while you're ahead…

Traveling at Home (by Wendell Berry)

Even in a country you know by heart

it’s hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.

Any tree or stone or bird

can be the bud of a new direction.  The 

natural correction is to make intent

of accident.  To get back before dark

is the art of going.

 

I’ve kind of fallen out of love with running… not that I was running regularly, haven’t done that in years, but now, I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I don’t know why.  What I have started doing instead is walking.  A brisk walk, with intent, not a plodding, stop and smell the flower kind of walk, but a walk with pace and purpose… even if the purpose is simply… walking.

I go out early in the morning, when the house is empty and the day’s chores haven’t entered my head.  I just throw some leggings and trainers on and grab my headphones and go.  The headphones are necessary because if I don’t I start thinking about things, about the day ahead, about what needs to be done, what can be done, what should be done, what should have been done… do you get my drift?  I listen to audiobooks, not even novels, factual books,  books that require concentration, on subjects I don’t know anything about.  Anthropology… or philosophy… interesting stuff so far from my daily life it’s almost hilarious.

Sometimes I stop briefly to take a photo, I can’t help myself, I’ve started to recognise the same people walking the same dogs on the same stretch of path…  I know that if I walk once around the lake and then across to the other side of the park and then home it’s a 30 minutes walk and that is just perfect for my brain to wake up.

Then home, shower, dress and the door is open to the day.