“Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
‘Ride,’ Pleasure said;
‘Walk,’ Joy replied.”
― W.H. Davies
I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. Long walks, alone.
Instead of trails across lakes and mountains, I settle for pavements.
One foot in front of another, along park connectors and water collectors, because that is all I have for now.
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I see couples & families strolling & cycling;
men & women checking their Apple Watches while jogging past me who is just glad to be walking.
It’s not the kilometers that I am clocking but I’m just walking so that I am moving
and right now I’m thinking that there is a metaphor in here, waiting.
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This walking is my way of figuring out things.
A conversation with myself on being. In some ways, an act of becoming.
It is me, committing to asking myself answer-less questions of person, profession, and passion,
and lately, of legacy and me.
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And so I walk without destination to channel the laws of Newton and put some momentum in a certain direction.
I take these repetitive meditative steps to settle the mind and remind myself that life has a way of working out fine.
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In a way, with each step I complete I plant a seed for a tomorrow where perhaps this sorrow can grow to something else.
Maybe a kind of morning where there is less mourning.
Maybe a kind of loving of this life that we’re living.
Maybe if I keep walking, keep moving,
and maybe if I do it enough,
I will see a clearing with a path.
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere.”
– Jack Kerouac