“Hadn’t thought about a walk as being a repetition of a theme,” said Derek, abruptly harking back to Sandy’s string of questions and considering his own past, “but I suppose it might be. It’s just that you learn so much more about someone when on you’re on a walk together. I find myself saying things I couldn’t say sitting in company or if alone together in a room. And your companion always seems to reciprocate. It’s as if the whole world is watching, but only the two of you count – especially when it’s raining. It’s the most publicly intimate thing imaginable, and without any mess or fuss. You ought to try it some time.”
Son, Stephen C. Ellis
So here’s to you my ramblin’ boy
May all your rambles bring you joy
Rambling Boy, Tom Paxton
We took our first morning walk of the year yesterday. We might have begun our daily walks sooner since the Pacific Northwest is enjoying unusually early spring-like weather, but we’ve had reason to wait this year. It is the same reason that caused us last summer to curtail our daily walks earlier in the year than usual: Helen’s health.
Health is, by nature, a cyclical affair, much like the seasons. It falls and rises in accordance with rhythms which aren’t readily understandable, but which are definite and rooted deep within the self. During the course of a single week late last summer, Helen went from always being the one to last the longest on our walks due to my bad knees, to becoming the one wanting to quit early due to a sudden onset of seemingly chronic shortness of breath. Endless trips to the doctor revealed that she had a hiatal hernia and a large portion of her stomach was pressing upon her lungs.
While it’s never good news to learn such a thing, it is always good news to learn that something wrong with you is repairable. I won’t repeat the struggle to get on with the surgical repair and for Helen to recover since I have dealt with these matters elsewhere and such things are never worth dwelling upon once they are in your rear view mirror. The important fact is that yesterday Helen felt good enough to once again attempt our morning walk.
The morning was chilly but bearable; the sun was out and the birds were doing their best to imitate a symphony performed solely by woodwinds. We cut our walk short – about three-quarters of our usual routine – in order to see how Helen would do and to ensure that she would not become over tired. We probably could have completed our entire regular route given her success at yesterday’s ramble, but it pays to be careful – especially at our age.
When I retired from practicing law two years ago, I retired from playing racquetball on the same day. I began playing the sport in my small home town sometime in the late 1950s, but at that time we called it paddleball since we used heavy plywood racquets without strings and a slightly larger rubber ball dubbed a Pennsey Pinky. I kept at it over the years because it was fun, healthful, and a surprisingly good antidote to stress. But the health club I am still a member of is 30 miles from our home, and a daily round trip of 60 miles to play a game did not seem a good use of my time or of gasoline. Besides, I am no longer as agile as I once was and a fear of falling while playing had cut surreptitiously into my enjoyment of the sport. So my racquetball and legal careers proved to be coterminous. Who would have known?
The fear of falling came from the fact of knees much more ancient than the rest of me. This fact was uppermost in my mind when Helen first suggested our daily morning walks together. She had often walked on her own while I was working and had frequently lamented that she had no companion. And there I was, a newly-minted potential companion with chronically sore knees which had become noticeably less sore because of the wont of racquetball. Because of my knees I hesitated at first, but soon came to the conclusion that I had nothing to lose by trying and much to gain from remaining physically active. My knees have proven good enough to hoist me along our regular trek – one shorter than Helen’s former route as a single walker, but one sufficiently long to raise both our heart rates and to satisfy our shared enjoyment of the morning’s promise and light.
So yesterday’s walk marked a return to normalcy after the type of small scare that fortune throws in everyone’s way from time to time. Not only did we survive it, we survived it with flying colors. I anticipate another in a few hours. I admit that we are but fair weather walkers; our enjoyment wilts in the rains that nurture the flowers. We would rather walk the day after the rain has ended and vicariously enjoy its beneficial effects by commenting upon the perkiness of the flowers and the plenitude of birdsong that always suffuses just-cleansed air.
Yesterday’s walk was deeply satisfying simply because it proved that we persist and do so together. Helen’s lungs seem to have recovered and her appetite has returned; my knees are still complaining, but as long as they do so I have ample proof of my own existence. It may only have been our first morning walk of this year, but it felt like the first we’d ever taken together. It was ample proof that our life together remains good!
