ICP #2

Generally, my practice is to walk two or three times a day.  About once every ten days or so, I only get in one period of pedestrianism, but since 04 October 2014, I have not missed a day of walking yet.  I've been asked before if the walking ever gets boring, and early in the process before I had embraced the idea of the daily practice, the specter of boredom was something that I actually spent more than a little time dreading.

Like many things in my imagination, I completely missed the mark giving any mental or spiritual bandwidth away to anxiety associated with boredom.  Early in the first month of daily walking, I did find that I had to get about a mile under the soles of my feet before my mind would settle in to the rhythm of my own steps, but once that happened and I stopped thinking about whatever it was that popped into my mind my senses were opened in ways that I had forgotten about.  Let's face it, these weren't new experiences, but I had been deliberately shielding myself from them with the accoutrements of technology for many years.  I'd insulated myself from the weather with clothing and housing.  I'd not gone hungry or thirsty for a very long time.  Noise and smell were dampened by the steel and glass protection afforded by my automobile.  Even the speed of life had been changed by the application of technology.

Today, I fell into the plodding rhythm of my march a little bit sooner.  I feld the breeze on my right cheek, and the light hint of humidity in the cool air of the morning.  The smell of plants and exhaust were in the air, and if I'm not mistaken I tasted just a little of the first hint of fall.  All of that coupled with the things that I saw placed before me a sensual cornucopia that transcended boredom immediately and placed me in the path of beauty.

Heron Sculpture illuminated by the waning of the afternoon sun

The experience of being one with the environment is a feeling that I've come to cherish.  That sense of connection is something that I'm able to carry with me throughout the non-walking parts of my day, albeit to a lesser extent.

South (left) and North (right) on the trail this morning

The concern with boredom was completely unfounded, and the sensation of oneness with all the glory that surrounds me during these stretches of serenity is something that I wish I could share fully with you.  The sound of the footfalls clears the mind and changes the way you observe.  This change is not instantaneous, but it is inevitable as the action associated with the practice takes a course that is both irresistible for any great period of time and fulfilling beyond anything I expected.

Severn River looking East

The pictures fall short in capturing the sensation, but they hearken my memory back to the flow of the breeze, the sound of the traffic, the pinch of the mosquito, and the warmth of the sun.  It's a richness of experience that I've been seeking for awhile, and it was waiting to be experienced just a few steps outside the door.

Implications of the Call to the Pilgrimage #1 (ICP #1)

When you talk to other people about the goal of walking across the country, inevitably the conversation will come around to the reasons that you might or might not have for taking on such a journey.  Often, it is raised by the other person as some version of the question, "What cause are you taking up or supporting with your walk?"

For me this is a difficult question to answer because I really don't have some overarching external cause that I'm supporting (say, the Kidney Foundation or Living Legacy or Walk for a Cure or any one of a great number or worthy causes and organizations working to make the world a better place).  At the heart of my reasoning, I suppose I'm called to the prep work in advance of one day making this walk because it has become a part of who I am over the last several years.

Rory and I were talking around this issue the other day, and he observed that he'd basically lived his whole life and never really felt at home in any of the places he's lived.  It's an interesting observation because he's spent the better part of seven decades searching for home (or maybe not).  That conversation got me thinking about how my own experiences have stacked up against his.

I too have not ever really found a place that I felt entirely comfortable with the notion of settling in for the long haul.  Up to this point, I've been fortunate because the nature of the way I earn my living has necessitated multiple re-locations, and as you can see by previous postings quite a lot of travel even when I'm in the same location for a number of years.

I am beginning to suspect that part of the answer to both Rory and my dilemma is that we may not ever find a place to truly call home.We've either been blessed or cursed with whatever part of the human genome is responsible for the more nomadic tendencies of the tribe of humanity.

All that said, although I don't feel at home in any one particular place that I've landed thus far, I have grown appreciative of having a "home base."

One of the more important aspects of this home base for me is the relationship that I've developed with the people who cut my hair.  My home base must be located withing a reasonable commuting distance (by car) of a good one of these:

The "Barber Pole" at the shop I've been going to for the last 11 years

The use of the Barber Pole as a trade symbol dates back to the Middle Ages and was once associated with bloodletting, tooth extraction, and hair grooming.  There are some additional connotations and denotations described in the linked article above, and I'll leave you to form your own conclusions.

The real point for me is that even though I appear to be drawn to the nomadic existence, it's important to me to be able to rely on the people I trust to trim my short locks.  It makes sense when one considers that the place I go still uses the straight razor in the final neck line clean-up process.  Finding an acceptable barber will be one of the many little annoyances that will have to be solved during the pilgrimage, and it will be interesting to see this (and many other things I probably haven't even considered) play out.