I’m AKA sofasaurus because I revel in a sedentary lifestyle, so I relate. The one thing I still do which takes a lot longer is to hand water my outdoor container garden. It creates more movement (refilling my watering can), but I talk to each plant, feel the soil around them, pick the stray weeds and dead leaves, and generally access the health of my plants. Very rewarding too, when I see each day what I can harvest. Thanks for your always encouragement to make us better humans and better stewards of our tiny domains.
Melissa, do you think the affinity you find with your plants evokes more compassion in you for people? I've heard people say it does, but I don't have a similar gardening routine to compare it to.
this is a lovely reminder of giving up convenience and gaining so much more. I have had irrigation systems in the past because they are so "effective" but i know that tending my plants, hand watering being a perfect way to do this, feels real.
We are retiring after 30+ years in public education and moving from north central Idaho to Lummi Island in the San Juans next spring, ruthlessly downsizing, shedding off dishes and glassware and heirlooms and furniture and a family piano and excess clothing and cookware and many many books. I feel so torn because people like me are needed in Idaho to fight the extremists, the "patriots," the religious who feel compelled to force their tenets on their neighbors, those who want to destroy public education, those who are cheering the most restrictive abortion laws in the US, those who believe that the Nez Perce and others should just somehow get over the looming end of the salmon runs. But I'm tired and disabled. I am selfishly choosing to withdraw to a place with nature reserves and trails, herons and eagles, tides and a CSA, reef fishing for salmon, a community darts league. I know very well that we are privileged to be able to do so, I recognize the hideous suffering of others all over the world and here and yet, I am selfish, I am so weary, so very weary, and the end of my life is far more real than it used to be. I am also bitter, Chris, and resent rednecks and what gazillionaires are doing to our politics and our planet, and avoid Ted Talks like the plague. Thank you for building this community. It is a solace.
Believe me, if I could retreat to the San Juans I would not hesitate an instant. That is one of my favorite places on earth. Enjoy it for the both of us.
1. I got stuck in Bittersweet around page 100 I think -- I wasn't sure exactly what was making me feel..irritable? when i would pick it up, but I think what you've described sums it up nicely. I thought I'd love it but I just do not.
Heidi, the only podcast I listen to, despite my occasional efforts to listen to others on occasion, is Desert Oracle. I've found I'm just not a podcast person, I guess. That said, I've bookmarked your recommendation and I PROMISE I will listen to it.
I hear you. I'd love to become a bike person but the road I drive to and from Missoula is a death trap and I'm certain the law of averages would catch up to me. Though I'm thinking of getting a bike to store at my space in town for around-town travel. Other than that, my biggest gotcha when it comes to minimalism is books. I really need to cull (as three more arrive in the mail).
Yeah I'm getting a bike this fall but I'll be driving it to parks. Absurd. I daydream about selling and giving away my books and most of my things and moving someplace remote and beautiful.
Right! Yes, I drive to go for a walk in nature because without driving I can only get the tiniest bit. Sigh. And often I wonder if I'm doing more harm than good.
I have to drive to walk anywhere myself ... or risk dying on foot or bicycle on a narrow country road from gigantic pickups piloted by mouthbreathing rednecks driving while staring at their phones.
I really appreciate the Bowman passage and want to chew more on movement and disability. As a disabled person who mainly spends time with other disabled people, conveniences and extravagances can also be hard-won accommodations. I think a lot about the convenience tax-- my ability (or necessity, regardless of whether I actually have the money) to buy something that allows me or my people to do something that others can do with ease and have more energy to do so very much rests on the labor/energy of other folks, who might very well also be disabled.
I was thinking of disabled folks as I was transcribing that, people for whom "conveniences and extravagances" are necessities. It's similar to what I call the poor tax, where people who can afford to buy commodities like propane for reduced prices in the summer do so, and people who most need the break get dominated buying a bit at a time at inflated prices during the season when they need it most. The world is built for the able, affluent, and unconcerned, and I hope you understand those are the people I am targeting here. It's hard.
I've been thinking about movement, too. I feel great after doing an hour-and-a-half of yoga, but a) who has an hour-and-a-half to spend every day? and b) I always have this nagging voice in the back of my head as I look out into the world, where for so many people it's all they can do to just get survival done every day. Standing there in Warrior Pose seems a tad selfish and indulgent. Yes, I need to take care of myself. But Good Lord, time is such an unforgiving commodity!
So, I'm interested to read Movement Matters. Thanks for the tip!
