Steppin' off

Today I got all my outdoor gear on and went outside for my daily walk. the walking conditions were terrible. I have become somewhat an authority on walking. I started in 1994 and other than 2 years that all I did was crawl, everyday I have walked.  I imagine in Florida and Texas and places that maintain a sane climate, walking is not a big deal. In Minnesota where the weather conditions change hourly....it is. I have walked in humidity of 90%, temps in excess of 100. I have walked when the wind-chill is 50 below and the temp a balmy 20 below. I have frozen my eyelashes together and have felt sweat running down my back. For me walking outdoors is as essential as everything else I do on a daily basis.

Then there is this: Back in the late 80's when I would go to town, I noticed a woman that would walk along the side of the road. For many months I drove by and only noticed her in passing. She was small. Bent over somewhat. Wearing several layers of clothing dependent upon the weather conditions. She did not walk on the paved bike trail. She walked along the side of the road on the shoulder. She became part of the scenery, I started to actually look for her. I began to worry when she wasn't there because it didn't matter what time I was on the road....she was too. In a 20 mile stretch, she would be somewhere. This woman walked in snow, she walked in sleet, she walked in bone freezing cold. She walked in summers hottest heat, thunderstorms that raged, she walked early in the morning,she walked late into dusk. I finally asked a friend what she knew about her. I worked at the local State Hospital, she wasn't one of ours. My friend said, she was a local resident. She lost a child. Her only child. When the pain of that became who she was, she lost her husband. He was a local minister and the journey they started as a couple, separated on the trail of grief.

This is what I know: We live in a world of "Social Media". It means that in a public format, our lives are on display. There is facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging. It is a voice for who we want others to think we are, that doesn't need words. It is a format for what we like, too often for what we hate. Unabashed voyeurism and sometimes a platform to pretend.
I am on Facebook. The potential of it is huge. There is an opportunity to share not only the best of your life, but the worst of your fears, yet we don't. There is a popular post that has hit my news feed many, many times over the past few months. It implores people to show understanding, that "everyone is going through something", yet no one wants to comment on what that something is. Do we really need recognition for the good times in life or are the good times enough in themselves. I would think what is most needed is a dialogue about what we can't hold. What we can't carry. What drove us to look at facebook in the first place. It isn't that you wish bad on others, you just want to know that in "bad"....you aren't alone.
I started my blog with the feeling that I had words that I needed to put down. I kept journals for 3 years, three years of a soul bleeding red. Words that defined who I was. I started writing in a public format and then it became all I could feel. I lost sight of the words I needed to say and started to write for what I thought people needed to hear. I no longer was that woman....that woman that walked by the side of the road, not because she was trying to make any kind of a public statement but because she was trying to take some kind of a personal stand.
I know that the strategy of a blog is to get readers. I have read the marketing tips. I see what I need to do. I posted all my new blog-posts on facebook and then I became a slave to the opinions of others. I am stepping off.
There is a paragraph from "You've got mail" it goes like this "Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life-well, valuable but small- and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void."
I haven't seen the woman walking in over 10 years. For 25 years she made a statement that spoke so loud. If who you are and what you did made someone remember it for 30 years, then maybe just maybe it was a message worth sending. I challenge people to put in 140 characters on Twitter the same message that took 25 years of walking to send. Our lives may be small but to everyone we know and love, they are larger than life. Larger than words. Make your message count.

Till next time.