On morning walks

I don't remember when I began it. Maybe 2011 sometime? Yes, one day I was fed up with the days stretching on before and behind me without exercise, so I got up early, put on the white hooded sweatshirt I am wearing right now, and walked out the door and into my neighborhood.

You may not have been paying attention, but if you have, you know that my particular home in my particular neighborhood with the particular group of humans that I sometimes have interaction with--all these particulars have been occasionally noted here without much affection.

But I have never hated or even complained of the open grass area at the center of our neighborhood with a path of sidewalks around it. It is mostly treeless and allows an unobstructed view of sky.

A morning walk with views of sky. Ah.

I began to get up each morning at around 6am and walk for 30-40 minutes. Around my neighborhood, looking at the ways the residents had endeavored to make their particular identical townhouse appear to be different from all its twins.

And then out of my neighborhood.  Finding gated subdivisions where I thought there were dead ends. Finding outlets to the main road when I thought I was buried in culdesacs. I liked looking at each house as I passed it. I liked listening to a book or a talk on my old mp3 player (which I still have and use constantly). I liked feeling that clamshell that occasionally clamps shut over my heart loosen up each morning. I liked reading into the particular sunrise or cloud exhibition a message of love from beyond the sky.

I think I mostly liked that I could be alone and moving. I gained energy and hope and a certain kind of local knowledge and I turned the whole thing into a habit.

This habit remained until the summer of 2012 when I found myself in that miserable darkness that visits me in early pregnancy. Oh, the darkness. I won't dwell on it since that is not what this post is about. But the darkness stopped me from walking. And walking would, of course, have helped me through the darkness. But I  c o u l d  n o t. 

And so we arrive at today. At 10:40ish, I stepped into the street pushing a Mina stroller with Edmund trotting nearby. We walked. It wasn't the same (what without the solitude), but it brought those old walks to mind. 

This fall weather sings to me and I want to sing back. In a truly cheesy way.

Lovely Willamina is seven months old today, and I sob at the thought that so much of her babyhood is behind us, but I rejoice that I am approaching that time of mothering her when I could be free enough to walk away from the house for 40 minutes at that hour of the morning and not be missed. 

Morning walks, I'm coming back to you. Soon.