Walking without a Playlist

A few thoughts on walking, meditation, and creativity

Photo by Jan Vlugt, Lisse, Netherlands

Friday evening after a long, intense workday, I opened the sliding door to perfect walking weather: 75 degrees with low humidity. With about an hour of full daylight left, I put on my walking shoes and Bluetooth headband, grabbed a small crossbody bag, and rushed out the door. The best trail is along the greenway, so I drove a mile to get there.

After parking alongside a field, I reached into the front pocket of my bag and found empty space where my phone should have been. Ack!

An anxious inner monologue started up. What if I had an emergency on the trail (cue split frame of me running from crazed mugger and my phone lying uselessly on my desk at home) or someone else did (cue injured runner lying prostrate next to begonia planter)? I quickly calculated the vast odds against these things happening on a busy trail in daylight, but I still felt nervous. Why?

Actually, the main reasons for my anxiety had nothing to do with physical safety. The first was a digital addict’s fear of withdrawal: how could I take a walk without my carefully curated playlists and instant access to text messages? The second was an introverted person’s need for a desensitizing buffer between herself and the world: music in my ears is my bubble of choice.

To forego a walk for either of these reasons seemed ridiculous, especially when I so desperately needed one. So I would walk without my “Chill Mix,” but I probably wouldn’t like it. At best, I would be bored.

But reader, I did like it. I slowed down and tuned in. Instead of rhythmic beats pumped into my ears, I heard a surround-sound chorus of birds and crickets, the same sounds that other walkers were hearing. From behind my shades I saw countless small, never-to-be-repeated scenes. Since I couldn’t whip out my camera to capture and then promptly forget them, I just watched them flow by and told myself stories about them.

---

That pacifier sitting on the edge of a concrete planter: did a stranger find it in the grass and thoughtfully set it there for the parents to find later? Or did the child discard it in a pivotal moment, ready to face the world without it? “Do not try to pacify me, Mommy. I see what’s going on here, and I’m going to face it without false comforts.”¹

That family out for a walk together, all with the same glowing ebony skin, the teen in dreadlocks walking barefoot and clapping his boots together to dislodge mud: had they been playing in the river? Fishing? Seen from the back, the woman was a weary, plump mom in ragged jean shorts. But when she turned her head, I felt stunned by her beauty.

That young woman in short shorts with a tattoo like water cascading down the back of her thin, girlish thigh: it must have hurt to get it. Why did she do it? What did it mean to her, and what did she want it to signify to a person behind her? But no, it wasn’t for anyone else. She held her boyfriend’s hand, insouciant, as if they were the only people in the world.

---

Maybe storytelling, too, is a buffer between me and the world. But it’s also a way of engaging with it and paying tribute to its beauty.

After my walk without a digital pacifier, a memory floated up. Decades ago, a friend talked me into attending a one-day meditation class with her. It took place in a large room on a college campus. I don’t remember much about our time in that room except that I mistrusted the main instructor: she laid it on too thick with the enlightened tone while passive-aggressively pushing the concept of dana (“generosity”) to solicit contributions to the donation box. I got the impression that they couldn’t charge a straightforward course fee for some reason, so instead they harangued us to donate, implying we’d be terrible people not to. It was capitalism through guilt. Personally, I’d rather have some bouncer with a Jersey accent stick out his hand and say, “Ya want in to da Buddhist thing, lady? Fork over $30.” But anyway…

What I do remember fondly is the walking meditation. It was a beautiful fall day, and after hours of cross-legged cramping on hard mats, the teachers let us unfold our legs and go outside with the understanding that we were STILL MEDITATING. We were to walk mindfully around the campus for an hour, to Be Here Now in motion. What a trip. I wondered if the normal people bustling from class to class would see us wandering around, marveling at the branches of trees, and think we were tripping on LSD a la Ram Dass. But that was exactly the sort of self-conscious inner monologue that we were to let go of.

That hour of walking slowly around the quad with a quiet, open mind was a surprisingly exhilarating experience, well worth the dana. The joy was all in the framing. I’d taken countless walks in my life, but there was always a “why” to them: to get from place to place, to burn calories, to improve my health, to calm down. Even so, walking had become meditative and transforming in many unplanned moments. It was a revelation to realize that mindfulness could be the point, anytime and anywhere. What a luxury in our hectic, utilitarian society.

Creativity for its own sake is a luxury, too, and uses a different part of our brains than pragmatic problem solving. Maybe that’s why a walk can magically untangle knots in a piece of writing that I’m working on: soothed by the motion, the rational mind finally can let go of the tangled reins and let the horse gallop.

Julia Cameron, author of the classic The Artist’s Way, wrote in her blog:

When I wrote The Artist’s Way, I got all the way to week twelve and said, P.S. Walk. I have been teaching now for twenty years since the publication of the book, and I now realize that there are three basic tools, not two, and they are Morning Pages, Artist Dates and Walks.

I find that if you walk, you start to integrate what has occurred to you from the other tools. You might walk out with a problem, but as you walk, you come into a solution. You just get a different perspective. You go out for a walk, maybe see a cat in a window box, and suddenly hear yourself saying “Oh, I could try X.” Walking is very powerful.

Yes, it is. Fiddling with playlists and texts, I’d almost forgotten.

P.S. Here is a cat in a window seat, in case it helps.

1. Cue Doctor Who Season 14, “Space Babies”