You're absolutely right. Walking is merely one way (the easiest, most 'to hand' way for able bodied people) to achieve a certain thing*. Said thing can be achieved by other routes, which may prove the more valuable and effective for being hard-won.
*For me that thing is mainly to stop staring fixedly at my laptop and instead nudge my mind out of whatever track its in, and then to show it some things that aren't made of me and which I don't control. Doing that seems to free things up to make new connections. But it's merely a trick I've learned and nothing else.
Thank you Melissa for sharing Josie and Josie for sharing your bimblings on inspiration for the non walkers. I also have mobility difficulties, and if I have a day when I think I can try to walk a little, my focus has to be on picking legs up otherwise I trip over and have to wait for the pain to subside enough to get up, or somehow get back to the house. Taking the time to notice and appreciate the movement of the seasons, the generous offerings that are there in rhythms and cycles. It’s lovely to be reminded that inspiration can come from the simplicity of attention given to the magic that unfolds in front of our eyes. (On a good day).
Inside now on a foggy, windy, rainy day in Ireland, pain humming through my body I watch a crow as it sits on the spindly tip of an exposed Ash tree, gauging it’s assault plan on the apple tree below. I can appreciate its agility, it’s timing and it’s sense that today I will not be clapping at it in an attempt to scare it away. I’m now aware of the others, it’s a squadron in a planned raid under cover of mist!
Josie, I can certainly relate to your sense of exclusion due to not being able to walk like everyone else. The loneliness, hunger and rejection are very real. But you are right about the opportunity to explore wider, wilder territory too. Isn't it strange how what artists used to consider adventurous—travelling to foreign lands, taking on new roles, and juggling multiple tasks at once, for example—are now the norm, while taking it slow and noticing the blackberries has become such a rarity?
So, this bimblings is about...perfect. It speaks gently to me, a kind whisper in my ear. I feel left out and separated from so much... Not so many trees or hedges around me, no mobility scooter, no teenager to be a source of both nourishment and challenges, but mostly love.
It has been about 15 years since my body worked. I have - stubbornly? - not adapted very well. After losing my two sweet boys 10 and 11 years ago (21 and 31, SMI, i.e. Serious Mental Illness, long stories...), after my surviving daughter's own SMI (yes, all 3) worsened and she drew away, the emotional pain and anguish combined with the increasing chronic physical pain and disability... I cannot write about it without sounding like someone who does nothing but steep in self-pity - which I do NOT - and sound as though I just spend my days whining and moaning. I do not have the words. Only, that is not who I am, it is not what I do. In truth, at this particular moment, I cannot say what I DO do, apologies. Survive, I suppose. Read, nap, look out the window.
I also recently finished Anansi Boys! Neil G is a favorite, such an escape into imagination. As are you, seeing with YOUR imagination and sprinkling crumbs of comfort throughout, lovely, tasty crumbs and morsels. These are all the words I have right now: Thank you. You are seen, heard, read and appreciated by thousands, and you, your life, your brain and body, your creativity and courage, your honesty and empathy, touch, comfort and inspire each of us in some way. Try to take that in... Remarkable. A humble bow, deep gratitude.
Over the last few years walking has been hard for me. Going too far was exhausting. A post box was within range so most days I’d walk there and back with something to post. Going so slowly it sometimes felt I wasn’t moving I got to know the beech hedge and it’s undergrowth I passed so well. The weeds in the verge would ebb and flow. There was a random Verbena bonariensis escapee from a neighbouring garden that greeted me on each walk like an old friend. It’s stem staying resolute throughout the winter months. There is so much to see if we slow down.
Regarding Anasi Boys - if you do audio, the BBC Radio adaptation is marvellous. Not currently on BBC Sounds but it’s on Audible and also available on my library BorrowBox.
Thank you, Josie, for these beautiful words on being and noticing. Blackberries ripening here too and definitely starting to feel 'backendish'. I'm reading Mary Karr's Art of Memoir at the moment, and your piece here reminded me of her advice, that as we sit to write, spend some time in quiet meditation, not too serious, but try to remember something sensory, a smell, a taste, a sound and then write! Ooh, I feel a Substack coming on....✍️
It is always impressive how you remind yourself, as often as you need to, how to be and to see through the many different ways that life offers even the most differently-abled of us. That you are able to so freely share that, and give us the encouragement to do the same - to look again, look patiently, slowly, carefully and see the world, and ourselves, more fully, through both our outer and inner eyes - is a rare gift. Rather like focusing a microscope, to just the right magnification in order to make the invisible visible. Well done, yet again. Thank you.
