I’ve started to take a daily walk. I don’t think many people just walk. They always have to be walking somewhere: to the shop, to the railway station, to work, to school. I just walk around the roads and back home again. Some people might think that’s weird. I had a boyfriend once who never wanted to walk with me, “You look like a dick walking without a dog” he’d said as if a million people would care.
I’ve always walked but I’ve started to walk more regularly to ensure I’m moving every day, to hopefully contribute to the deflation of my muffin top and also to juice up my wellbeing levels: It is so easy to walk away from nagging little worries! Walking helps me gently untangle my thoughts. My mind meanders through solutions and then like a butterfly it settles lightly on the best one. And when my mind is soothed, I can see the brilliance of the sky, the patterns in the clouds, the luminance of the flowers. I see beauty.
When I walk through my suburbia, I never see any other people really. Everyone lives in the back of their houses and nobody walks much when I’m walking so I’m free to do so unjudged. (Though I do sometimes imagine, old ladies hiding in the shadows of their curtains, or cool couples reclined beneath my eyeline on their vintage Chesterfields thinking, there she goes again.)
In Central Reservation, Beth Orton redefines the walk of shame. She celebrates it, makes it her own, revels in the joy of it.
When I walk nowhere for no reason other than to walk, my thoughts and my mood mirror hers and it feels wonderful!
It’s like living in the middle of the ocean,
With no future, no past,
And everything that’s good about now,
Well, might just glide right past.I’m stepping through brilliant shades,
All the colour you bring,
This time, this time, this time,
Is fine just as it is. / Is whatever I want it to mean.Central Reservation. Beth Orton
If you liked this, read:
The Bloom of the Cherry Blossoms
The Perfection of Now
Summer Running
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I didn’t realise that ‘just walking’ could hold so much and so little all at the same time. It’s a brilliantly observed and articulated piece of writing in which these two contrasting, yet strangely harmonious aspects of ambling are related.
Thank you for taking the time to comment and for the endorsement which made my day! Glad you enjoyed the post. 🙂
Greetings fellow walker! I too love walking and walk around two hours every day. You can always fit it in if you want to I think and it is my form of meditation. I am also a keen (slow) jogger and I have a poetry blog here on WordPress and today’s poem is about a hard going jog in the heat in case you have time to look? Have a good afternoon, Sam 🙂
Hi Sam, sorry for the v late reply – I somehow missed your comment when it was posted and just found it today. Thank you for your thoughts, I did indeed read your poem and I’m now following your blog. Good work! I look forward to reading more….
Thanks for connecting with my blog Karen. I really appreciate your comments!