Day: March 6, 2025

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing like a walk in a cool quiet interesting place. For me that would be somewhere that is not warm but not too cold either. The sky may be cloudy or sunny as long as rain is not imminent. I like being somewhat alone on a trail that leads nowhere and to everything that I love to see. If I have a companion I want it to be a person who knows when to saunter beside me in silence and when to quietly speak about important matters or make appreciative comments about what we have seen or consider talking of differing  philosophies about life. 

I don’t want to worry about time or how I look or what I will do next on the perfect walk. There will be no particular goal pushing me to increase my stamina. It will be leisurely enough to allow time to sit on an old tree stump to gaze at the sky or to watch the antics of a squirrel. It will provide opportunities for finding treasures like colorful leaves or interesting rocks to stow away in my pockets. 

On the perfect walk I will learn something that I did not know before embarking on my adventure. Perhaps it will be an interesting thing that I see or a comment from my companion. Maybe it will simply be a new kind of pleasure from being so close to nature or a feeling of peace from perfect silence. Those are the kind of moments when I feel so comfortable with myself and with the world. For a time I have no worries or appointments or thoughts of things I must do. 

I have had some glorious walks along rugged trails in the Rocky Mountains with my husband and my two daughters. I have seen a rainbow stretching across the horizon and encountered a moose grazing just ahead of my approach. I have walked in warm sand along the ocean with a grandson and spoken of spiritual things with a granddaughter under the canopy of some of the largest trees in the world. 

Sometimes I walk alone around my neighborhood listening to my favorite music or tuning in to podcasts. I go into myself and walk mostly for exercise but at times I see something that makes me smile. I enjoy seeing my neighbors working in their yards or children laughing while chasing each other. I like being alone and thinking about how nice life can be without a great deal of fuss. I work out ideas that have been swimming in my head and feel a sense of gratitude for the place where I live and the people who are my neighbors. 

I once walked for miles with my mother and brother after our car broke down. We were in the middle of nowhere in a time before cell phones. Our only hope for rescue was to find a public place that was open and had a phone. Our path lay on a little traveled highway so we had no clues as to how long it might be before we reached civilization. Somehow with her usual optimism my mother made our unexpected journey fun. We were downright proud of ourselves when we finally reached a service station and hitched a ride with a mechanic who worked there. Of course this all happened in the days when every gas station had a mechanics’ bay and someone was on duty to pump gas, check the oil and clean the windshield. 

When we got back to our car we learned that the battery was dead but the kind man who had rescued us charged it up and sent us on our way without asking for a dime. I have always remembered his kindness and how my mother insisting on giving him a tip. That unplanned walk taught me about how we should all behave when someone is in trouble. That man will forever be a hero to me. 

I hope I never reach a point of being unable to walk. I totally agree with Mr. Emerson’s ideas of how it should be done. I look forward to those special times in the coming year and hope to share such moments with people that I love.