Constants: Walking

I have walked in every phase of my life since high school. There is something magical about feeling your feet on the earth wherever you are.

My walks these days feel closer to my walks in high school. I have experienced so much life, but I am parallel to the girl who had her whole life in front of her.

In college, my walks around campus were my attempts to get alone in a very crowded world: dorm life, class life, friend life and work life.

The walking bridge in Chattanooga holds for me a theme song of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” at a time when I had every right to fear the reaper. I still try to walk that bridge every time I am in Chattanooga to connect myself back to me.

In North Carolina, I walked in the state park with the feel of actual earth under my feet as I tried to make sense of how my dreams were coming true and yet I felt farther than ever from myself.

These walks serve as guideposts, a way to look back at the different stages of life I have lived.

The last four years? I walked my way sober. Up and down the long driveway of the cabin, learning how to be alone with myself without the distraction of drinks, drugs or people. I learned how to love a sunset and how to appreciate country wildlife. I walked through the sadness of heartbreak and the fear of loneliness. I walked as I felt the breath of new hope enter my lungs. I walked as I felt the return of wanting something out of this life that was no longer linked to ambition. I walked and found belief in finding more yet to come. I walked by the lake, a truly transformative walk as I would remember walking that same road when I was 10, 11, 12, 13 and on. I dreamed of futures unseen and let the sunlight on water heal me.

I love walking when traveling because it puts my feet on the earth in a way I may never experience again. I’ve walked countless beaches feeling the cool sand of the morning dawn or the cooling sand of the setting sun, feeling the high heat of summer or the whipping winds of a winter storm. Walking along the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers takes me into thinking of centuries of people who have ever walked those same shores. Walking while traveling is a magical snapshot of life as you dip into a city you may or may not ever return to being.

This spring I am walking again. I am discovering my neighborhood in multiple laps in the early rising sun. I am discovering the possibility of setting down roots, staying in a place for awhile. I walk at work and feel the grooves in the walls and think of the foundation I am building for all the future students and staff that will ever walk those same hallways.

I walk and I know my past selves, in all their steps, and my futures selves, in all their steps, cannot help but love me in all my steps of today. I think often of my favorite line from David Whyte “I was here, and you were here, and together we made a world.”