A Box of Chocolates and the Good Walk

Here is how I walk:  left leg, right leg, heel-toe, heel-toe, arms swinging front-to-back, hips swinging side-to-side.  I pay attention to the business of my legs, how my feet strike the ground, the sturdiness of my ankles, the alignment of my knees.

My legs are mostly good at walking, except for stairs and the occasional curb, which flummoxes the legs and makes them stop mid-stride.  Then they ask for directions.  My legs are female and good at asking for directions.

It’s a good thing these legs like to walk because they’re going to get to do a lot of it in the coming days.

There are all those extra holiday pounds.  Then there’s that unfortunate cholesterol count.  The stamina.  The balance.  The urge to get up and be part of something other than a conduit between the couch and the television.

G.M. Trevelyan said, “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.”  I like that.

I’ve picked a far-away point on the horizon as my destination.  My point keeps moving away, but when I do finally find the edge of the earth, I’ll know to stop.  Remember the movie, Forrest Gump?  One day Forrest decided to run and he didn’t stop until he decided he was done.  While he ran and ran (as I recall the story, simply because he decided to start running), others joined him.  He decided to do something … he did it … and, because it was a good and fun thing, others jumped in too.

So, consider me now the Forrest Gump of the walking track at my gym.  The Forrest Gump of writers.  The Forrest Gump of whatever strikes my fancy.   If it’s a good and fun thing, maybe you’d like to join me like we’re all little drops of chocolate in a box of life and we never know what we’re gonna get until we do it.

Let’s walk the good walk and allow those constricting braces to fall away as we stride out.  Let’s get up off the park bench and … and … go climb a tree or chase a squirrel or throw a net out for shrimp … or something.  Anything! Let’s write a poem or a story or an article or a book.  Something.  Anything.  Let’s go out and make this the finest year we’ve ever lived.

Because living inside a box of chocolates with the lid on only serves to widen our hips and narrow our viewpoint.  I’m heading for the horizon.  Are you with me on this?

Yeah?  Then, let’s go!