WALKING PRAYERS
I have only mentioned it to one other, my other one, that I might just walk every day this year. I didn’t want to announce it, nor have I talked about it because it might just not happen.
Funny thing, so far, it has. Now, as I write this, we are only twenty days in, so no biggie, but twenty days straight of getting out and walking for me is a big deal. I think the key has been leaving space in the commitment. Like if I only walk twenty minutes and it is part of getting the kids out on their bikes, it counts.
I wanted to start running again but I identified committing to any kind of regular running feels too hard. Just the same as I wanted to eat less processed food, but I didn’t focus on that, only on eating more whole foods.
I am making it about what I am doing, not what I am not, and that, so far, has been a helpful change in my mindset.
But walking every day in summer does come with its downside. Seeing a snake isn’t likely but possible, especially so when you increase your odds. So here is Mr Tiger Snake, not too concerned about slithering away either; here he is, looking at me as if he is waiting for me to leave because, well, it is his home here, I guess. So, I did.
I have found that walking is helping me feel clearer. I have done walking meditations, walking prayers and lots of stopping to admire.
COOKING
Tell me you have young children without telling me you have young children…
And yes, I have titled a banana with milo sprinkled on it, Cooking.
3. BITS ON LIVING
“Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work.”
“ The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself.”
Søren Kierkegaard
I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire last night. It took a while to get used to the slower pace of life in the late eighteenth century, but I found it nourishing to be slowed down like that. This was a movie I watched with no idea what it was about. I hadn’t watched a trailer or asked about the plot; simply put it on, only knowing it was highly regarded.
Slowing down is certainly a pace I am working on coming back to.
4. POETRY
Houses Don’t Find Me
The shadow of the alley hides me,
I’m tied to nothing but not free.
In life there was no guarantee,
But I expected not to be nobody.
I haven’t yet found my reclaim,
you walk by and see my shame.
For no one do I hold blame,
just a longing, to be asked my name.
From PAPER DOORS found here along with my other books.
5. OTHER THINGS I AM LOVING
I’m yet to try it, but I love the idea of sketching out comic book style, a memory.
Thanks again for your support in reading since this is all me at my desk when I can. Here I am on one of my walks this week enjoying the rain it came with.
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