Saturday Morning Walk

~ Live & Learn

Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big toe pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that add up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking. The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak.

—  Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Penguin Books (June 1, 2001)

Photo: Bjorn Breimo, Walking (Norway)

22 thoughts on “Saturday Morning Walk”

  8. As a physio who analyzes gait patterns all day long and charts those patterns using official medical lingo, I particularly love this poetic description of it. Walking has so many physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits. Those of us who can walk take it for granted, often letting our bodies rust. And those clients of mine who can no longer amble, google miracle cures and magic machines, and dream of being upright every single night.

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  9. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    Walk, walk, walk … “The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak.” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Penguin Books (June 1, 2001)

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