Walk, Write and Wash Your Hands!

I am currently operating on a bit of a delay. Maybe you haven't noticed or maybe you have. Sometimes the change of seasons doesn't go as smoothly as we'd like. That's when it's most important to make time to nourish our body and our soul!

Today I went for a walk. I’m fortunate enough to have a lake nearby and to have the opportunity to walk around it—especially during this time of year. Here’s the problem: that’s the first time I’ve gone for a walk, without a destination as my main motivation, in a very long time. But, I had to do something. Fall is usually a time of great energy for me, but this year Fall has me falling behind. It was like the battery inside just up and quit on me, and I needed to get the jumper cables out—afraid, as I was, that I would hook them up wrong or that it wouldn’t revive anything. I needed to break out of this uncharacteristic, fall funk.

My brother passed away at the start of September. That was unexpected. That felt like jumper cables hooked up wrong. The hole left by burrowing grief created a sort-of catch basin that collected all sorts of germs along with the rainwater, so that this month greeted me with not-so-cute, acute conjunctivitis and then tonsillitis and strep throat decided it looked like an opportune time to jump in as well. Being sick is bad enough. Being highly contagious is down-right depressing.

The grief from my brother’s passing worked subtly below the surface—nearly invisible, while those bombastic and flamboyant germs were like bedazzled rock stars trashing a hotel room. Despite their two very different approaches, they have carried on quite consistently and I thought that maybe I should stop trying to fight back. I started to think that I’d better just sit back and shut up until those relentless thugs found someone else to bug.

This past week my husband brought home a bright yellow book for me that he thought might be interesting or possibly helpful, titled: You are a Badass, which is what he believes me to be and assured me that he meant it in the best possible way. I’ll have to take his word for it, though I feel like I should be riding a horse or at least wearing chaps and sporting a long mustache to qualify for “Badass” status.

I’m only 70 pages in, but the book made me think I needed to get out the jumper cables, ignore my constantly red and drippy eye (yeah, gross!), and just put on some sunglasses and walk the dang lake. I finished the Zpack I was prescribed, yesterday. The eye drops are nearly at their end. And, there’s something about fresh air, nature, and exercise that I felt might band together to become the perfect bouquet garni I need—that somethin’ somethin’ that forms the basis for soups and stews but that we don’t actually see and can’t quite place with our taste buds alone.