Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 29oC, hot, sunny and slightly cloudy.
Saturday morning, I was feeling tired and lazy, but I had to get up. I was up at 5 am and out in the street by 5.30. It is still dark, and the same people I usually see most mornings are out, either walking their dogs or doing some exercise; most of these people are not young but much older, in their fifties and sixties.
Yasmin does not like to walk; she walks if she has to, if she is forced to, and when there is no way out. I love walking; besides being low impact and healthy, you are exercising; it is also cheap therapy; you do not need to pay for a therapist because walking is therapy. Every time I go out for a walk, I return feeling better.
If I leave home in a state of no hope, I will come back with hope and a solution to whatever was disturbing or worrying me. Also, if we are reasonably intelligent, and I believe we are, when we are out walking, we notice many things around us that maybe we would not have seen if we were in a car driving, running or just rushing.
Such as the trees and how they sway and change with the wind, the buildings that suddenly we see at a certain angle that we had not noticed before, and how it would make a great photo. People and how sometimes they react and behave in certain situations, and these situations, scenes, and images whilst walking make us appreciate much more what we have now than what we do not have or would want to have.
When I was a young boy in England, my family and I lived in a middle-class semi-detached house in a small street where only people who lived there would enter the street.
My friends and I would play in the street and the surrounding fields, hills, and canals behind our back gardens. If we were not in the street, we would be playing football or climbing trees in the fields.
Many times, I had fallen from a tree when climbing and going home with ripped clothes, cuts, and bruises.
My point about walking is another; even though I was highly active, only going home to eat and sleep, what really impacted me in my childhood and my love for walking was walking to my grandparents’ house every Sunday. We lived in a middle-class home in a middle-class street and neighbourhood. However, my dear and special grandparents lived in a council house on a council estate in a lower-class/working-class village 4 to 5 kilometres from where we lived.
I absolutely loved visiting my grandparents twice a week. Once during the week and the other on a Sunday to have lunch and after watching Formula One with them, which would usually begin at 2 pm. At that time, Ayrton Senna was driving for McLaren; he was already a world champion and was considered the best.
I would go every Sunday without fail; sun, rain, sleet, snow, nuclear war, I would never miss a Sunday with my grandparents. This was from when I was 8 or 9 years old onwards. I would ask my mother for money for bus fare to go and come back on the bus.
I think my mother became a little jealous of me visiting my grandparents every Sunday. Sometimes, when I asked my mother for the bus fare, she would deny it to me, alleging that either she did not have the money or that specific Sunday, I would have to stay at home.
Consequently, I told my mother that I would go anyway by foot and went. If I went by road, it would take longer; however, I would take a shortcut going along the canal that connects the two towns, as is the case with all of England.
I would set off early, diverting from the street to the canals and quickly arriving at my grandparents’ house within an hour. I did this for years and years; it became a kind of autopilot for me every Sunday.
The time walking would pass by like the wink of an eye, not noticing the time or the distance; it was heaven for me. I have come to understand now that my childhood of walking to my grandparents’ every weekend had conditioned me into walking and my love for it. Now that I am getting old, I recognise and appreciate its importance even more today.
Nowadays, living in Rio, with its pleasant weather, beautiful scenery, and views, walking fifty or sixty kilometres at a weekend is common. It is the cheapest therapy that I know of.
Yasmin and I did not go out as it was a little rainy. She was revising for a week of exams, and I was feeling a little slow and lazy. I exercised early in the morning and spent the rest of the day at home, doing nothing special; it happens sometimes, and sometimes, it is good to do nothing.
In bed by 10.00 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading my blog. Check out my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
