Why I walk
After learning about the Blue Zone project this week I decided to start walking to work again. So for the last couple of days I've made the trip down Maple Street, thoroughly enjoying the crisp air, the fall colors and sounds of the leaves dancing in the wind.
 A couple years ago I walked to work almost every day during the fall and even the winter. In the summer I rode my bike. Last year, for some reason, I started driving more.  I guess there were meetings to attend, places to be, and driving once or twice a week started to became easier each day.
But this mornings walk reminded me of what I had been missing. I don't do it for the exercise, my office is only a 1/3 of mile from my home and my pace is more amble than power-walk. So it's not really much of a calorie burner.
What it does is remind me of the days when life was lived outside. As a kid we would head out the door in the morning and not come home for hours. Somehow, without the benefit of video games, Ipods or smart phones, the hours still managed to slip away unnoticed in the unbridled freedom of youth. Playing games that seem old fashioned now, hide and seek, baseball at the elementary school or just riding bikes around town. Do kids still do those things or has childhood become so organized that play requires a registration form and entry fee?
Grass stained pants and the feel of the wind in your face when running full speed ahead to nowhere, that's what I remember.
The 10 or 15 minutes it takes me to make the walk down Maple street let me reconnect with that. The wind still bites my face, though my pace is slower and more deliberate. But the echos of those days remain and sometimes I hear them in the leaves that rustle in the breeze.