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 started to walk more regularly to ensure I’m moving every day, to the deflate my muffin top and to juice up my wellbeing levels. It is so easy to walk away from nagging little worries! Walking helps me gently untangle my thoughts and solutions I could not find when trapped indoors appear with ease. When my mind is soothed, I can see the brilliance of the sky, the patterns in the clouds, the luminance of the flowers.

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When I walk through my suburbia, I never see any other people. Everyone lives in the back of their houses and nobody walks 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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