SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: WALKING EDITION
| 5 Things About Walking | The Sober Library | From the TFLMS Archives: "The Things That Are Supposed to Happen" | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for yet another beautiful, sunny morning. I’m grateful for the chance to look at things.differently. I’m grateful for gut feelings and knowing when it’s time. I’m grateful to be sober today.
The Walking Edition
Welcome to the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. Today’s theme, another obvious one, is walking. I realized this as I was walking, which is where 99.7% of my good ideas come from. And just the way I wrote that last sentence, tells you how I really feel about walking: It’s not just about ambulating between points, it’s an entirely different place. I could make horrible dad-puns about how walking “transports” me to a different mental state. And again, the word “transport,” or “transporter,” more accurately reflects what happens when I get outside and start walking:
I realize this is supposed to be about walking and the Star Trek video adds a confusing element to it. Here’s what I’m trying to say:
Walking transports me to a different place. Usually a place I needed to go.
I have so many strong memories of walking alone, beginning when I was in the Second Grade and walked home from the school bus stop. If you wanted to ask one of the times when I’m most myself (an important thing to know when you are trying to recover oneself), it would be when I’m walking and listening to music.
We moved to Florida when I was in the Second Grade and there were two routes home from the bus stop, one was direct and the other looped around the adjoining apartment communities along SW 34th Street in Gainesville. I’d walk home along 34th street, humming songs to myself (weirdly, one of the songs that was in frequent rotation was “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” and thus begins the Burt Bacharach obsession).1 Those walks were when it was safe for me to come out of my hiding place; there was always a palpable sense of relief to be out walking alone and feeling free to be myself.
There is the nub of my alcoholism, I think, or one of them, that feeling that I can’t show myself to others, the sense that there is something shameful or embarrassing about me or whatever that makes being around other people very, very challenging. Lots of people have those feelings and don’t turn into alcoholics. In my case, I had those feelings, discovered that alcohol worked for me to soften those feelings, had the genetic make-up to be a pretty hardy alcoholic (tolerance, etc) and we were off.
In a lot of ways, walking and the walks I took, define the chapters of my life. Of course, there is no better enforcer of walking routine than having a morning newspaper route.
I remember the long walks I took around Iowa City at night when I was a budding teenage alcoholic. I had a whole playlist of songs that I would have in my head, maybe kind of inaudibly hum as I walked alone late at night on the paths around the Iowa Campus and along the river. To be honest, even at the time, it seemed a bit deranged, like when Mick Jagger does the whole psycho-, self-talking thing through Central Park at night on “Miss You.” Actually, that’s kind of cool, thinking about it now.
When I was trying to get sober, and mostly not succeeding, there were so many long, long, long walks. Back then, walking was a form of running, not in the locomotion sense, but in the emotional sense. During the times when I was briefly sober, I’d often wake up at 4am, completely wired with anxiety and dread and absolute panic about how I was going to get through the day without drinking, without having to experience these terrifying, soul-crushing feelings. So, I’d pull on clothes and walk. In those days, I smoked to help prolong the interludes of sobriety. I’m really a terrible smoker and used to get teased about it in rehab. I’m slightly better as a cigar smoker, but even then.
Those walks were terrible. There was nothing but fear and regret and and panic at having no real idea about how to live my life. I walked and listen to music and kept walking until I was just exhausted—usually around 7am. I can remember the long, meandering walks home from the IOP on K street, listening to songs like this as I headed home to another night of sober movie-watching, chinese food-eating lockdown.2
I will admit that one of my motivations in moving to NY during the Pandemic was the ability to walk. The world may have been closed down, but New York, one of the great walking cities of the world, was open to walkers. I walked a lot in those days, trying to hang on to nine months of sobriety. Sometimes 15 or 20 miles a day. Things gradually began to shift, and the walks became less and less about escape and more and more about engagement with myself. The same way that I found relief at finally being allowed to be myself on those walks home from the school bus, my walks began to produce connection with myself.
My walks used to be kind of melancholy affairs, heavy on the sense of loss and loneliness, now they are energy-producing, let the here and now soak in and let myself think times. I usually have Google Keep open on my phone (of course, I have Spotify running continuously), because as soon as I get moving, ideas pop into my head, different ways of seeing old things, realizations about what I’m feeling, what I’ve been thinking of doing.
There’s a really gorgeous line about being in the wilderness generating solitude, but not loneliness. That’s how I feel about walking. The funny thing, for me, is that it turns out that the “wilderness” I like to trek is kind of urban. There is literally not much else in the world that makes me happier than putting in my airpods and striking out for wherever. Free to move around and leave shitty stuff behind, free to move around and think and be myself.
I think I often cut a pretty ridiculous figure up here on the Upper East Side. I love to walk fast, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic, walking in time to the music, my head spinning out happy and joyous and free type thoughts, instead of the usual hamster wheel dreck. I swing by the coffee place where they know to start the skim Cortado as soon as I walk in, and coffee in hand, I like to hit 84th Street and accelerate hard as I head west towards Second Avenue. Usually, I don’t have a destination fixed yet, but that is completely beside the point.
These days, walking takes me roughly everywhere I need to go.
1. Simply the Greatest Song Ever with the Word “Walking” in it:
I’m afraid to even try to figure out how many thousands of times I’ve listened to this song.
2. Walking is Just Really, Really Good for You
I’m not a doctor, but it seems like it pretty much cures everything!
3. Even Better Than Pickleball!
I’m sorry, to have to burst the bubble.
4. You Can’t Always Walk Away
Here’s an excellent example of that.
5. The Best Books About Walking
There are so many great ones, here’s a pretty good list.
For us, reading and writing have been a big part of recovery and sobriety. We thought we’d start sharing some of our favorite books on the topic of recovery, addiction and general happiness and telling you how they helped us! If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions or if there are some books that you’d like to chat about, well, we’d love to do that with you. 3
And here’s the newest edition to The Sober Library:
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We’re ready to go and hope you can join us this Tuesday! It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else we haven’t figured out yet. We’ve been reading the “Stories from the Back of the Book,” and they are all so great. It’s a fun way to learn more about the Big Book and reading these stories out loud is a little like listening to the legends of AA share.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
I’ve written extensively on the topic of Burt Bacharach and even published an official playlist.
I love chinese food.
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.
It's amazing how many words and ideas a good long walk can shake down! Such a great post - thank you for another great read. I'm a little late - I'm rather behind on my reading at the moment! 🤣
(Great resources at the end there - brilliant!)