Pushing my seven-month-old daughter L. in a bright yellow running stroller, I walk along the slushy shoulder of the road in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. There is no sidewalk, but the rare passing car gives us ample space. It’s not quite 10 a.m., the end of November, 2019. We are there for her father’s job. The time between when he leaves at 9:32 a.m. and returns home at 6:17 p.m. stretches like a prairie. I don’t totally know it yet, but our marriage is in its final act. Delirious with grief, heartbreak, and the par-for-the-course sleep deprivation, I feel as though I am perpetually underwater. I hate the musty house where we are staying. I hate the suffocating boredom of a small town with a baby, where I don’t know anyone. November sucks at the best of times, and this certainly isn’t that.
L.’s daily routines hold me as my world shifts on its axis. I can’t simply crawl under a duvet and wail. So, I walk. “Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors... disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it,” Rebecca Solnit writes in Wanderlust: A History of Walking.
Every day, no matter what the weather (sleet, sun, hail, rain): we walk. When there’s significant precipitation, I put L. in the baby carrier and zip her inside my thick black coat, a floral umbrella covering our heads. We go down to the water, and I watch the waves smash against the rocks. We stroll past pristinely painted houses that look as though bread is baking in the oven, and someone is reading The New Yorker. L. eventually falls asleep and that’s when the tears come. One foot and then the other: I trudge towards a future I never imagined. Looking down at her baby-elephant eyelashes, my steps keep me focused and forward-moving. When L. wakes up, nothing is better, but it’s different.
It is common knowledge that exercise reduces anxiety, but there is something distinct about walking that offers a soothing and rhythmic reprieve. What a privilege it is to be able to do so. These walks are also coupled with being outdoors: fresh air, trees, a bluejay sighting. Physical activity produces neuropeptide Y, which soothes the amygdala, the part of the brain that activates in danger.
With stratospheric stress levels, it’s no wonder that walking became my surest life raft that winter, and remains so now, three years later. “When you are walking, you are in optic flow (visual motion that you experience as you move through the world) and your eyes are looking side to side,” explains therapist Alison Seponara. “This lateral eye movement has been shown to deactivate the amygdala… Lateral eye movements activate… a network involved in sustained attention, complex problem-solving and working memory, that competes with the amygdala for resources, thus reducing anxiety.” These days, when I’m feeling stuck I will go for a walk, even if just around my block. One foot and then the other: I don’t necessarily arrive back home with answers, but my head is clearer. Solnit writes, “Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.”
I walked my way through early parenthood. I walked myself to the edge of what I thought I could bear, and then kept on walking. I walk when I am unsure, lonely, lazy, checked out, angry, tired, overwhelmed, and when the heaviness in our world feels impossible to maneuver. My daughter sleeps at her father’s (her “other house”) on Saturday nights and I almost always spend Sunday morning walking. The Sufi poet Rumi writes, “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” And, it does. Maybe the “way” is the walking. One foot in front of the other.
August’s five things
Listening: I had the privilege of seeing the legendary Emmylou Harris, sat beside my dear Dad at Massey Hall last week. She played Darlin’ Kate, a friendship love song for her close pal, the late singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle, who died of cancer in 2010. Navigating a quiet sob while wearing both glasses and a mask is a real feat.
Eating: this ridiculously delicious Mexican Street Corn Salad.
Learning: One summer hope was to get better at plant identification. Seek (made by National Geographic) is a free nature identification app that uses image recognition technology, and feels like magic.
Celebrating: A bill was just passed in the US called The Inflation Reduction Act, which doesn’t really get at that it’s largely a climate bill, and a significant one at that. $369 billion USD have been earmarked for investment in green energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This episode of CBC’s Front Burner outlines the bill, and includes what it might mean for us in Canada. This episode of How to Save A Planet gets into the nitty gritty, too.
Reading:
Thank you for reading. If you are so moved, I’d be delighted if you’d share a screenshot of five things on social media (and of course please tag me at @sasharsw); forward it to your hairdresser, sibling, or crush; or email it to a friend. ❤️
Thank you dear Sasha for sharing your journey to a new land. Courage and patience takes us beyond the frontier of our comforts. Love. Pat
I read a lot. And this is one of my favourite reading experiences in these days, and it is NOT simply because you are my daughter. There's an articulate heart and a palpable wish to find new ways of being pulsing through the text which draws me back. much gratitude, anthony