Walking

The walls started to close in on me this afternoon.  I've been working on my book for the Ottoman Cultures seminar for the past two days, and even though it's been fascinating, I needed to get out.  I finished the text, got out my sneakers, and headed outside.

In addition to the need to get out of the chair and do something, I needed to clear my head.  Right now, it's going around and around in useless circles over an issue about which I can do nothing.  It's one of those things that I'm just going to have to accept, but it's hard for me to do that right now.  I'm assuming time will do what it always does, give me perspective and some relief (although this might be one of those Edna St. Vincent Millay "Time Does Not Bring Relief" moments...).

I haven't gone out walking in a long time.  In the afternoons when I've come home from school, I have felt too tired to care.  Today, though, it seemed like the right thing to do.

I didn't walk far, maybe a mile or so, but it is amazing how much peace can be found in movement.  As I walked, I focused on the simple act of putting feet down and picking them up.  I noticed the traffic, the various plants blooming, the red-tailed hawk that glided lazily from its hunting perch on the powerline in the pasture to the edge of the woods and disappeared.  I was able to put away the unsolvable thing as long as I was moving.

Now I'm back, and after a long hot shower, I am watching TV.  Maybe if I do this often enough, I can subjugate everything else and keep that red-tailed hawk calm instead.