Walking Anew

I love walking. I'm not even kidding. I have taken a walk everyday this week and have rediscovered what a joy it can be to walk - just walk. I mean, after getting a bike for my birthday last year, and getting into the running groove last year and trying to maintain that with working it out on the elliptical machine, I had all but hung walking up in the back of my "exercise closet" for a time, maybe in my late forties, when it might become acceptable or at least a more common form of physical fitness for individuals my age. Sure, on a few walks this week I've made it up to a trotting pace to try and push myself and get the heartrate going even more than it was already, but for the most part I have been relishing in simply walking like catching up with a once-loved and long-forgotten friend.

There's something stabilizing about putting your own feet on the ground to get where you need to be, whether that's literally or figuratively, and actually being aware of what's around you while you do it. I think we depend so much on the faster things in life, like cars and bikes and running and (insert any means of "express" convenience for Americans today, and I don't mean just transportation) because really it gets us where we want to go... well... faster (thank you, captain obvious). I know that if I spent the forty-five minutes that I spent walking everyday this week running or biking, instead, I would have burnt more calories and probably would have been a little closer to my goal. But the thing is, I have the time to take a walk every once in awhile, to slow it down and to really take in the most basic and simplistic parts of walking.

I depend as much, sometimes, on the cars and bikes and running to get me where I need to go as the next person - I'm just glad to be reminded occasionally that walking is not as akin to crawling as it seems. And that goes for a whole lot more than getting some exercise every once in again. I think it parallels closely with what I experience in my spiritual life, in my relationships, and in my pursuit of living wholly from day to day. It's a challenge, even more so of a challenge than pushing yourself faster, I think, to take a proverbial walk and to keep moving forward but to not just whiz through looking for a quick result.

Walking makes a Friday morning breakfast with a dear friend that much more enjoyable, knowing that on any other week previous to this one it would have been very natural for me to hop in the car and drive the mile over to Noshville to have breakfast and then hop right back in for the mile back. But instead, I had time to walk hard for awhile before getting there, building in my exercise for the day with an aimless jaunt around Green Hills and then sort of lost myself for a good fifteen minutes during a very reflective stroll home.

How rewarding! And what a blessing it is to be able to walk.

(Now if only Cool Springs wasn't so far away, I'd enjoy an afternoon walk to visit with the Mr. for lunch instead of depending on the automobile like I must... Oh well!)