Hip Hop To The Hippity Hop

Amazing things happen when one walks. I'm not talking about the walks we all exprience throughout the day, walks that are hurried and rushed with the sole purpose of getting where we need to get. A walk is the antithesis of all the the hurry and rush that so pervades every day. I have thankfully been able to reclaim my devotion to this incredibly satisfying ambulatory motion. You see, having a car die on you isn't the worst thing in the world. While the sad death might throw the ultimate monkey wrench into plans to go to Italy, it emphasizes the need to cover short distances in other, exciting and less propelling ways.

Thus, to get to school I now walk. The distance I have to cover is about a mile to a mile and a half. So unless I'm really kickin' it up a notch, I saunter into Winthrop about 35 minutes after starting the journey.

I might have chosen a bicycle, unicycle, tricycle, skateboard, or a unicorn. But no, friends, I chose my feet. Though one of my feet has been rebellious over the past 6 months, the other has been perfectly reasonable and maintained a level head when others would have cracked. And, joyfully, the rebel foot has begun at long last to cool its heated head. So, I treat my feet and myself almost every morning to a walk of longish proportions.

I enjoy it. Immensely. Life is so tense, terse, and knotted that I relish the chance to not think. Not thinking is a big part of my life. I really don't or try not to do it much - think, that is. For when I do think, my mind seems to morph into a tornado. It's a rare thing for me to think of but one matter, satisfied with one portion of my mind covered for the moment. Rather, when one thought enters into my head, about four hundred and fifty-nine seem to follow. The thoughts don't overwhelm me, the multitude is rather comforting. But, such a mass of thoughts can make thought, even the most mundane thought, an intense and tiring experience. Hence my enjoyment of not thinking - or, in other words, my enjoyment of putting myself into a space of time where thoughts may come and go and have no order. I think it's the order and disorder of thoughts that gets to me.

Suffice to say, when a long walk stretches before me, it is as if a long avenue of peace also precedes before my mind. I have taken to praying at various points during my walk as it is one of the few times in my day I have to myself. I'd like to find the time elsewhere to pray: not only so I can focus on the prayer instead of being slightly distracted by all the shiny things around me, but also so I focus on being distracted and let my mind wander. I listen while I walk. To myself. To the words of others...actual people, don't you know. And to the world around me: the cars, the wind. What an amazing thing it is to just listen to all that could wash over you.

It is the thing I miss most about pitching (was a baseball pitcher for still the majority of my life...I'm still striving to make that was turn to is) - the isolation of self. However, surely you can see that it is not isolation just for the sake of isolation. I speak of isolation in order to foster a more receptive awareness -- isolate in order to open.

I used to walk to school when I was in middle school. And now I come to it again in my last semester of undergraduate work. Funny, the situations that surrounded both periods of time are somewhat similar. I hadn't thought of that before.

Walk, if you can. Or do something superbly isolating so you can see the world around you better. Of course, this might just be something peculair to me.

Reminder: if you walk, I guarantee you'll never run into one of these monsters. There is no such safeguard if you insist on driving piddly distances - at least, I don't know of one.