I believe in long walks

Long Walks

I believe in long walks, weather they are on the beach or on a cement sidewalk. On days when the sky is gray and a storm is looming close. With man’s best friend wagging his tail and sniffing trees just steps ahead. Walks with no destination and where my minds can wander to new places, old friends or the day of yesterday. I don’t walk for the exercise but for the chance to unwind, to finally let my mind be free. We stress the importance of physical activity, but what of our spirit? How do we exercise that? Leaving it on its own, has not helped us, we have more violence and less trust. We change, we let the future run that we are and we forget to remember where we are at.

I believe that by walking lazily under a gray sky we can forget who we are suppose to be, who others want others to be and remember who we were before that storm of indifference arrived. I walk back to the day when I could stay at home and read a book and feel that it was not time wasted, when speaking to my friend was more important than remembering the formula for a trigonometry problem, when playing cards with friends was better than beating my computer. I at times let this happen, when this happens and I forget, forget who I really am, I walk. I go to a place where everything else doesn’t matter, where I don’t have to rely on anything but my legs and the side walks. I walk believing that I could go on forever and walk around the world following the clouds, forever searching where they are born. I forget that anything but trees, birds and my dog even exist, I erase everything else. After following a cloud or a bird, I trip. I forget to look where I am, just like I do everyday. I focus on what I’m supposed to be working for, on all my classes, on the colleges, without enjoying what I am doing. At times I find myself reading a book without trying to understand it and I play my cello without feeling the music. The values what we once had must not be replaced so easily.

I believe that walking side by side with a furry friend under a gray sky can make a difference on how view the world. So when I trip I can look into my dog’s eyes and know that it is fine to trip and fall. That I should appreciate the beauty of a flower, the simplicity of sitting on the grass and watching the clouds go by. By walking I can learn to step back and remember the person who we once were and why we are.