Just as naively as people would say to me “just breathe” while I was in the throws of an asthma attack and still on the dairy with a permanently blocked nose from September to January every year- people say to me stuff like “take a walk! you’ll feel so much better.”
Even my dog is in on it. Always with the eyes and the keeners re: the big stroll.
I should have gotten one of those dogs that doesn’t like to go out and that has to wear clothes and stuff. But no. Got a big furry black fuzzy opposite of a Roomba who at the age of 11 now- is the dog equivalent of one of those egg white eating 56 year old body builder ladies. She likes to “get her run in”. She’s slim. She’s a goddam athlete.
As you may have guessed or if you’ve even just glimpsed me once- I am not.
Saints preserve us .
Having a dog requires a sage, mature , organized resignation that I do not possess.
I know that! I struggle with my impossible nature my own damn self.
But come on. Every human in the universe gets up and walks the dog.
I have seen them in the frosty dawn! I see them in the city when I open the drapes a smidge to look out in the very early morning, Brrr! Whoa -with their little green poop bag stoically doing what must be done . For a dog. Jesus in the garden- are ya kiddin' me! It’s 7 a fuckin’ m
I have a perfectly good yard! Right out the back door of my house!! I could flip open the door-quick get out! I’m freezin’ McPup, the bed is cooling down for feck sake-gotta put on that kettle move it kid- quick sticks Bitch! I could grab a foamy capp while you do your business-
Big Plans.
But no. Look at the face . Looking at me- and apparently no.
She is not going if I am not going.
Cripes. Can't be that bad then huh? Guess ya dont need to go then huh?
Do you not need to pee?
I mean I’m offering the yard. If she really needs to go well- you think she’d have a go out there.
No . uh uh. Negativo.
She will go only if she’s so sick she has to do an unstoppable soft serve by my peonies. Otherwise she’s hedging her bets on me ACTUALLY GOING OUT.
Besides the getting dressed and getting cold thing , it comes down to walking.
We have to walk. errrr. yuk.
oh God. the very imperative quality of walking makes this rebel scream.
Who are these people who love walking?
Clear your head, huh? Clear your head? Get over here I’ll clear your head for ya.
I don’t want to walk. For one thing walking is one tiny step, one more, one more oh give me a break. No
I love my bike! push push glide. No problemmo!
Where’s the gliding in walking ?
Just ergh.
It’s stupid, tedious and I am not built for it.
Like- I saw a deer- or a reindeer I think- jumping-in a little film the other day- NOW YER TALKIN- that’s the way to go!!
Run run leapppppp leap!!!! Magnificent.
I’ve always wanted springs for the bottom of my feet . Two things I always wanted;
1: FILL UP THE BATHROOM WITH WATER AND SWIM THERE
AND
2: SPRINGS FOR BOTTOM OF FEET
I was never physically un-flexible. The very opposite. Just like my portly handsome woman predessescors- I was blessed/cursed with a runaway hyper-mobility of the joints, the gizmo’s in my milquetoast buttocks like some kind of exploded alarm clock or a little girls ringlets- boing boing boing, searching for the mechanisms of order and discipline wobbling about hopeful… but forget it, kid! Walking is a chore and it’s way too slow.
Bendy. Oh you know it. I could fold up like a suit case, as wobbly as jello, my quads out of service, my little butt trying to stabilize a haywire spine, my whole system a cat’s cradle of contradictions. (Not now, of course- as I unfortch stretched my ligaments to “shagged” and my tendons tightened rigorously in a physical call and response macarena that has me pretty much the definition of stiff. Only-get this- now I’m supposed to walk anyway because -ugh-forgive me-”motion is lotion”.
Look. In my humble opinion, I have just always been more suited to driving. In a car. Slamming the tunes. Hotboxin. .
One of the legit reasons for my allergy to walks is -I discovered- due to the simple fact that genetically I apparently tend towards the”Anglo Saxon.”
Stay with me-now I heard this in stretch class ( back when I still had something to stretch about-) a very cool lady told me that the Anglo Saxons have the shallow hip sockets, flexible but not sprung for PROPULSION-and the Celts, while not much for the folding, are sprung for the strolling!
Did you know that?? Yes! Sure they LOVE it!
Hill and dale! Water street to the back of town- up and at ‘em! What a day for it!
“Keeps me sane!”
“Ah that’s better!”
Chewing on a piece of their beard, efficiently exchanging oxygen, stopping to marvel at the breeze coming in thru their wee Tilley hat vents-Ahh!
And I guess they either organize their brains for the days writing then-or set to recalling huge swaths of poetry as they ramble, or else space out as deliciously as a sheep.
Who knows? All I know is that the hips on the Celts are springing and sure.
Those hips know exactly what they are doing
Walking walking walking …to Missouri (they can’t afford to fly)
My hips now -I’ll soon get them replaced -oh! maybe I’ll ask for deeper ones?- are now as brittle and shallow as my heart - which is like a fall leaf swept up in a sudden gust of interest but ultimately unwilling and unable to sustain much even for a day if the rains come.
Anyway as it is - I am much too competitive to walk with anyone.
Not into it. For me investigating the angles of boredom and delicious solitude and woolgathering is my exercise.
I’m a tad overweight, tis true. not for want of thinking about fasting between certain hours - 1 and 2 is it? Something like that? Can’t remember.
Maybe more to do with some well proven mathematical scientific calculation that involves eating and moving..don’t care. “TAXI!!”
Oh, SometimesI do a big walk and throw the ball a bunch for her, but she’s well used to waiting for the big event. . She knows I will probably have to clean out a drawer and “pick an Angel card” before we go,
Those are good days . She gets tired enough to snore while I putter .
Not for long, of course.
Never long enough.
I can feel it.
Look at her. Oh boy. Watching me.
Ever expectant.
And now I got the “Movement” Angel card?!?
Good Greif. You gotta be kidding..
Thank God the walker is coming.
Good ole Siobhan.
Oh, to be young and innocent. Not! I remember being told not to go downtown by myself when I was a kid. Not a lot, but a few times. Told that is. I mean, I would leave the house at 9 in the morning on my bike and make it home for supper without so much as a where ya been? I’m talking 7, 8, 9 years old? But as independent as we were, and became, we were also idiots too. I remember going to the harbour to taunt the fishing fleet byes, “Jiggy, jiggy 5 dollar”, so we could spend the next half hour running all through downtown to avoid a boot up da arse. And we didn’t even know what we were really saying. Jigging is what we did out on our buddy’s dad’s boat between hauling lobster pots in June off Merasheen, to catch the finest meal of cod I ever had. And then been let off by the grownups on a deserted island in the evening with enough black rum to get us drunk, (but not blotto) {we were teenagers then, and probably figured out what jiggy, jiggy really meant}. But at the younger age, we were idiots, as should we be. Going into the groc and conf and asking for a bean peeler, or a sky hook, and wondering why skipper behind the counter is laughing his head off. Yes, we were all young once, but I don’t remember being too innocent.
Love your stream of conscience meandering along the way , exercise?
You n me both , 🥲💔👏👏👏🥰👍❤️