Walking is symptomatic of a less frantic life for me. For most of my life, I seem to have been running, propelled by some inner force to do everything as quickly as possible and get onto the next thing. I lived my life at 100 miles per hour.
Until hospital.
Walking now reminds me to be grateful for the upside of not doing the nearly two-hour commute, leaving home at 7.15am, getting home 12 hours later. Exhausted.
I miss the pay cheque, the people, the sense of collaboration, but I don’t miss the motorway at dawn, the requirement to be out the front door early or receive a Paddington stare from those who were in at 8am.
I hear my neighbours make this early start and quietly send up a prayer for them in their busy, pressurised days. Then, after breakfast, I walk to my friend’s stables and help with yard duties.
Walking is teaching me to go more slowly in my head, to appreciate my surroundings, the fading of the bluebells and the joyous blooming of apple blossom, the song of the thrush, and the pheasant who pecks up food from the side of the road.
I’ve not done it enough to stop wanting the pay cheque, the busy days, the collaboration, the people, the meaning, the commitment, the sense of achievement, the visibility, not needing to worry about one’s bank account (too much).
But I know that if I keep on doing it, walking will in the end, teach me that a slower pace of life is enough, that it is the natural way to see the world and that I was never built to go at 100 miles per hour. After all, it takes me 10 minutes to walk a mile, so potentially, I’ve been overdoing the pace of life for decades.