The Long Way Home (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

I had been vowing to get back into my walking routine (long-overdue and much-missed) and yesterday was that day.  Woke up with twitchy legs (always a good sign), drank a giant glass of water, laced up my New Balances, and walked out my front door... whereupon Rain King by Counting Crows came on my Pandora, and a giant bird flew across my line of vision, surely a sign from The Universe:

When I think of heaven

Deliver me in a black-winged bird

I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers

And all other instruments of faith and sex and god

I started out entirely too fast, but then got into my groove.  Other than a few walks with my son Rob at his place, it had been months since I'd seriously gotten out for a trek around the complex, and definitely not since they re-opened the golf course.  Such fond memories of taking advantage of all the winding paths throughout where now, again, I'm restricted to the outskirts.  It was sweet, though... beautiful morning, out the door by 9:15, wonderful and diverse music to accompany.  I finally broke down and paid the $5 a month (price of a Starbucks Matcha Green Tea Latte with coconut milk) Pandora charges to go ad-free, plus unlimited skips (meaning, no more spooky Halloween soundtrack at dusk).  Gamechanger!

The route I chose took me 45 minutes, but I can add on bits and pieces throughout the complex to eventually get myself up to an hour.  I thought about structuring a walking schedule but, because I love, and missed, it so much, I'm just going to plan on every day, weather-permitting.  In South Florida, one has to be that flexible.

Did I say that I feel great?!?... :-)

P.S.  Day Two in the books, 45 minutes again; I count time, not distance.  I have always been a fast walker, and now my goal is to lengthen my stride, which provides a nice stretch throughout the route.

NR:  Monogamy by Sue Miller (whoa!)

SONG:  The Long Way Home by Mary Chapin Carpenter

BOOK:  In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration Hardcover by Shane O'Mara

POEM:  Talk about Walking by Philip Booth

Where am I going? I'm going

out, out for a walk. I don't

know where except outside.

Outside argument, out beyond

wallpapered walls, outside

wherever it is where nobody

ever imagines. Beyond where

computers circumvent emotion,

where somebody shorted specs

for rivets for airframes on

today's flights. I'm taking off

on my own two feet. I'm going

to clear my head, to watch

mares'-tails instead of TV,

to listen to trees and silence,

to see if I can still breathe.

I'm going to be alone with

myself, to feel how it feels

to embrace what my feet

tell my head, what wind says

in my good ear. I mean to let

myself be embraced, to let go

feeling so centripetally old.

Do I know where I'm going?

I don't. How long or far

I have no idea. No map. I

said I was going to take

a walk. When I'll be back

I'm not going to say.

QUOTE:  "Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking." ~ Antonio Machado