Tag: walk

Walking. In rush hour traffic…

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It’s been 2,149 consecutive (well, almost) days on this morning walk at The Cove. Like in a row.

The highlight of the morning were the Atlantic Brants. The photo time stamp on the shot above was 6:47 am, just minutes before the Sun’s lift-off. There is nothing like the sound of the battalion’s wing flaps and their distinctive call (you really must listen here). Watching them just feet above the water, I couldn’t help but think: “You look marvelous! Absolutely marvelous!“

I stood on the break wall watching the sunrise.

Momentarily at peace.

And then it was The Cove’s rush hour traffic. A new phenomenon. DK’s groupies. 5 years ago, you wouldn’t find a soul at this park at this hour, now I’m mobbed.

Susan’s to my left snapping at the sun (without our Wally, who was left behind at home — the horror!) She’s slinging two cameras over her shoulder, yes, two. (Note to Self – Susan to Dave in 2023: “You always have to take things to the extreme, do you really need two cameras?” Elephant never forgets.)

Cara’s next to Susan, sporting designer Tall Boots akin to a rider in a Dressage event. She’s criss-crossing back and forth, violently snapping at everything that moves. Oh the young-uns, they do everything with such flourish.

Then came the rest: the walkers, the dog walkers and the runners.

I pack my gear and head back.

Look at you DK — The Pied Piper of The Cove.

God, I miss the good ole’ days.

Notes: Shots from this morning’s walk can be found here.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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We feel this restlessness; we lament our shrinking attention spans. But to focus on a relatively narrow question of technical measures of our attention span misses a deeper truth. The restlessness and unease of our times aren’t simply, in my experience, the vertigo of distraction and distractibility. No, that experience is itself a symptom caused by some deeper part of the unsettled self. The endless diversion offered to us in every instant we are within reach of our phones means we never have to do the difficult work of figuring out how to live with our own minds.

For many years I have, like an old man, taken a daily constitutional. I began in my early 20s, when I was a freelance writer, which meant working all day either at home or in coffee shops. I found it useful to go for a walk and clear my head. I’d go even on the bitterest days of a Chicago winter, when the wind slices at your face like a blade. I started doing this before the days of the smartphone and even before the days of podcasts on the iPod. During the walk I would just … think. I’d let my mind wander. Almost without exception, my best thinking happened on these walks. I would come back to my laptop, sometimes almost racing up the steps to my apartment, to get the thoughts down. […]

Daydreaming is a central experience of being alive and also a casualty of the attention age. Years ago, podcasts came to fill my ears during my walks, conditioning me to feel a little panicked without one. But as I’ve spent more time thinking about attention, I’ve begun to force myself to just walk and let myself be with my thoughts. I’ve also developed a set of routines, habits and hobbies that can provide the framework for a form of modified idleness, just enough to focus on to keep myself rooted and present while allowing my mind to wander. Chopping wood, making handmade pasta, going to the dog park with my canine-obsessed 6-year-old — these are all in the happy but endangered category of things to do that are neither work nor looking at my phone. […]

You can’t busy yourself out of boredom or amuse yourself out of it. Neither work nor constant entertainment provides a solution. Not for the king or for us. The problem we face is existential and spiritual, not situational. We cannot escape our own mind; it follows us wherever we go. We can’t outrun the treadmill. Our only hope at peace is to force ourselves to step off whenever we can. To learn again to be still.

— Chris Hayes, from “I Want Your Attention. I Need Your Attention. Here Is How I Mastered My Own.” (NY Times, January 3, 2025)

Notes:

  • Photo from morning walk. 6:55 a.m. 18° F, feels like 0° F, wind gusts up to 30 mph. January 7, 2025. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. See more photos from this walk here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Kierkegaard, 1843.

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Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day 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. Even if one were to walk for one’s health and it were constantly one station ahead—I would still say: Walk! Besides, it is also apparent that in walking one constantly gets as close to well-being as possible, even if one does not quite reach it but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Health and salvation can be found only in motion. If anyone denies that motion exists, I do as Diogenes did, I walk. If anyone denies that health resides in motion, then I walk away from all morbid objections. Thus, if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

— Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (Reitzel Publishers, 1843)

More pictures from this morning’s walk: Time Lapse (another Wow) and Sunrise shots.

Walking. With Free Bird.

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4:00 am. Friday morning. I’ve been watching the clock since 1:30 a.m, drifting in and out of light sleep.

“Racing thoughts. Reduced need for sleep. Exaggerated sense of self. Irritability…Obsessive rumination.” — Cory Richards

Wally, has been restless all night too, probably for biological reasons I’m sure. He refused to go outside before bed – it was drizzling. Our Wally, loves water, hates rain. Go Figure. He loves splashing in baby pools, clomping along shorelines and muck, and best of all, puddles. I watch him veer right and left on the park path, splashing through puddles from the overnight rains. Think toddler with big rubber boots.

And here we are, 1,557 consecutive (almost) days in a row on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

Susan and Eric left on a road trip for Grandma’s birthday. Wally watched me leave for the park that same morning looking terrified: Not going to be left Home Alone again. No sir.

Continue reading “Walking. With Free Bird.” →

Walking. In gratitude for those working this morning.

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1510 consecutive (almost) days on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

While you are all (mostly all) sleeping, and I’m sleepwalking through my morning walk, so many others are working. Working on a early Sunday morning. Picking up our trash, combing our beaches, keeping our parks clean, tending to our sick in hospitals and keeping our communities safe — while we sit and enjoy our morning coffee easing into our day.

Here’s to all of you who keep our world spinning.

And our gratitude.

DK

Notes:

  • More pictures from this morning’s walk here.
  • Post Inspired by D. Nurske from “Riches of the Interior”: “Pity these souls who could not endure our burden of endless gifts.“
  • Post also Inspired by John O’Donohue from Anam Cara: “It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. It is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.” (Thank you Hammock Papers)