Lori, thank you. I have two thoughts on this. First, I think the world we are working to make (or return to, perhaps) is one where 90 minutes of time for something like yoga isn't unusual. But I feel you on this; when I had a yoga practice (I haven't been back to a studio since about two weeks before COVID shut everything down) the time commitment was often unmanageable. My second thought is who is being selfish and indulgent: you practicing a discipline that will arguably make you more in tune and compassionate with the world (which should be the goal of a yoga practice, right?), or the person who devotes 50-70 hours a week in some big moneymaking bullshit job that sucks the life out of everything and ensures a boot on the neck for millions? I should stop now, because I feel a rant stirring and the comment thread is no place for that kind of thing from the author of the post, heh.
Also, I hope you like Movement Matters, should you take it on. I've not read enough to recommend it or not. I love the passages I shared, and I love the idea that so much convenience technology for many of us is just an excuse to be sedentary, and that SOMEONE ultimately pays the price for our shiftlessness. I also love the metaphor for personal movement as community movement too.
I’m surprised how saddened I am about Engen’s death. The town feels hollow right now. Even after hearing about his cancer diagnosis, he seemed too strong of a presence to die. I wasn’t his biggest fan either but he was an effective administrator which sounds like feint praise but isn’t. He helped shape this community- for good and ill - during unprecedented growth and change. And I think his most important legacy was wrestling control of our water system from a multinational corporation. It’s hard to overstate how important that is considering what we’re facing with climate change.
Thank you for saying so, Greg. I too am deeply saddened, and I had strong feelings about many of his choices these last couple years. I fear for what comes next.
So many things here! I love the idea of movement as a way of contributing to (or at least taking less from) the world. I always think of these conveniences in terms of time, but it's also true that they reduce movement. Given I've spent the past 3 weeks trying to unwind what I already knew needed to be unwound in my body but wasn't doing enough for it - namely poor movement patterns, too much sitting and chronic tension. Ironically I purchased a program called "Walking Well"earlier this summer which is Katy Bowman and Jill Miller. I only got to the 2nd lesson and then somehow didn't have time for it.
We won't talk about the other 3 programs I have started or half-heartedly done over the past 3 years knowing I needed to fix my posture and movement problems...or how I kept resisting the idea of standing and working because I can't focus well until I had no other choice. It's still true, I have trouble focusing and standing still is also not moving (just ask my Apple Watch which keeps telling me I haven't stood this hour when I've been standing the entire time). Now I am trying to figure out how to write and make art while still moving more! I resisted creating an herb garden properly because I didn't think I could do the manual labor needed to get it started (which is definitely true currently), yet once created it would be better for moving and I'd be growing something that benefits me and pollinators and perhaps that's something.
As for Bittersweet, I do get that. I started it put it down, finally started it again last week. What I did get out of it was how our toxic positivity has evolved (at least in my white-suburban-protestant culture) from Calvinism to Corporatism and how my agreement to keep forcing myself to "be good" (yes, I almost quoted her book in my last newsletter but I had to cut it out because it told me my post was too long for email) is also part of that whole colonialism/capitalism thing that is not good for the world. It's also not good for me because whenever we are lying to ourselves, our body will let us know.
My latest idea that I can't prove but I am pondering on is that it is difficult to open our hearts when we cannot hold boundaries and speak truth. The culture I have spent my life in has taught me not to hold boundaries and not to speak truth and I struggle mightily to be truly, deeply, compassionate. I care a lot. I listen a lot. And I have so much fear it makes me want to run away into the woods on a regular basis (which by the way I would not survive because my survival skills are like barely above zero).
So way more than you wanted but I so appreciate you tying the idea of movement to being able to do something small for the world. I really want to figure out how to do this thing, what I'm doing now, writing/typing/journaling/making art, while moving more. It must be possible because it sure seems necessary.
It's not prescriptive so much as slight encouragement with a bit of science and reasoning thrown in for walking regularly. I really enjoyed her book Windswept about women walking; she's a lovely writer.
(I also have poor movement patterns and sit too much, despite my walking proselytizing. And yet I feel so, so much better when I move a lot throughout the day. I discovered that a minimum of 5 miles a day is what my mind needs, but 10 is better for the mind-body, and it's not like I can get that all the time, much less anyone with less access to walking.)
Antonia - do you think it would be good in audiobook? I tend to listen more than I read (especially since I can't sit - and it would be ironic to sit to read a book about walking)?
