Notes From My Journal
Walking With Steve
Once a week, Steve Leveen, a friend and neighbor, and I would take an early morning walk. He’s a better walker than I am. And his dog is a better walker than Steve is. So, the pace we kept was halfway between Steve’s pace and his dog’s pace – which is to say, it was too fast for me.
When this ritual began, I forced myself to keep up with them for the 90 minutes we spent walking. I believed that what I was doing was good for me – i.e., loosening the hips and strengthening the walking muscles. But it had the opposite effect. It broke me down so that I could barely walk at all. It took me five weeks to recover.
Since then, I’ve realized that I’m better off accepting who I am as a walker – capable of walking for half the time at about 75% of the pace. Steve understood, so now we are walking together again, which means talking together again, which is the immediate pleasure of the experience.
This morning, we talked about foreign language acquisition, a subject about which I have a keen interest and Steve is fast becoming an expert.