The Paths We Take

As we were all told more and more last year to stay in, I went out.

Over the past year I have found solace in the most basic and ancient of human activities. I work at a creative job, writing and directing commercials and web videos, I take acting classes, and write as many personal projects as I can in the time that I have. Because of all this, I welcome any activity that gets me out of my head and into my senses, moving my body and observing the natural world. Over these last twelve months, I have developed a formidable walking habit. I take walking breaks like smoke breaks now. At my job, I’ll slip out for a fifteen minute jaunt down to the river after lunch, or I might even stop the car for a stroll through the park in my neighborhood on the way home.

My favorite walks are the ones on the weekends that have no time limit, especially on the first crisp days in early autumn when the sun in shining in a cloudless sky and the cool air is clear as crystal. For me, the best places to walk are those far removed from people, and from the imprint of man on the earth. The places where the trees have been left to grow so big one marvels at the enormous girth of their branches, or places where the only sounds are birdsong and the whisper of the wind through pine needles. But this is not alway possible. In our modern lives, these places can be hard to access on a regular basis, not to mention that last year many of the places preserved as state or national parks and recreation areas where closed to the public. I have found though, that even the tiniest patch of green space can provide a small universe of wonder if we travel slowly upon the earth, our feet propelling us over the ground one mindful step at a time.

There is an art to a good walk. One must go slow, but not too slow. One must notice the subtle beauties around them, the play of light on the rough bark of an oak tree, the sky reflected in a glassy puddle, the the desperate drama of the birds, those descendants of the raptors, unfolding overhead. One of history’s great walkers and observers of the intricate natural world around him was the Scottish naturalist John Muir who summed up what I am speaking of quite well in his explanation of the term “sauntering”. When asked once if he approved of the word “hike” he responded with characteristic vigor.

“"I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them.”

To the Holy Land. I like that. Because I believe that with attention, many things and many places can become holy.

Walking, I’ve found also seems to improve my flow of thought, loosen ideas that have been stuck, and churn up new perspectives in my brain that have settled at its dark bottom. Maybe it’s the blood flow, the repetitious nature of one step after the next, the mindlessness of the task. Or perhaps its the psychological effect of the physical distance from the sources of my problems. The fresh air and sunlight certainly factor in, but there is something, too, in the movement of it. I have had Ideas for stories, written poems, solved problems, found the right words to say to friends and loved ones, and generally found more helpful outlooks on countless life situations by just by going outside for the sake a simple walk.

The cerebral and esoteric film director Werner Hertzog once said “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

I am still learning much about the world but I believe she unravels more and more of her secrets with every walk I take. And I believe that through a good walk we can glean insights about our inner worlds as well.

One day early last year, I was in my office in downtown Albany, Georgia and feeling particularly overwhelmed. My head hurt, and deadlines where tight, and life just felt far too complicated for its own good. I felt groundless. It felt like the gears inside me had ground to nothing, like the acid in my stomach might burn a hole through its lining. So I did the only thing I knew that would ease the waves of anxiety. I went out.

The air was cold and the wind was piercing that afternoon. I felt I could do nothing then but follow my instincts, and they lead me to the low ground, they lead me to the water, to the edge of the Flint River which carves its way through Albany only a half mile from my office. I walked along its edges and stared down into that coursing hypnotic water. Lighter than amber the gelid liquid undulated in bands of light and shadows over ancient rocks of chert, as if this light were traveling through a diamond that had come alive and begun to move from the mountains to the sea.

Farther out the rippled, glassy, dust-brown surface raced along. Indifferent, silent, hiding everything underneath. And I sat still this way for a long while in the late afternoon sun. Its white rays pierced through my jacket and warmed my skin and my muscles and my scalp, and the river coursed on, polishing the rocks as it had done for a million years. My mind began to take on a bit of that smoothness and the glassy sound overwhelmed the sharpest of my thoughts, the ones that cut the deepest, and the river's whisper seemed to say to me.

"I am. And that's enough."

The hair bristled on my sun warmed back, and my muscles loosened and I thought this must be something of what it feels like to have roots in the solid earth like the oak does and the Cypress. And then I whispered under my breath.

"I am. And that's enough."

And I stayed there, still, for a while longer, I don't know how much time it was, it didn't matter anymore, and the river raced along as it has done since before human eyes had ever known it, and I walked back up that hill a different man.