Nothing Quite Like an Evening Stroll

Craving more miles, junk food for another entry in Mile Markers

Junk food is my favorite food group. Chocolate in particular, but a jumbo bag of Swedish Fish on the long drive to a show isn’t a challenge. Brownies. Blueberry Pop-Tarts. Been this way since my youth, and my high school buddies are aware. One time at The Orange Lantern, a Grateful sports bar in North Jersey, they ordered a second lava cake to test my mettle after I’d demolished the first in five bites. Some science and social experiment. How sweet of them.

Fresh air isn’t the life-or-death situation that just having air to breathe is, but my latest craving is seemingly more vital to what I need today than water. Barring the weather, I’m on my morning run by 6:30 the latest, and as I’ve evolved throughout the handful of years of serious cardio, my body requires movement. Often. And make no mistake, this is an excellent problem to have: With a lot on my mind, extra miles on the soles are as consequential as whipped cream on a sundae.

Even I had a hard time believing that mall walking would become a part of my repertoire, but the conditions this winter forced my hand—I mean, feet. Following a couple of weeks of roaming the halls of Willowbrook Mall, I began embracing the new wrinkle. Proved I could adjust the routine without it unraveling. That adherence to a process can empower your acceptance to changing a piece of said process for the advancement of the whole.

I wasn’t thinking about another update to my walk-run regimen. Revision is best when it happens naturally, anyway, and my rule about editing blogs and reports at work is to leave the voice alone but, if necessary, clarify the message. Adding an evening portion hadn’t dawned on me until the back half of spring. Warmer temperatures were here. Daylight was brighter, later. Like that feeling of not having a choice but to put words on the page, my body screamed for more exercise.

So, instead of going right inside my house after work, I’ll walk to one of the lakes in my community and back. Or I go inside and catch up on my phone beforehand. Or I eat dinner and, yes, dessert and then go to the water. Nothing starts or stops on the welcome mat. The jaunts aren’t timed as my runs at sunrise are, but they help achieve the same effect: Setting up the ensuing hours, the physical informing the mental and motivating it, too. Could I have managed that project better? Should I attack email tonight? What’s my next story to write? The only structure is no structure. A free jazz soup in my brain of ideas and thoughts that I nudge around with the underside of a spoon. And the fresh air, that blissful craving, acts as an agent of change.

Recently, I had dinner at this spot for live music called the Homestead Bar & Kitchen. With time to burn before the Dead cover band Shakedown Citi performed, I settled my bill—double patty, fries, lemonade, no alcohol—and set off to explore fun Morristown. Up and down the main drag, where restaurants were starting to buzz even though it was Wednesday. Into a neighboring area to see the nice homes close to town. Orbited the Green several times, and with a view of a church spire, I parked myself on a bench to further clear my mind of cumbersome items.

A woman was having her car towed. Hustle and bustle by the food truck, near the fountain toward the busiest side of the historical location. Friends walking, friends talking on a stunning day to be alive. I considered finding a convenience store as, sadly, the Homestead doesn’t serve dessert, so the Jerry solos would have to be tasty…and they were. But this stroll, it augmented the definition of the phrase “Low impact, big impact.” Which has that yin and yang flavor I seek to learn from the artists and creatives who, I believe, hold many answers.

In music or in words. Or with a black and white cookie, and isn’t that it right there? Junk food out the wazoo, yet I run five miles a day. Guess I’m a walking anomaly, especially during the evening.