A Walk in My Neighborhood

In 2020 as the world shut down for the COVID pandemic, I started walking around the neighborhood for physical and mental health. By August, I was walking about three miles a day. That progress was interrupted when I rolled my foot off an uneven part of the sidewalk and broke my ankle. By the time I recovered enough to walk any distance, I had started traveling back and forth to Oklahoma and my schedule got more complicated and my walking routine disrupted.

This year as part of my effort to move regularly, I’m back to getting up and getting out most mornings. Of course, in this part of Texas, at this time of year, the only sensible time to be outside is first thing in the morning. In spite of the heat, it’s great to be out and walking with a little bit of jogging (unless there’s a word that describes a slower pace than jogging.) I have my phone for tracking purposes, but I’m not listening to music or a book or podcast. The quiet is a great way to start the day. It’s a great way to notice what’s going on around me. It’s a great way to notice what’s going on inside me.

Tuesday morning, the school zone lights were blinking, and the drop-off line was getting started as I walked past the neighborhood middle school. I watched a heron fly over our little natural area as I walked by. The older students in the neighborhood were standing on corners waiting for the bus. At one corner, a first or second grader with his bike was waiting for his younger sister on her push scooter. Mom was standing in the yard calling out that she loved them. Dad was on a bicycle trying to get everyone moving in the same direction. The last time I had seen these kids was four years ago and they were standing in the flower bed on the side of their house facing the street, wearing only their diapers. The front door was wide open and dad was on the treadmill with his back to the door so he had missed the great escape. I may have given him a heart attack when I rang the doorbell and told him what his little ones were up to.

Each day I see a variety of neighbors who are also morning walkers. Most of them I first saw four years ago. There’s a woman who walks with her long hair down. I can’t have my hair down on my neck when I walk, I don’t know why she doesn’t collapse from the heat, but she and her black standard poodle are out there most days of the week. Sometimes, she’s on her own; other times, she is joined by a couple of other long-distance dog walkers. There’s the woman who walks by herself with her four dogs. Sometimes she’s with all four, others with two. She also covers a lot of territory every day.

There’s the gentleman in his eighties who walks very slowly but also travels at least two miles carrying small hand weights the entire time. Or the older runner who waves when I see him and sometimes chats when we’re out in the yard. His accent makes me think he’s from somewhere in Africa originally. His shirts show his loyalty to Oklahoma State University. Our backyard neighbors often walk with their older yellow lab, Captain. This morning, I saw the neighbor perched against the railing over the creek bed while Captain lay at his feet. We could all learn something from Captain. When he’s ready for a break, he takes it and unless you’re prepared to carry him, he’s not going anywhere. He takes his break.

I only know a few names of the people I see regularly. We wave, say hello, exchange pleasantries, celebrate the days when the weather is a bit cooler. I’m not even certain where most of them live, just somewhere in the vicinity but that doesn’t matter, we’re neighbors.

Rebecca Solnit has written a book about walking entitled, Wanderlust: A History of Walking. In it she says, “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.”

And that freedom to think is part of what makes me drag myself out of bed (I’m not a natural early morning riser.) Walking in the morning and writing morning pages, help me sort out all sorts of things. As Julia Cameron puts it, “I find that if you walk, you start to integrate what has occurred to you from the other tools [Morning Pages and Artist’s Dates]. You might walk out with a problem, but as you walk, you come into a solution. You just get a different perspective. You go out for a walk, maybe see a cat in a window box, and suddenly hear yourself saying ‘Oh, I could try X.’ Walking is very powerful.”

Walking is the simplest exercise there is and if you can’t walk, I encourage you to find a way to move through space, especially outside. It’s good for your body, good for your sanity, good for getting things sorted out. And we can all use that most days but especially on these days as we head into the school year.

Take care, and keep moving.

Gage