My family knows when I say, “I gotta take a walk” it means I am about to explode and I need a break. It takes me a little more than five minutes to walk around my block, but the benefits I get in that short time save me from a big wig-out, or from entering a seething personal funk that permeates the household.

Today I tried to notice what goes on in my mind and body as I take those clarifying steps. From my house south I usually have a bit of a cry, just to let off some steam. It’s fine as long as I don’t run into a neighbor, which happens more frequently as we all emerge into the spring sunlight. If I do I just wave and zip past—I have to turn the corner and get to the next step. Which is a sort of frantic, Dansko [1]-powered speed walk, raising my heart rate and surely getting rid of some of those toxic thoughts.

I‘m soon turning the next corner, and by the time I realize I am walking past my favorite house, the one right behind my own house, with the rain chains, the solar panels, the pretty plantings and huge yard, I am able to slow down. My thoughts turn creative, I go to my Happy Place; whatever I’m miffed or worried about becomes balanced with the bigger picture. The rain or the sun, the trees and the flowers, my breathing and my footsteps, the way that pinchy thing in my back starts to tingle as my shoulders release, it all helps to make the worrisome thing take up much less space.

And by the time I turn through the dismal parking lot of the crunchier-than-thou health food store, my head is clear, I’m working on the problem and formulating a plan. Back on my own street and headed home, things haven’t changed much, the plan might not work, but I’m out of that stuck spot, happy to feel the freshly oxygenated, refreshed me ready to take another try at being a mom, or a writer, or the family bookeeper. I walk in the door much more at peace, and get back to business.

Belinda Miller [1]

Portland, Oregon