I Went for a Walk the Other Day
Expectations, process, and journey vs. destination
I went for a walk the other day. Truth is, I go for a walk every day, or walk before it morphs into a long run, but the other day I had to play meteorologist and time it just right because of rain. I saw a window in the afternoon, the outside was calling—Kayanos double knotted, stopwatch started. Still damp but not slippery, I found my groove over the first quarter mile as pellets of water blown off trees gave me a cleansing boost.
You never know what might pop into your head while walking—in that way, it can be a very freeing exercise. Running requires more focus and, for many but not me, hypervigilance, so not as much thinking. The other day, it was an exchange I’d heard on The Dimestore Jukebox that propelled my legs and my mind. Deftly hosted by friend and colleague Keith Haas, the podcast shines a casual, introspective light on singer-songwriters, poets, and punks. On the episode featuring indie pop-rock artist Emily Gabriele, she was asked a question about expectations. The essence of her reply: Enjoy the process, that’s how good stuff is created.
My expectation when pounding the pavement is to push myself as much as possible, though some jaunts wind up mediocre at best. The process: Make loops around the lakes and use sideroads to increase the mileage count. Left turns here, right turns there, simplicity rules. It’s just me and the asphalt, but I look at houses, landscaping, woods, and water as well as dogs and, oftentimes, deer. A black bear crosses my path at least once a year. Colors help provide texture and variation to my thoughts, and the morning dew and ensuing rain the other day had elevated all shades of green to another level.
Expectations and processes are different elsewhere. There’s more complexity, say, at home or at work, everyone understands that, but a large part of the expectation and the process in these environments is to navigate through the muck. To meet and greet the uncomfortable head-on—aha! an obstacle to overcome, though it can be difficult to do so. If you feel excitement in said challenge, that’s an ideal state. The other day, however, the mid-spring humidity in North Jersey was not “ideal state.” It made me crave additional precipitation off the leaves from above, as I hugged the corner of a curb and attacked yet another stretch of blacktop.
Considering all my walking and running, along with those deadlines—picking up kids from school or sports, financial aid forms, run a report and present it to the company—we all face, the journey vs. destination conversation is fair game. The more you get right on your way to the station, the easier it becomes to see through the tunnel. A major caveat in favor of outcome-based situations: I’ve driven in excess of four hours in each direction in one day for Lotus shows, and many of them were for shorter festival sets. But the process is usually of the utmost importance, the learning is deeper…I sometimes lose sight of that.
Let’s revisit that episode of The Dimestore Jukebox for a moment. What Emily and Keith identified as the piece that holds music together is the same thing I seek when managing expectations and processes and journeys and destinations: Balance. Like in a song, even in a single line of a verse, or throughout an album. Philippe Petit on a high wire. With an F1 car to maximize performance. Like starting and ending a walk at your house, which is where I returned after an hour, sweaty and ready to rest my mind and my body. The word itself, while not palindromic, feels balanced, doesn’t it? Balance. Has great meaning. It’s part of my daily balanced diet, too.
And the other day, on my home turf, it reigned once again.