the slow walk
Sometimes I just don’t feel like walking. I start with some excuse. Like not wanting to do the thing. I never feel forced into it or feel some guilt if I don’t. I seem to have gone past that. One blog I enjoy reading in RSS is James Coffee Blog. This post particularly got me about going slowly. And wanting to write a little about going beyond the feeling tired or not wanting the walk. I guess sometimes it’s accepting some feeling on its own. My brain says I don’t need to do this thing. I could just not. I would not feel any guilt or blame if I did not walk. Those days are over. When I used to count steps or measure distance or route then I would cast blame. I would look sourly what I did not do. Did not do my responsibility. Did not finish. Did not even start.
What I realized later when I decided to stop with this was it never mattered and that the worse thing was the incipient counting that implied progress. It doesn’t. It just made me feel guilt if I do not do the walking.
One thing I had wanted before was to lose some weight. I had gotten rather obese when I retired. I suspect a lot of people do this. Instead what happened about two years ago was the body took over. In the space of those years I just walked. Stopped drinking beer almost completely and went to a single meal a day. Then without even realizing it I lost almost 100 pounds. What was it about this that was so different than before when the doctor told me I must shed so much weight. Well with the doctor it was a duty. An obligation. Almost a shaming when I visited and gained a pound. The stress put on meant I could never just listen to what the body wanted under all that.
Until I stopped measuring. Stopped bean counting. Then I did a thing. Without realizing it. The body just did a thing.
I realized with all things I would normally measure or time when I stopped things became better. It was like the practice became the thing and not the timing. It also changed the very fabric of my walking.
Now when I feel tired or out of sorts I just decide some little walk is needed. So I take some little route. In Siem Reap down some street with nice sidewalks and flowers and trees. Somewhere in there life takes over. I just go. Much like James wrote. Knowing it was not about considering or measuring. It was the going itself.
I could just not walk. Not do yoga or meditation. Could feel tired or not wanting to do a thing. That’s ok too. Truth is when I do go most often I feel this sense of a moment. A certain tree. A red flower painted against green. Things melt away. I might also end at a coffee shop.
That was yesterday in Battambang. I felt this lethargy and tiredness. Then I just went. I went and walked this way and that. To a street with a roundabout and on. Past schools and Cambodian kids shyly smiling and waving. I ended at a place I had not been in some while. Then I knew yet again. It was the doing for its own sake. Not because some app told me if I felt guilt.
My advice fwiw. You will not change your way until you change your way. Maybe you need the measurement. The goal. The streak. Until you don’t. Getting rid of those things meant I had outlived the need to measure. I found that the slow walk itself had always been waiting there. Waiting to sustain me. Give me joy. Or sorrow. It’s all there this morning as we head back home later. I like doing some final words when we go.
James went his way. Some voice he heard. Words then written. Now today we go home. Maybe I will walk then. It could be. See you on the other side of three hours and some.