I’ve been walking outside a lot more these days. It is partly due to the pandemic we’re in (I work from home and yearn for a break from my indoor office). It is partly due to my recovery from a knee surgery a year ago. It is also partly to help with the health of my back.
I do not take anything with me when I walk– no smart phone nor ear buds. It is just me and the natural sound of the outdoors.
I have noticed that while walking I’ve come to better appreciate the simpler things in life:
Blue skies
Clouds
The moon
Buttterflies
Crickets
Trees
The smell of freshly cut grass
The sound of streaming water
And most of all … my neighbors who are also outdoors.
When I’m out walking, I cannot help to think of a famous passage from Henry David Theoreau’s Walden:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”
Jim Schul 