"Everywhere is in walking distance if you have the time

[ladyanemone]

A friend pointed me at your website today, and I just love it! I have recently been embracing this concept, but you put it in such wonderful terms.

Fall is a great time for walking in New England, whatever the weather. A few months ago, I decided that I would start walking at least forty minutes a day, five days a week. That felt so good that it has expanded into an hour a day, six days a week, and I have a hard time not taking a long walk on that extra day!

I tend to walk on the bike paths in Boston (where I live). Most of the other people I see on the paths are bikers, or Power Walkers (yes, aqua is involved), and they all look Terribly Serious and Goal-Oriented. That's not my thing at all. I love going slowly and seeing everything around me. I always smile at the other folks on the path, but they almost never look at me, let alone smile back. What a shame!

I walk by myself and with friends. I walk while thinking about problems, I walk while meditating, and on rare but lovely occaisions I walk without thinking at all. I walk in and around parks, and I walk down busy city streets. Since I have been walking regularly, I sleep better at night, I have a better appetite, and I am less stressed. I can walk longer and longer distances without getting tired. Also, I feel much more in touch with what is going on in my neighborhood and in nature. And I've stopped waiting for buses! Why wait for a smelly metal contraption to bounce you along for a fee, when you can go at almost the same pace much more enjoyably using your own two feet?

I am delighted to have recently discovered that a transportation bill approved by Congress this summer will extend my local bike path all the way to the other side of the state! I would love to walk that when it's finished, just once.

I also recently ran across this lovely website of quotes about walking, perhaps you'll find it interesting: http://www.gardendigest.com/walking.htm

Truly it is the journey, not the destination. Enjoy!

-Honey

[reinhard]

Welcome, Honey! And thanks for the quote-link.

Here are some of my favorites:

I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.
- G. M. Trevelyan

Above all do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday I walk myself into
a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked
myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more
one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill...if one keeps on walking everything will be alright.
- Soren Kierkegaard.

The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and
be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to
walk steadily and with a purpose.
- Charles Dickens

I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop,
I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions

Walking isn't just for pie in the sky philosophers and literati. Two (great) presidents approve:

Of all exercises walking is the best.
- Thomas Jefferson

Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast. - Harry Truman (Advice on how to live to be 80.)

See you rangering around boston some time,

Reinhard