was to have the chance to spend time in the outdoors. However, it turns out that most of my professional life is spent under a roof, and a good portion of that is in front of a computer screen. It's easy to forget why I became a park and recreation professional in the first place when I'm immersed in the stream of classes, research, writing projects and meetings that flows endlessly from my desktop calendar.

It's easy to mistake the map for the territory. Programs with benefits for people can become tight schedules to negotiate; managing a beautiful natural area can be transformed into managing challenging budgets; and the dynamic, personal nature of people's leisure experiences can be reduced to complicated and inscrutable sets of numbers and graphs.

But the territory remains, out there and around us. I believe that just as surely as our jobs include the difficult and sometimes unpleasant--yet essential--tasks of crunching numbers and enhancing revenue streams, they also include the duty to stay in touch, first-hand, with the sometimes ineffable qualities of life and spirit that make our profession such a valuable one.

For me, that duty involves trying to stay in touch with the natural world, whose song I heard so clearly way back when. As important as my office work might be, there remains that higher calling, that song of nature.

Once, a few years ago, I was leading a group of college students on a weekend backpacking trip to southwestern Virginia's Appalachian Mountains in Jefferson National Forest. Some of the students were committed to a life in outdoor recreation, but most aspired to other professional interests. Together, they were a wonderful group.

As we were huffing and puffing on our way up to make our mile-high camp on the second night, we were passed by a group of septuagenarian hikers. They seemed to be in much better shape than we 20- and 30-somethings as they kept trekking on, grinning and laughing all the way. Their example alone as role models made the whole trip worthwhile.

But the real highlight for me came the next morning. I joined a small group of early risers who snuck off just before dawn to summit a bald, rocky 5,500 foot peak just east of camp and watch the sun rise. The air was brisk, and through it was a clear morning, dense fog had settled into the valleys severed thousand feet below.

We scrambled up, found the softest rocks we could, and took a seat. Within minutes the sun broke the horizon, brilliantly orange, and its warmth struck us instantly. Below, the sun's rays also touched the huge banks of fog, and the heat and light made it begin to roll and roil, as if coming to a boil. As the fog rose, it climbed the steep slopes of the lower mountains and cascaded down their far sides. Rising further still, it formed small, wispy clouds which floated up on the early winds to greet us on the mountaintop.

Some of the clouds covered and embraced us, others wafted by just below. As my students, mostly fledgling backpackers, remained fixed on the magnificent sight to the east, I stood up to street, and looked down to the west to see if the rest of the camp was awake. It was then that I saw it. It was our group, silhouetted in midair on the side of a passing cloud. I whispered to the others, and we all Turned to see our own shadowy selves looking back from the heavens. I will never forget that moment, and I suspect that there are several others who will not, either.

So, there's my message, for what it's worth. We all need to go seek our cloud shadows, wherever they may be. Many of mine are in the mountains; some are in deep woods and tangled swamps. Yours may be in a pool, refereeing a youth basketball game, on a horse's back, or under an old hickory tree in the park just down the street Finding then help us to remember, and helps us to go back to our everyday lives with a smile.

While we may have hard demanding jobs, I thinks it's a good thing to walk away from the humdrum of our ordinary professional responsibilities every once in a while, if only to regain our perspective when it becomes attenuated.

Trust me, the statistics, the budgets, the town meetings and the zoning commission will still be there when you get back.

David Matthew Zuefle, Ph.D., is on the faculty at The University of Mississippi. He has book of essays and short stories coming out later this year. He can be contacted at [e-mail].