Walking meetings
I have this addiction to reading about health and wellness. PubMed, the NIH website, random letters to Dr. Weil. When an editor at the Well desk posts an interactive about how she holds it together, I have to click on it. I do. The first thing she lists is walking meetings, which makes me think about all the people I haven’t seen in way too long, and how much I’d like to call them. The rest of the article—yoga, meditation, flipping through catalogs?—I don’t pay much attention to. I’m already imagining myself outside, walking and talking, tethered by a pair of earbuds to my phone.
Matt and I have some of our best conversations when we walk and talk. It’s most of what we do—our life together, as the saying goes, is an endless conversation—and being outside helps us listen to each other better. We find the balance between focus and distraction.
When I was little I lived in elaborate imaginary worlds that I entered through walking. I paced. Outside, in the backyard, making elaborate loops through the dirt and over tree roots with my arms folded behind my back, my head bent toward the ground before my feet, I lived in fantasies. I spent thousands of hours that way and I loved it. (The worlds all centered around talking animals.)
Matt likes to let Moses, our toddler, go barefoot. First it was in the sandbox—who can deny a little kid the sensory joy of going barefoot in a sandbox?—and now it’s in other playgrounds, some sidewalks, vast swaths of grassy parks near where we live. I worry about it. When I see his little soft feet on the ground I think about what day it is—if he cuts his foot badly on a Sunday, when the neighborhood walk-in clinic is closed, our only option is the ER.
I was stubborn about going barefoot as a kid. My mother was constantly warning me that I was going to get worms, and attacked my bare feet with intolerably scratchy washrags, upset about how filthy they were. I hated shoes. I never wanted to wear them. This went on for years, until I stepped on a bee, which was up to that point the worst thing that ever happened to me. I don’t think I went barefoot again until I read some hippie thing about being grounded. Now the best part of the warmer weather is walking around barefoot in my apartment. Even if it means I have to sweep the floor every night.
Matt asked me once why so many photographs of famous people at home showed them barefoot. It seemed like a recent thing, mainly in magazines. My guess was that it was their way of showing off, of advertising that they had cleaning ladies, that their houses are so clean they can go barefoot. I can’t be the only person who hates stepping on crumbs.
What I’m saying here is call me. I could use more time outside. Here is a picture of Moses at the park.
Linky links
This week’s Culture Study about retail therapy is good. Here’s a Twitter thread from last summer about the upside of unemployment. And the promise of UBI for parents. Why having to start over is better than never having failed at all. Now that the masks are off, it’s time to start shopping for lipstick again.