I am into my ninth week of this new life style and I still find exercise for the sake of exercise a trial. Nothing compares with the excitement of going out to play tennis, especially not walking.
I’ve tried walking around the neighborhood and in parks. I’ve walked at the mall and with friends. But no matter what I do, it is often all I can do to make myself get up and go out and do it day after day after day.
I allow myself to take Tuesdays off because that day I am on my feet working in the library, but otherwise I have not missed a day since I began walking thirty minutes. I’m kind of proud of that, because it sure hasn’t been easy.
Sometimes I can distract myself, but today, for the first time, I found myself truly present to the walk. It was a day from a child’s coloring book, clear blue skies without any clouds, bright yellow green grass, deep yellow sunlight, dark black shadows.
The shadows were like ephemeral artwork, mimicking the trees and birds on grass and buildings with impressive definition. The air was so clean and crisp it could have been Fall except for the Spring colors surrounding me.
Pinecones were scattered under their parents as if some artistic hand had placed each one. Dogwoods held onto their blooms with quiet precision and there was a scent of lilacs that pinned me to one spot for several minutes as I searched for its birthplace, which I never found.
The walk was longer than the awe and my feet were clumsily tired by the time I climbed up the steps to my apartment, but there were certainly moments that made it memorable.
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