The Walk

I finished editing the script at 4.30pm yesterday, and like a puppy, my inner child perked up in barely concealed excitement. A walk in the park loomed on the horizon. I tidied up my writing space and glanced out the window to see dark clouds swirling ahead. Was it wise to be outdoors this evening? The instant I thought that, I felt the heavy stone of disappointment drop in me. A promise is a promise, I decided, and began packing my satchel. In went a thick sketchpad, new colour pencils and Julia Cameron’s The Sound of Paper.

I underestimated the evening traffic, and the extra fifteen minutes of bumper-to-bumper crawling was enough for the rain to catch up. By the time I swung into the parking lot, the fine drizzle had turned into sizeable drops.

“Will you melt?” my school athletic coach used to demand, when we tried using the rain as an excuse to loll around instead of train. I got out my umbrella, hoisted my satchel on my shoulders and began walking.

The park was almost empty except for a few joggers who didn’t see the point of seeking shelter when they were already soaking wet from their run. The familiar scent of damp, heavy sweetness hung in the air and I took a deep breath, remembering the days when Tinselbits and I used to run almost every evening. True, we talked more than we actually ran and I hated her for making me do the stairs, but a bond was formed over the huffing and puffing that has stood the test of time.

For 20 minutes I walked alone, accompanied only by the soft crunch of gravel beneath my feet, the whispering of leaves and the splash of raindrops on the lake. I passed a bench and looked wistfully at it. How I would have loved to sit there and sketch. Then a troop of monkeys scurried behind it and I changed my mind.

The rain grew heavier and my satchel was in danger of getting wet, so I surrendered and looked for appropriate place to shelter. Looking around, I spotted a gazebo-like structure perched on stilts, towering above all the other little gazebos. Perfect.

Settling down at the top, I could see the mountains in the distance and the voices of the trees were louder. For the next hour I read, I sketched and I just sat. I watched the joggers run past, the squirrels chase each other on a tree, the butterfly darting around the flowers and the leaves falling to the ground. For that one hour, I felt that rare sense of connection with myself and the world around me. And it felt really good.

I urge you to take a walk too. Just be with yourself and do the very things you feel are a ‘waste of time’ or ‘childish’. Yesterday, I realised that being a grown up is not much fun and I don’t know why I couldn’t wait to be one when I was a child. We forget the simple pleasures in life. We give so much time to others and starve ourselves on the leftovers of our day. When you spend time with yourself, be it an hour or ten minutes, you walk away knowing yourself just a little better and that makes life just a little easier.