It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.St. Francis of Assis
For the past four years, my wife and I have traveled to the United States during the Christmas holidays to visit our families. We spend about a week in Nashville, North Carolina, and the same amount of time in Fresno, California. These gatherings are a time of reaffirmation, of reestablishing ties that acknowledge and nourish our roots.
During these visits, I try to walk an hour a day—the goal being to cover four miles. As anyone can guess, a writer’s life is sedentary—long stretches of time spent before a computer screen, hunched over notebooks, notepads, books, or stacks of papers that make up a draft in progress. Getting exercise, then, becomes imperative, especially if a writer wishes to live a long, healthy life. When I am in the States, walking is, by far, my favorite form of exercise. (In Panama, where sidewalks as they are known in the United States don’t exist, I exercise on my beloved elliptical trainer.)
Although I love walking through the well-tended US neighborhoods, I must confess that to overcome the boredom I associate with trying to be fit, I always take headphones and music along. Their company helps me look forward to the brisk walks.
But, in addition to the health benefits, I’ve also discovered that a short walk, in silence, can be a writer’s best friend. Whenever I am stuck, when my thoughts become logged-jammed to the point that words cease to flow harmoniously, or when a poorly-written sentence becomes unyielding, as if etched in granite, and I can’t find the right combination to free the flow, a short walk—even if it’s only to the refrigerator to pour myself a glass of water—allows me, as if by magic, to solve the quagmire.
Because of these almost miraculous properties of a stroll, I always encourage students in my writing class to “Take the Walk”—particularly when they are having trouble coming up with the concluding statement to an essay they have spent considerable time crafting.
Yet only a few days ago, I realized that I was guilty of not practicing what I preach. Over the past few months, I've been experiencing bouts of what is commonly known as “writer’s block.” I do not, however, find this a terrifying condition. I consider this phenomenon to be little more than the inability of unearth new ideas, a condition stemming primarily from a lack of quiet and solitary reflection.
The mental block had, nevertheless, reached a critical point, and I began to believe that my well of creativity was running dry—at least when it came to writing brief essays, such as this one. To try to summon the muses, over the holidays I sat in silence in my in-law’s living-room, devoted to becoming a vessel for new ideas. Still, after nearly an hour dedicated to this task, I had failed to conceive of a single idea. Frustrated, and at the verge of surrendering, it occurred to me, as a last, desperate measure, to “Take the Walk.”
I had already taken my daily stroll that morning, but it had been for exercise, not for the purpose of replenishing my dwindling supply of ideas. On that afternoon, I grabbed my coat, gloves, and hat, informed my father-in-law that I’d be stepping out for a while, picked up a notebook, rolled it up, and stuffed it in my pocket. I did, though, make the painful decision to leave my music behind, needing to be absolutely alone with my thoughts.
Shortly after leaving the house, as the wind that swept through the tree-lined streets bit my face, I almost turned back, nostalgic for the warmth of the fireplace. But I decided to brave the unusually cold North Carolina winter until I had at least tried to conjure up a few topics.
I admit that at the onset my choice to take a walk on that icy afternoon seemed foolish, but after that first mile subjects to write about started descending upon me in swift flurries, and I hurriedly jotted them down in the notebook as I continued walking.
By the time I returned to the comfort of my in-laws’ home, I had a healthy list of future writings. After several months distressed over the thought of being unable to continue producing these essays, I learned that all I needed to do, all along, was to take the walk.