I just listened to a sample and the reader has a lovely, engaging voice, so I’d say likely! Windswept is also available in audio (that’s under her other name Annabel Abbs).
Oh my gosh yes - this is the third time I've seen that book referenced recently so clearly I need to read it. And oh wow, I have thought too that 5 is the minimum but it's hard to get - and I can't think when I've gotten 10 but yes, it would be better for me. Now I need to figure out a way to make a living that doesn't involve being on a computer all day.
I appreciate Katy Bowman's work so much. It has changed the way I think about movement and opened my eyes to the way doing the less convenient thing -- which often requires me to move more -- is about more than just my individual efforts to live a less sedentary life.
Thank you, and I love that you are familiar with Bowman's work. It gets a little sciency for a rube like me sometimes but the main point she makes is one I deeply appreciate.
"There are billions of people who can tell us exactly what this life looks and tastes and feels like but no one is asking them." YES. I really don't know whether to rage or completely despair at reading DJD's comments. I don't want to go off at him, but is he serious? If he is, then it reflects a serious paucity of both imagination and of exposure to stories that are unlike his own (and why "op-ed arguments"? How many people have access to a widely-read op-ed space who aren't already people almost exactly like him?). (Also seconding "Moon of the Crusted Snow," which was one book that popped to mind while reading this. Also N.K. Jemisin's "Fifth Season" trilogy. Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents." Martha Wells's Murderbot series. A few of Barbara Kingsolver's books. Emily St. John Mandel's "Station Eleven," which, while I didn't really love it, does in fact tell us what this life might look and taste and feel like.)
I heard an interview with Susan Cain a few years ago on I think Tim Ferriss's podcast and that was it for me. Do people reach a certain level where they get invited to do a TED talk and then circulate through all the same podcast hosts and end up on the same retreats and completely lose perspective on what life is like for everybody else?
Point well taken about #landback. One of the things I appreciated about the issue of Briarpatch you told me about (last year's?) that focuses on it is understanding exactly how complicated it is/would be. No phrase or idea should come to be a stand-in for actual, physical, real-life justice and equity, no matter how messy they get; maybe that's something we always have to be on guard for.
I hadn't heard of "Movement Matters" but those quotes hit me right where it counts!
Most people don't want to hear this, maybe especially from me, maybe especially because it feels like so little, but trying to turn one's community into a connected, walkable, bikeable place is, I honestly believe, a forefront of everything Bowman and many others talk about. It's a battle all the time, a battle with one's friends and neighbors, a battle with what comfortable people think they can give up, and what they think they should be entitled to. It is *unbelievable* sometimes how little people are willing to cede to get a community that a 10-year-old can safely bike from one side to another, that a wheelchair user can navigate with no inconvenience or risk, that someone doing shift work can be employed in without worrying about their car breaking down. And yet the payoffs are enormous, including climate, air quality, rare earth metal extraction, water pollution, equity, accessibility, ...
I was reminded what I ultimately didn't like about Cain's QUIET book. It initially seemed like it was for people like me then clearly became something for the business section at the airport. I felt ambushed by myself when I finished it.
Believe it or not, I've never read that, either! I keep wanting to because introvert = me, but felt much less inclined after hearing that interview. And she came across as very nice! But I'm really tired of hearing from the TED/lifehacker/Burning Man (?) crowd. It just seems to undermine so much life advice if you can't even figure out how to begin addressing what your advice looks like from the perspective of a single mom who's got a neurodivergent kid or one with a chronic illness and who is haunted every damn month by whether or not she can buy enough groceries on top of everything else.
If I never see or hear another TED talk again it will be too soon. I mean, they aren't ALL bad but damn there is a certain ilk that is so off putting....
(Also I tend to lump it in ever since Sam Harris once told someone that they'd been invited to the TED stage because Chris or whoever who makes the decisions is a friend of Harris's and takes his advice. It's just another club!)
I think one of the last ones I saw was by a guy who'd grown up in a kind of cultish fundamentalist church and then went to work on Wall Street or somewhere and he got around to this stellar point that the TED crowd in front of him had some of the same psychology as both. Wish I could remember which one it was.
Yeah - it was written for people like me - or at least like the person I was when I first started down this path. Which is to say maybe it's an entry point for someone - but if it's an end point instead of an entry point it isn't enough.
