On the Road Again

We have officially turned the corner on another year (and decade!). Like many of you, I have made a few resolutions as I skidded into 2020. Normally, I pick a theme for the year, and this year is no different. My theme for 2020 is “Why not?” If an audacious idea comes to me or someone invites me on an adventure that, heretofore would have either paralyzed with terror or put me to sleep with pragmatic reasons why I shouldn’t do it, I’m going to cavalierly say, “Why not?” and go full steam ahead. This reminds me of a friend of mine who has a bumper sticker on her car that states: Buckle up! I wanna try something. As for actual resolutions, I made a couple. The first is to live in gratitude more than any other energy. So, if (hah! I mean, when) I catch myself thinking negative thoughts or being critical or judgmental about myself, or others, or the state of the world, I will replace that thought or feeling with three things for which I’m grateful. This involves, of course, noticing what I’m noticing; being mindful of where my mind is so that I can do a course correction as soon as possible. The other thing, well it’s not really a resolution so much as a “why not?” moment. I signed up for a thing called Run the Year 2020. The idea is to run or walk a set goal of miles by the end of the year, going from 100 to 500 to 1500 to 2020. You guessed it: I signed up for the goal of 2020 miles in 365 days (because, why not?) Also, there’s great bling!

Which I got in the mail today and I am nothing, if not a sucker for bling! The saving grace is that you can choose to run or walk the 2020 miles and I am definitely going to walk. To do this requires roughly 11000 steps a day, or 5.5 miles. This is not just a why not moment, however. I also need to begin training in earnest for a pilgrimage I’ll be doing in Japan this April. The Kumano Kodo is an ancient pilgrimage going back over 1,000 years when the Imperial family and nobility began to seek salvation in rangakus shinko (a belief in the supernatural power of mountains), rather than through common religious practices. Emperor Gotoba (1180-1239) made no fewer than thirty pilgrimages to Kumano, recording his thoughts and feelings in the Kumano poems. It’s relatively short, compared to the Camino de Santiago I did in 2016; it’s only 69 kilometers, but the first day in particular is a steep climb, and challenging. Doing this 2020 challenge will motivate me to train for it and to strengthen my body for it, as well. So, I decided I would do a 5k route in the Garden of the Gods, the garden being beautiful red rocks that jut out of the earth of almost alien formations. It is beautiful and hilly so it would be a great training route for me. I picked 10 a.m. as my start time on January 1, 202. Of course, my best intentions were slightly derailed; I didn't get to Garden of the Gods until noon. It was a chilly 40 degrees (f) by then, and the wind had really picked up, but I soldiered on! I brought my Osprey back pack, that I had taken on my previous Camino, and new retractable trekking poles, intending to suit up and complete this hike with the equipment I would be using in Japan, but evidently I had cinched my backpack straps to newborn baby size in the past and I decided not to struggle with that in the parking lot of the Trading Post which was very crowded. So then, I attempted to put my poles together. This should seem like a simple task, but I failed to figure it out after I bought them and had to go back to REI to get instructions; evidently I still don't have it down because I couldn’t figure it out, so I just threw those things in the car and commenced walking. I had forgotten how bleeping uphill the first part of my 5k is! And the wind was capriciously first helping, then hurting, my efforts. I was breathing heavy, through my mouth, which I attempted to shut at least when cars passed me going the other way so that I wouldn't appear quite as desperate. All in all, though, I got the job done. And with other miles walked yesterday, I came in with a 6.71 total! Today, I once again delayed my walk due to other things getting in the way and walked around the neighborhood. Currently my tracking app has me at 3.54 miles today, giving me a grand total of 10.26! And I'm sure I'll had a few more steps before bedtime. The great thing about walking, rather than running, is that all my steps count! Hopefully the "off-duty" steps will add up to help! I’ll be honest, I’m a little achy; it’s been awhile since I’ve been this active. But already I can feel the quickening of my heart as I head out my front door into the “wilds” of Colorado Springs. Already I remember the beauty of pilgrimages where you see things you miss zipping by on the highway of busyness at 75 mph. Yesterday in the Garden, I stopped several times to gaze in awe at the grandeur of nature surrounding me on all sides.

 
 Today, even in a walk around the neighborhood, I was overcome by the beauty of Pikes Peak just before sunset, and the way the clouds and sun teamed up in an interpretive dance of life. I was reminded once again that each of us is on a pilgrimage that starts at our front door. A pilgrimage isn’t measured in miles, or in going to some far-off place; a pilgrimage begins when we pay attention to our lives, take in each breath with gratitude and look in wonder at this precious world in which we live. Why not?