More Walks with Intent

What could you do more of?

For ten years of my life leading up to the pandemic, I walked daily between three and five miles. There is so much to experience on a walk. The world slows down and flowers come into focus. Birds become more than sounds from the foliage with fleeting glimpses of color and movement.

Zipping by in a car, I miss these things. Somewhere mid-pandemic, I stopped walking daily. Maybe it was all those Zoom meetings and new remote-work skills to learn. Maybe it was the change in habits necessitated by safety concerns. It does not matter how; it happened. Somehow, those walks that were so life-giving slipped away from my schedule. I was not awake to their passing either. One day I woke up and realized something had changed; it was my daily commune with nature and the world.

Last week I began again. It has not quite become daily yet. It may not. However, noticing what was missing invited me to remember what walks give me:

• Connection with the natural world in the midst of a busy, urban setting
• Movement and connection to my own body
• An alternative perspective
• Open space
• Time unfettered by a desire to “accomplish something”
• Sights and sounds missed in the “rush”

Sometimes in sleep-walking through my life, something stirs me awake to discover and engage all over again. I awaken to being here in this moment. I had let walking slowly slip from conscious living; I had neglected the gifts and benefits it offers me. I declare my gratitude that, in a wakeful moment, I have begun to engage walking anew. Though it may be a good, healthy habit, I choose to walk now as an intentional gift to myself.

Will I keep my intention? Will I slip into habit again? I need not borrow these uncertainties of the future. Instead, I attend this moment with intention clear.