Just a Walk to the Park

The blog becomes more challenging to write these days. So many personal shifts and changes taking place as I acclimate to city living. Each feels monumental to me personally in the moment but rarely are the actual events of my daily life interesting enough to put into words.

I pause briefly from time to time to wonder at the flow of my interests over these last ten+ years which have run the gamut from fire walking, reiki, and hypnotherapy to singing kirtan to painting to writing poetry, then prose, then the travel blog and sharing photos, and now to ????.  As I reflect on it all, the one consistent thread for me besides my continual personal evolution has been my love of walking.

My life in San Francisco right now is all about walking. When one walks everywhere, there isn't time for much of anything else. I walk to the grocery. I walk to Walgreens. I walk to the bank. I walk to the library to take out books and to participate in Tai Chi which is free on Wednesday afternoons. (By the way, Betty, you have my utmost admiration right about now for being good enough at Tai Chi to be an instructor.) I walk to Old Navy. I walk to the Walking Company in my never ending search for the most comfortable walking shoes. I walk to the wonderful reflexologist and Chinese Medicine Massage Man in Chinatown. I stop at different coffee shops and restaurants while I walk because it's a pleasant break. I walk home from the theater because it's easier and probably safer than wandering the streets after dark in search of the correct bus stop. I walk home from dinner because it's faster than the 29 minute wait for the bus. My body is getting stronger and stronger and I feel amazingly healthy and alive.

I don't miss my car and have no desire to drive anywhere right now. I pause from time to time to wonder at myself  because after all I am  the 'Queen of the Road Trip' and have been known to drive without a destination just for the sake of driving. Now I am compelled to walk just for the sake of walking! So it feels entirely appropriate to join the meetup group called Walking San Francisco for Health and History.

I'm the one in the orange sweater. The group numbers 4,900 but this is probably the usual number of participants for each outing.







Yesterday, we walked seven miles across the peninsula - from the Embarcadero to Land's End Park. The 'history' amounted to walking past Danielle Steele's house and Robin Williams' ex-wife's house.




The architecture of San Francisco lifts me up as much as the natural beauty of the Mendocino Headlands.

Following the group walk yesterday I indulged in a thoroughly nostalgic meal of Gegrillte Nürnberger Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut und Kartoffelbrei at Suppenkuche in Hayes Valley with Vicky and Jim, two other crazy folk who just enjoy walking the streets of San Francisco.