This morning after an errand I decided to take the long way back to my car and took a walk around the block. In my northern California location it was a brisk but sunny morning, and the air felt cool and fresh. As I placed one foot in front of the other I began to notice the buildings and spaces that I was passing by. To my left was a building I had driven past many times, but on foot I was able to get a much better sense of the enormous size of this collection of buildings that made up what I thought had been a single structure.
For a few moments I flashed back to a time when I was about 15 or 16 years old and was first getting my driver's license. I remembered being thrilled at the idea of being able to get from here to there much faster, but also recognized the fact that much of the terrain I had come to know by walking from here to there would fall into the background. I remembered some of my first driving trips, and intentionally taking the time to notice these spaces that I no longer used. A bridge over a set of railroad tracks, a sloping hill, the view from atop an embankment. And as time went on these things, and their history with me, did fade as the speed at which I travelled increased to the point of rendering them a blur. Until today, when for a few minutes I reconnected with them.
And now, about two hours later, I clicked open a web site and there was an article about walking called "Why Steve Jobs Took Long Walks (And Why You Should Too), and I was reminded that not only is walking good for us to do, but that it can be very productive and even creative.
So, load this URL into a browser on your smartphone and take a walk as you read this this.
Photo "Walking on the Baltic Beach" by Claudius Henrich via Flickr
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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