Walking:

 

a natural way to reflect.

My father gave me a love of walking.

I look at these ducklings and am reminded who grateful I am for a lifetime of walking.  My mother?  She gave me my love of reading.  Practical life lessons, for sure.  

To really see a small part of the larger

comes with the joy of walking.  And when walking in Bancroft Succulent Gardens, magic happens.  Simple.  Profound.  

 

Walking

 

and the shadows it creates.  
Not to mention the stories,
the imaginary friends.  
Those friends remembered. 
A few spilled leaves.

Percussion is never devoid of color

During the Pandemic, I have found my way home to jazz. Nourished by SF Jazz's Fridays @ 5. Sacred time. Full of color. Full of spirit. Much like walking is the way I find my way home. Same with cooking. Writing, a given.

Look. Look some more.

That's the reason for walking.  Seeing things at eye level.  Sometimes stooping is required.  Pretend you are a pretzel but stop short of pain.  When I walk, I pass into and through light.  Not a shabby place to be.  Much like cooking; always like writing a line or two.  Here's the irony, I go outside to be inside.

More life-gifting than Santa Claus

In the Mission District of San Francisco -- poinsettia.  Stop walking and listen to the story.  The man who is painting a small pink canvas in his driveway tells me the poinsettia was formerly the root above and migrated to a trunk next to to the original.  He's lived there for 29 years and it flowers every year about this time.  Walking is a banquet for the eyes and posies for the page.   Keep walking.  Keep looking down.  Keep looking up.  Keep a blank page & pen nearby.  

How are walking and reading connected?

Beside being gerunds, they connect by moving us toward and through image and sound. As if exercising some form of inherent punctuation, a physical object invites us to linger – to see and re-see. Words, being read, have as their locomotion (not in every language, of course) a left to right destination, propelling us along a straight line of sound. Of course, in poetry the straight can curve, wobble and/or stop, rather abruptly.

Along the way – pavement and print -- much to see. Much to hear.



Consider food in the context of walking and reading. I walk to market on the way to the library. I read a lot of c-books (cook & children’s). Children’s picture books are a journey and meal onto themselves. An on-the-spot picnic.

Do you take your poems for a walk?

Feet were the measure of rhythm eons before Wordsworth did his on-the-hoof composing. How did he remember so many words? Perhaps, Dorothy was scribe. On the best of walking, feet-down it’s Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlush: A History of Walking (Penguin, 2001).

Back on track and ready to roam, wear comfy shoes, have pen/paper at the ready. Pay attention to your breath. Pay attention to your leg-length. Perhaps, the latter is called stride. Perhaps, it is music of a line break.


Remember to pack a peanut butter/jam sandwich. “Yum, yum,” as my friend is wont to say.