Walk No. 2153

Walk #2,153. At least 30 minutes - now 45 for a few years - every. single. day.*

Every one of these walks looks and feels different. I can take the same path 100 days in a row and on each of those days, the path will not feel the same.

The leaves on the trees will look different. The wind will blow differently - or be quite still. There will be different neighbors who drive past, different kids out at play, or different houses with their lights turning on as each person starts to wake.

I will feel differently. Sometimes I'll be bubbly and bouncy, sometimes it will be hard to drag my feet along the ground.

Part of the practice of these walks is learning how to be present with those differences, and to just keep walking.

We often get stuck in chasing after those things we want to feel (that bubbly walk, that gorgeous weather outside, that higher paying job and bigger house and nicer clothes) and pushing away that which we don't want to feel (that cold weather, the knee pain, the "have-to's" of the day).

This leaves us in a never-ending game of stop-and-go ... chase after and run away, then repeat. It's quite exhausting.

These walks?

One step in front of another. Life changing all around and within me. I observe. I return to awareness of what's going on. I get caught up in the game (GOD I wish I was home already for my coffee; I wish this sunrise would last forever!; this hill sucks - I hate this), and then I remember what's beyond the game,

and I walk.

[*I have been so fortunate to not have injuries that have physically prevented me from walking on all of those days. If that ever occurs, as it has to some friends and family, I encourage grace for us all. That's why this practice is walk 365 ISH. The ish honors the change in life...what we are trying to be with through this practice. Sometimes a walk is healing. Sometimes not walking is healing.]