Thank you Josie for being so REAL that is so inspiring. I will go out now and look and listen - for blackberries, and bees and the sound of the magpie chattering and enjoy them all. Thank you.
I've been in bed fighting an infection since the beginning of June so I feel you! My favourite way to "go for a walk" is on Google street view. Even when it feels odd and awkward, it settles in my subconscious and often makes me dream about those places so vividly I forget my visit was only virtual.
I’m so sorry you’ve been ill Josie - I had been thinking of you ……
I love mindfulness too !! Just discovered ‘non-striving’ where you do things with 50% less effort and see how it feels. It really works for the things I dislike doing - packing and washing up for starters. It makes them gentler and easier. I could come to love them !
I so relate to the hunger for inspiration. I get that feeling for a wise loving friend too - they have come and gone all my life - just need to trust that another will appear and like you forget the way it works.
Thank you for reminding me of the harvest Here there are blackberries, sloes and damsons. Going to try to steep them in some left over gin with a little sugar. These things have to be done with timing, and not left too long! But I’ll try not to strive either !!
I’m so sorry you’ve been ill Josie - I had been thinking of you ……
I love mindfulness too !! Just discovered ‘non-striving’ where you do things with 50% less effort and see how it feels. It really works for the things I dislike doing - packing and washing up for starters. It makes them gentler and easier. I could come to love them !
I so relate to the hunger for inspiration. I get that feeling for a wise loving friend too - they have come and gone all my life - just need to trust that another will appear and like you forget the way it works.
Thank you for reminding me of the harvest Here there are blackberries, sloes and damsons. Going to try to steep them in some left over gin with a little sugar. These things have to be done with timing, and not left too long! But I’ll try not to strive either !!
Hi Josie. What a rich read. Llke you, walking doesn't do it for me.
Today i felt empowered slowing down thanks to your inspiration and i feel a lot better for slugging it out. Thank You. Love and blessings to you and yours.💚
I love the way that you are telling us how you are feeling your way through every day, finding new ways to open yourself to the 'flow' of inspiration. Your writing is beautiful, and I love that you keep it free, just encouraging a donation. It's a model I'm trying to follow too. I hope things are ok for you.
You're absolutely right. Walking is merely one way (the easiest, most 'to hand' way for able bodied people) to achieve a certain thing*. Said thing can be achieved by other routes, which may prove the more valuable and effective for being hard-won.
*For me that thing is mainly to stop staring fixedly at my laptop and instead nudge my mind out of whatever track its in, and then to show it some things that aren't made of me and which I don't control. Doing that seems to free things up to make new connections. But it's merely a trick I've learned and nothing else.
Thank you Melissa for sharing Josie and Josie for sharing your bimblings on inspiration for the non walkers. I also have mobility difficulties, and if I have a day when I think I can try to walk a little, my focus has to be on picking legs up otherwise I trip over and have to wait for the pain to subside enough to get up, or somehow get back to the house. Taking the time to notice and appreciate the movement of the seasons, the generous offerings that are there in rhythms and cycles. It’s lovely to be reminded that inspiration can come from the simplicity of attention given to the magic that unfolds in front of our eyes. (On a good day).
Inside now on a foggy, windy, rainy day in Ireland, pain humming through my body I watch a crow as it sits on the spindly tip of an exposed Ash tree, gauging it’s assault plan on the apple tree below. I can appreciate its agility, it’s timing and it’s sense that today I will not be clapping at it in an attempt to scare it away. I’m now aware of the others, it’s a squadron in a planned raid under cover of mist!
Josie, I can certainly relate to your sense of exclusion due to not being able to walk like everyone else. The loneliness, hunger and rejection are very real. But you are right about the opportunity to explore wider, wilder territory too. Isn't it strange how what artists used to consider adventurous—travelling to foreign lands, taking on new roles, and juggling multiple tasks at once, for example—are now the norm, while taking it slow and noticing the blackberries has become such a rarity?
So, this bimblings is about...perfect. It speaks gently to me, a kind whisper in my ear. I feel left out and separated from so much... Not so many trees or hedges around me, no mobility scooter, no teenager to be a source of both nourishment and challenges, but mostly love.
