Living in this house has unraveled the rush. You just can’t get in a hurry, or do anything quickly here. The dogs have a water bowl on a step in the backyard that I refill with fresh water everyday. Turning on the outdoor spigot it takes time for the water to reach the end of the garden hose to refill the bowl. Even the water moves slowly.

In my monthly offering, “Walking the Winter“, you’ll hear me emphasize, ‘follow the feet’, and as my daughter lovingly reminds me to ‘practice what I preach’, I found myself failing miserably at that this morning. My feet stopped, but Barb didn’t.

I took my truck, Steve, down to the neighborhood mechanic early this morning for them to discern what the light coming on within his dashboard means. If you’re new here, Steve is a 2008 Ford F150, Lariat which was purchased to use on Hope Tree Farm and he’s been with me through thick and thin, but now he’s starting to require extra care. Steve and I have a lot in common at this stage and share similar mileage.

I handed the mechanic Steve’s keys and he looked at me with a grin to ask, “Are you walking home?” I smiled and said, “Yes. At 8:30 am it’s still cool enough to walk.”

I followed my feet through the parking lot to the street and began my walk home. The men who work for the water department were pulling their trucks in to start their day and one of them looked at me and smiled. I recognized him as the man who steps into my backyard once a month to read the water meter, so I said, “Hello”.

Behind the water department, high up on a hill, is the neighborhood coffee house. While walking I’m envisioning a tall cup of their icy cold brew coffee and all of a sudden my feet stop. I looked around and could see the back of the coffee house within reach, but remembered sitting my cold brew bottle in the fridge last night before going to bed, so I had perfectly good cold brew waiting at home. My feet reluctantly began to shuffle forward.

Once I returned home I looked inside the fridge, just to make sure the cold brew bottle was there and it was, but there was an issue. At first glance, I thought the Hario cold brew bottle didn’t load properly because half of the grinds weren’t submerged in water, but no…it was user error. Mindlessly, I’d turned the bottle upside down a few times before placing it in the fridge which is not good. The cold brew resembled weak tea!

That was a sad sight, but I realized why my feet stopped below the coffee house! The day was way ahead of me in knowing there really wasn’t any decent cold brew waiting for me at home. These walks are very much a practice in the art of noticing.

I’ll hear footsteps in the distance and my feet will stop in anticipation of who it might be. The other day it was my new friend, Bill, and he asked, “What are you waiting on?”, and I said, “You”. We laughed and talked for a moment, but it gave me a chance to find out more about him.

So, instead of telling ourselves to ‘go for a walk’, we can step outside, take a deep breath and let our feet lead the way. The day has goodness in store for us if we loosen our grip and allow our bodies to follow the feet.