Today’s Walk

Interesting how science validates what our bodies and inner selves seem to know instinctively. Coffee and tea, staples in most diets, provide all sorts of benefits instead of being the health culprits we once thought them to be. Exercise, movement is good and necessary, but we don’t have to become triathletes in order to reap the benefits.

Walking daily is my choice of movement, one I’ve committed myself to as an adult. But, without knowing why walking so pulled me, it was a source of entertainment when I was a child. It’s almost as if my body and mind enticed me into something good for me.

One of my grandfathers had a farm, and my cousins and I spent our days walking the farm and the woods. A dirt path led us to the pond that was dug out and filled with water and fish when I was a child. Other paths led to the fields and gardens. We walked down to the pasture where the cows lulled away their days, and sometimes at day’s end, we brought them back to the barn with us—although they knew exactly when and how they should return for the night.

We walked from the house to the barn, a lot. We walked out to the pear tree where we built playhouses and paper-doll houses. Those were journeys “away from the house” in our child’s perspective, but really only a few steps.

The woods called us and we went. We traipsed through undergrowth, new and old. We scuffed through dead and dying leaves, rolled over logs and pushed aside bushes. If we got hurt, we didn’t notice.

Now we know walking is not a child’s thing. Health experts tell us everyone needs to walk just about every day. It will help us live longer and better. Walking in nature restores and frees our minds. We think more clearly, more creatively.

That’s what I do on Today’s Walk. My usual route is a city neighborhood lush with vegetation that renews itself, literally, daily—and draws me into its lair. I am restored and freed.

I ask you to join me.