To the astonishment of my peers, I have a car. I use my little Subaru Forester to get to the grocery store or coffee shops. When I chose to begin walking to work over a year ago, it was when the sun rose and set as one. The air was warm, the river was beautiful, and the seagulls hilariously (and annoyingly) dive bombed any threatening passersby. I started walking so I could enjoy soaking up as much of the sun as I could before the September rain. Then I kept walking in September to breathe in the wet, refreshing air before the October snow. Then I kept walking throughout the winter because I previously didn’t realize just how beautiful the blanket of winter can be, and I was fascinated to witness the lapse of the sun hang lower and lower each passing week. Eventually, I chose to walk in the forty below weather because though it was cold and dark, I was doing something not many people get to do in this world.
All the while, the world started coming at us faster. Thirty-minute episodes were exchanged with reels, books with tweets, and county roads with speedways. Our expeditious and saturated world cleverly disguised itself as highly productive and efficient. As the world spins faster, we do our best to assimilate, desperately trying to experience everything thrown our way all at once. At the gym, we lift our weights while wearing headphones and tracking our progress on smartwatches. On our computers, we have multiple tabs open at once, switching between social media and calendars and email as soon as an update is to be made. We eat dinner in front of our phones, we text and drive, and we check the time as we converse.
I think we all can relate to the fatigue caused by the never ending cat-and-mouse game of needing more without the capacity to take hold. We’ve even gone so far as to try to manually slow the world down. We put our phones face down, we go to bookstores, and venture on off-the-grid road trips. We allow ourselves the space to not know everything, asking those who actually might know instead of doing a quick search. But even these efforts, though mighty, can be sporadic and ever failing attempts. So, how can we get our autonomy back? How can we experience the world without it hurling information at us from every direction? How can we prioritize quality over quantity yet again? It starts with going back to how we first experienced the world around us; one step at a time.
The concept of going on a walk seems rudimentary – perhaps even trivial – at its surface. Where does the hour go when you choose to walk without a purpose, without a destination? It feels like so much could’ve been done in that time. You could run to the grocery store or take a yoga class or finish that assignment due tomorrow. There is and will always be something greater; something more pressing to do than aimlessly walk. This belief, which the world we created has written as truth, is where our fault lies.
Remember the majesty – the feeling of standing at the foot of Denali or looking up at the endless sky? Remember the awe of seeing the mountain range from the bridge downtown? We can tap into this in our daily lives simply by choosing to go outside and be and move exactly as we are. To walk without a purpose – to receive the world on a human scale and at a human pace. It is to take things in as they come to us. It is to feel what it means to be a part of our shared humanity once again.
There will always be something that you just absolutely have to do, there will always be days in which it’s dark and negative forty out, and there will always be a numbing and contentful alternative.
For these reasons, I ask: What is more important than the moment that is happening right now? Is there anything truer than the present? Is any experience more important to you than your own?
Going on a walk is to experience right now as it happens; it is to experience your feelings, your thoughts, the ground beneath your feet, the signs and billboards just ahead of you, the woman walking past you, the smells of the pizza place and sounds from the auto shop, the fastness of the car whizzing by, the tallness of the buildings, the colors of the trees or the snow or the litter at our feet. In that moment, now that you are no longer dizzy from the world doing laps around you, maybe you can notice something new, something you didn’t search for or even know about.
Maybe you have the space to notice a leaf the moment it falls from a tree, the neighbors kiss goodbye, the carefully tended garden, the morning dew clinging to the miniature cucumbers. To walk is to experience the world anew, a daily rebirth of human experience.
This is my challenge to you. Take a walk everyday, be it five minutes or five miles. Let yourself be. Let the world be. Try a new trail or walk downtown. Walk to work one day and see just how long it takes while noticing the things you hadn’t while driving. Go with a friend and revel in a conversation that doesn’t rely on your surroundings. Go when it’s negative forty out and your eyelashes freeze over. Go when the midnight sun still hangs high in the late evening. Go when it’s the last thing you want to do. Go when your task list overwhelms you.
Hey there! My name is Alyssa, and just a month after receiving my diploma at the University of Kansas with a degree in visual communications, I traded the flatlands for a life in the Last Frontier with my husband (no, there were no ruby slippers involved nor is my husband made of tin). As a Fairbanks transplant, I quickly embraced and became part of this extraordinary community. I’ve found the people here are a unique blend of resilience, inspiration, creativity, quirkiness, and above all, passion.
My life's passion is to create on purpose. I believe that language, in both its spoken and visual forms, intricately shapes human consciousness. My mission is to contribute to the crafting of a world where everyone feels safe, heard, and empowered. And where better to embark on this journey than in the state of beautiful extremes! Here's to creating a world for us all. Cheers!
P.S. I enjoy painting, I have caught some really cool fish, and I make perfect soft-yet-chewy bagels.
Hey there! My name is Alyssa, and just a month after receiving my diploma at the University of Kansas with a degree in visual communications, I traded the flatlands for a life in the Last Frontier with my husband (no, there were no ruby slippers involved nor is my husband made of tin). As a Fairbanks transplant, I quickly embraced and became part of this extraordinary community. I’ve found the people here are a unique blend of resilience, inspiration, creativity, quirkiness, and above all, passion.
My life's passion is to create on purpose. I believe that language, in both its spoken and visual forms, intricately shapes human consciousness. My mission is to contribute to the crafting of a world where everyone feels safe, heard, and empowered. And where better to embark on this journey than in the state of beautiful extremes! Here's to creating a world for us all. Cheers!
P.S. I enjoy painting, I have caught some really cool fish, and I make perfect soft-yet-chewy bagels.