I have walked for 3 years. I gave up typing after 1 month.
In the morning, I walk on a farm road between rice fields. Nobody is there.
I have kept this up for 3 years. I choose the route based on my mood that day. The only thing I decide is the time of day. Morning. The distance is 5,000 steps. It takes 50 to 60 minutes.
If the rain is light, I walk. If the wind is not strong, I go.
At first it was for my health. Now I go out for the feeling of a clear head that walking gives me. The noise in my mind gets smaller, and my head becomes clear. Sometimes an idea for my blog comes to me.
I am not thinking about anything special. It just feels good when I finish walking. That is why I keep doing it.
I Do Not Want to Be Unable to Walk Again
I know why I keep this up so faithfully.
In the past, I hurt my knees, my hip joints, and my lower back. There was a time when walking itself was hard.
I do not want to go back to that feeling. It may be close to an obsession. If I cannot walk, my world will shrink all at once. I learned that. So I walk while I still can.
Maybe bad backs run in my family. I have gone to doctors since I was a child. I remember getting a shot, something like a painkiller, about once a year.
I got a job where I carried heavy things. One time, I pushed myself too hard alone and got badly hurt. The feeling from that time still stays somewhere in my body.
I walk less for my health, and more to resist a future where I cannot walk.
Swans, and a Duck Family
When I walk on the farm road, sometimes I see a flock of swans in the sky.
When the season comes, a big flock of swans rests in the middle of the rice fields. Such big birds are lined up silently across the whole field. It is a quiet sight, far away from the noise of people.
Flying swans make a clean V shape. The leader changes as they go, and they cross the sky in a long line.
When I look up at them, the human world matters a little less to me.
In the river, there is a duck family. There are also pairs swimming together.
I Do Not Want to Meet People
To be honest, I do not want to meet people when I walk.
Greetings are a bother. If someone starts small talk, my feet stop. The reset of my mind is ruined.
So I choose routes away from the eyes of people. Farm roads. Back alleys. I walk where nobody is.
It is not that I hate people. Only for the time I walk, I want it to be just me, the sky, the rice fields, and the birds.
Walking in Winter
Winter is just cold.
I wear gloves and walk with my neck pulled in. Still, I walk.
I see frost on the rice stubble in the fields. My breath turns pure white.
The idea of stopping because it is cold is not in me anymore.
Some Things I Could Not Continue
Some things have lasted, and some things did not.
A while ago, I started typing practice. I wanted to spend less time writing my blog.
I tried hard for 1 month.
Still, one day, I stopped.
My fingers do not listen to me.
I will not go into details. But some fingers cannot reach the keys. A different finger hits the key I want. Even with practice, that habit does not go away.
At first I thought, maybe my way of doing it is bad. But after 1 month, I understood that this was probably not it.
My fingers move on their own, apart from my will. Or they do not move.
So I gave up.
My Body Knew What Would Not Last
Walking that I kept for 3 years, and typing that I gave up after 1 month.
The difference is probably whether it fits me or not.
Walking fit me. Typing did not.
It is a strange thing. The fingers that do not listen to me when I type do move properly for arpeggios on the guitar. Only barely, but they do.
Even with the same fingers, some things fit and some things do not.
Maybe the power to continue is not the power to choose what I should continue. Maybe it is also the power to give up early on what does not last.
My body knows that, more than I expected.
Another thing I have written about daily life after retirement:
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