'Tis a beautiful Friday

For whatever reason I decided to walk to work today. I got an early start, bought a cup of coffee and a bagel from a local coffee shop and made my walk down by the beach and up an urban river trail to work, which is pretty much right off the trail.

It reminded me of something that gets left out more often than we should let it. The world moves pretty fast and this is mostly out of our own design, not so much that of the world. We cut up our days in to work, sustain (eat, sleet), recreat(ion). Recreation time is time that we use to re-create who we are, waking rest and recharging. This is usually the first thing to go when we get busy and overwhelmed. Commuting edges it's way in to this time as well. To that end we drive as fast as we can to cut down on the perceived time lost between the activities that we participate in. This becomes the norm and our lives are hurried merely as a matter of course. We hurry from one place to another, from one appointment to another, from one person to another, a hurried attempt to get it all in before we miss the next thing on the calendar.

I'm guilty of this too. I freely admit to being an over-scheduled volunteer-itis afflicted adult. Which makes what I did this morning all the more valuable.

I got to slow down. I got to slow down to the ambulatory pace of a human being. I was able to allow my body, mind, and all of my senses to experience life and the world around me as they were designed to, as opposed to how they were conditioned.

I thought about how much more I was able to see, much like riding my bike over, around, and the same streets that I drive on, how much more I noticed of my surroundings.

Long story short, it was a three and a half mile urban hike. Good coffee, ocean breeze, and I got in to work awake, calm, and somehow a little more prepared for the hell that Friday would be. I'm taking a break now to write this post, hoping somehow that the same peace of the morning will enter my afternoon.