Reflecting: What I Learned
Destination Matters: Where We Are Walking to Makes a Difference
Where we are walking to makes a difference in how we feel during our walk. The walk to the front gates of Disneyland would surely carry a different tone and weight to it than the walk to the cemetery to bury our loved one. I became particularly keen on the idea of the walk home. There's a warmth which accompanies the walk home...and when it follows on the heels a long day at work or school, there seems to be an added anticipation to that warmth. I believe this is because of what home, or the symbol of home, means to most people: warmth, food, love, shelter...the basic needs of life that makes us feel stable in the world. Even when you are out for an evening wander to nowhere in particular, you know at the end of that journey home is the ultimate destination. In contrast, there may be unpleasantries at home and your walk is to escape or avoid them, then the walk may carry a bit of heaviness to it, knowing that your destination is a difficult situation.
So unless you are Bilbo Baggins going on an unexpected journey, without knowing when or where you will end up (which would have an energy of it's own), most of us know where we are going, and that can influence how we feel.
Materials Beneath Our Feet Matters: Changing Materials Can Change Attitude
As I walked home, the materials beneath my feet changed at least 289 times. And a change in material also means a change in texture, pattern, color, and size. We feel all of those changes with our feet and subconsciously, with our brains. How it exactly changes or stimulates our brains, I don't know, but I assume it does. From personal experience, and even during this particular walk, changing of materials made my walk more interesting visually and physically – it also affected my mood.
There is this certain part of the journey, just after Buckingham Palace, where I walk down the Mall. This tree-lined thoroughfare has more than one type of surface to tread on and I am always drawn towards the softer, loose material as it reminds me of walking down a country road, yet I am in the middle of London. That juxtaposition makes me smile and I feel rather imaginative during that portion of the journey.
Community Matters: Walking Connects Us to Others Present & Past
I have an image in my mind's eye about walking and the art thereof – and it's two-fold...present and past. First, the present. When I think of global community my mind goes to those events that captures the attention and hearts of millions of people around the world at the exact same moment...there is a certain energy associated with this. To me, the moving personal stories and professional records which are broken at the Olympic Games have this power. Also, my mind is taken to the miraculous events when 33 mine workers in Chile surfaced after being trapped beneath the earth for more than two months. The world watched live as each one emerged from the unfathomable darkness – it was riveting. And we all felt it together.
This sense of community is felt and cultivated on all levels, from global to familial. With walking, especially in a city like London where walking is commonplace, there is a sense of community with those who also walk. And though walking is not as dramatic an event as those mentioned above, there is something unifying as you look around and see who you share the ground plane with...invisible ties between all of our feet.
Second, the the past. Each time we take a step, we are physically connecting to the environment we are surrounded by. Sometimes it's the only physical contact we have, our feet to the ground. But in those very moments of walking and moving forward with our lives, may we aren't just connecting to the pavement beneath our feet, and to those immediately around us. We are also reaching back in time and connecting to the worlds and lives that have stood where we now stand, and have walked where we now walk.
