How to Exist
“Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.”
— From Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking
I really should title this post “How I Exist.” But the “to” makes it sound universal, I think, almost like a recommendation on living, which I know a lot of people are looking for right now.
But I can’t claim to have all the answers. I only know me. I’m aware of myself walking in the San Francisco sun, thinking of Rebecca Solnit and her reflections on this activity that’s currently reminding me of the book I’ve quoted from. I see the wide and peaked green hills that surround and quietly interrupt everything in the city, no matter what direction you turn. As I move, I take sips from a paper cup of iced green tea from one of the city’s many local cafes, and I feel at peace, almost giddy.
It’s just one of the moments of mindfulness I practice these days. Altogether, they remind me, “I’ve overcome so damn much.”
This is how David and I spent time together, whether it was camping overnight on the sands of Pismo Beach or hiking the shaded trails of Robert Louis Stevenson State Park during my wedding weekend. We practiced mindfulness before it was a mainstream “thing,” spending long hours in silence simply being, or, as my partner pointed out later, “grunting” to communicate, mumbling words and phrases in a language only we understood, whether we were expressing affirmation, denial, or agreement. Mardavish, maybe? Breauxglish?
We were rarely able to, as Solnit did, enjoy “hillsides of [her] childhood that first bloomed every year with an extravagance of these white flowers.” Our views were dirt roads, soiled carpets, and mildewed bathroom walls.
But we made it through, day by day, hour by hour, supporting each other through leaving the house we grew up in, when the world grew larger and we felt we were a part of it. We found many new places. We discovered hillsides and oceans and small towns and much more, gaining a deeper appreciation of ourselves and each other.
Maybe there’s some unsolicited advice to be gleaned, after all. This is how we exist: By choosing our own versions of a hillside to view, whether that’s a food stall or dirt road, brick wall or rolling hills, flat plain or rocky mesa, or the many other possibilities for beauty and awe that life has to offer, in whatever form it takes—walking, running, lying still. It’s loving who we are and the choices we’ve made, regardless of what anyone says or guidance that unconsciously pleads, “Do as I say, because I’m afraid and I need that kind of self-assurance to accept who I am.”
Walk your path and do your thing and be like you, with awareness and insight, because it’s the only you you’ll ever have.