It has been about 15 years since my body worked. I have - stubbornly? - not adapted very well. After losing my two sweet boys 10 and 11 years ago (21 and 31, SMI, i.e. Serious Mental Illness, long stories...), after my surviving daughter's own SMI (yes, all 3) worsened and she drew away, the emotional pain and anguish combined with the increasing chronic physical pain and disability... I cannot write about it without sounding like someone who does nothing but steep in self-pity - which I do NOT - and sound as though I just spend my days whining and moaning. I do not have the words. Only, that is not who I am, it is not what I do. In truth, at this particular moment, I cannot say what I DO do, apologies. Survive, I suppose. Read, nap, look out the window.
I also recently finished Anansi Boys! Neil G is a favorite, such an escape into imagination. As are you, seeing with YOUR imagination and sprinkling crumbs of comfort throughout, lovely, tasty crumbs and morsels. These are all the words I have right now: Thank you. You are seen, heard, read and appreciated by thousands, and you, your life, your brain and body, your creativity and courage, your honesty and empathy, touch, comfort and inspire each of us in some way. Try to take that in... Remarkable. A humble bow, deep gratitude.
Over the last few years walking has been hard for me. Going too far was exhausting. A post box was within range so most days I’d walk there and back with something to post. Going so slowly it sometimes felt I wasn’t moving I got to know the beech hedge and it’s undergrowth I passed so well. The weeds in the verge would ebb and flow. There was a random Verbena bonariensis escapee from a neighbouring garden that greeted me on each walk like an old friend. It’s stem staying resolute throughout the winter months. There is so much to see if we slow down.
Regarding Anasi Boys - if you do audio, the BBC Radio adaptation is marvellous. Not currently on BBC Sounds but it’s on Audible and also available on my library BorrowBox.
Thank you, Josie, for these beautiful words on being and noticing. Blackberries ripening here too and definitely starting to feel 'backendish'. I'm reading Mary Karr's Art of Memoir at the moment, and your piece here reminded me of her advice, that as we sit to write, spend some time in quiet meditation, not too serious, but try to remember something sensory, a smell, a taste, a sound and then write! Ooh, I feel a Substack coming on....✍️
It is always impressive how you remind yourself, as often as you need to, how to be and to see through the many different ways that life offers even the most differently-abled of us. That you are able to so freely share that, and give us the encouragement to do the same - to look again, look patiently, slowly, carefully and see the world, and ourselves, more fully, through both our outer and inner eyes - is a rare gift. Rather like focusing a microscope, to just the right magnification in order to make the invisible visible. Well done, yet again. Thank you.
Thank you Josie for being so REAL that is so inspiring. I will go out now and look and listen - for blackberries, and bees and the sound of the magpie chattering and enjoy them all. Thank you.
I've been in bed fighting an infection since the beginning of June so I feel you! My favourite way to "go for a walk" is on Google street view. Even when it feels odd and awkward, it settles in my subconscious and often makes me dream about those places so vividly I forget my visit was only virtual.
I’m so sorry you’ve been ill Josie - I had been thinking of you ……
I love mindfulness too !! Just discovered ‘non-striving’ where you do things with 50% less effort and see how it feels. It really works for the things I dislike doing - packing and washing up for starters. It makes them gentler and easier. I could come to love them !
I so relate to the hunger for inspiration. I get that feeling for a wise loving friend too - they have come and gone all my life - just need to trust that another will appear and like you forget the way it works.
Thank you for reminding me of the harvest Here there are blackberries, sloes and damsons. Going to try to steep them in some left over gin with a little sugar. These things have to be done with timing, and not left too long! But I’ll try not to strive either !!
I’m so sorry you’ve been ill Josie - I had been thinking of you ……
I love mindfulness too !! Just discovered ‘non-striving’ where you do things with 50% less effort and see how it feels. It really works for the things I dislike doing - packing and washing up for starters. It makes them gentler and easier. I could come to love them !
I so relate to the hunger for inspiration. I get that feeling for a wise loving friend too - they have come and gone all my life - just need to trust that another will appear and like you forget the way it works.
Thank you for reminding me of the harvest Here there are blackberries, sloes and damsons. Going to try to steep them in some left over gin with a little sugar. These things have to be done with timing, and not left too long! But I’ll try not to strive either !!
Hi Josie. What a rich read. Llke you, walking doesn't do it for me.
Today i felt empowered slowing down thanks to your inspiration and i feel a lot better for slugging it out. Thank You. Love and blessings to you and yours.💚
I love the way that you are telling us how you are feeling your way through every day, finding new ways to open yourself to the 'flow' of inspiration. Your writing is beautiful, and I love that you keep it free, just encouraging a donation. It's a model I'm trying to follow too. I hope things are ok for you.