Aug 16, 2022·edited Aug 16, 2022Liked by Chris La Tray
That last paragraph - I live in a place where there is almost no walkability! It's terrible and it's terrible for us. Not just for our bodies but it's terrible for connection. I go out and walk in my neighborhood just to try and meet people. I have met most of the people who own dogs - but no one else! Because no one walks. There isn't a single store I can walk to, other than a gas station (which is pointless) and my dentist & doctor's offices. They are tearing out a field to build another car wash. :( I once lived where it was walkable, on the west coast, and even then only mostly and sometimes (but at least I could walk to the store and pick out food to cook for dinner, and because of that I cooked a lot and a lot more healthy than I do now when I have to drive 20 minutes to a grocery store). I wish we could help people understand that not only would it benefit the world but it would benefit all of our mental health and sense of connectedness.
I feel the same about the last paragraph. The most "community" walking I've ever done was the month I spent last year at my Crested Butte residency when I walked everywhere. It was glorious.
I agree with all of that! I wrote a book about walking and walkability a couple of years ago and what surprised the heck out of me through the process was the strong evidence of connection and community's relationship with walkability. It's just amazing. It makes *such* a difference and yet it is a tremendous effort to help people within my own community see it when such efforts inconvenience their ability to drive and park anywhere they need or want.
Antonia, I'm having one of those humble moments where I'm realizing what an expert you are in the area of walking as I hear you referenced in "52 ways to walk", finally go look at your "About" page and yes, it's referenced right there and then find your website. Thanks for your patience with me!
Karen, I just want to say I’ve walked WITH Antonia. It was like playing basketball with LeBron James. Like playing tennis with Serena Williams. Like watching birds with Snow White. *sigh*
I appreciate that but, uh, don't we all just *walk*?! In whatever way possible. I don't even hike very fast! (As Victoria can attest to -- I lagged behind with the tortoises on our trail crew.) On the other hand, it's so nice to walk slow and take in the world ...
"Watching birds with Snow White" 😂 I am never taking an apple from you.
Now I love that because I think I walk even slower now that I am always paying attention to everything around me - and I was not a fast walker before! I had a friend in Vancouver that always made fun of me for walking slowly.
I don't want to tell you how to feel, but please don't feel bad on my account! I feel like a dork whenever I mention it, but on the other hand feels like it's disingenuous to pretend I haven't done a ton of research on the subject. There are no easy ways for the humble of the world to talk about one's work 😂
I know right! It actually reminded me how little I really know about anyone (it's as true in person as online!) and how easy it is to start to think you "know" someone through their written words. Which reminded me to think about how people read my writing - and how well I know myself but they don't know me. Sometimes I think everyone following my work has followed it forever so of course they'd know I have walked at the same county park for a decade now - but of course they don't! Just a really good note on perspective!
It's a funny way we exist now, isn't it? I'm not even that "online" (no social media accounts) but am sometimes surprised by how much people think they know about me. So little of my life is revealed in my writing! There's something worth reading an essay on ... ;)
And by the way, thank you for the fiction recommendations. I've been meaning to read the Jemisin and Butler books for a couple years now and I appreciate the reminder.
Butler is pretty bleak, more for the realization of when she wrote and how accurately she described climate change and how humans would respond *socially*, but she is so, so good. Jemisin's are also not sweet and soft, but the way she shows how people can go through incredible destruction and loss and retain their humanity (*fight* to retain it, even when they don't want to) just blows me away.
All I have to recommend is minimalism. Just try... cutting back on everything... maybe 10%... just to see if you can do it. If you desire a more difficult exercise, fast for three days, water only. You will quickly see the monster inside you that you've kept tamped down with food, alcohol and drugs.
Aug 29, 2022·edited Aug 29, 2022Liked by Chris La Tray
So much to absorb here….but the movement part at the end really got me. I’ve started a job with 10-hour days and figuring in the commute and lunch I am away from home for 11+ hours a day which I tell myself is the reason I no longer take evening walks. (That and I left my walking partner-friend in my old town.) I walk on breaks at work, but will start being more intentional about all movement, even standing at my desk. Thank you for all the brain fodder.
I’m AKA sofasaurus because I revel in a sedentary lifestyle, so I relate. The one thing I still do which takes a lot longer is to hand water my outdoor container garden. It creates more movement (refilling my watering can), but I talk to each plant, feel the soil around them, pick the stray weeds and dead leaves, and generally access the health of my plants. Very rewarding too, when I see each day what I can harvest. Thanks for your always encouragement to make us better humans and better stewards of our tiny domains.
Melissa, do you think the affinity you find with your plants evokes more compassion in you for people? I've heard people say it does, but I don't have a similar gardening routine to compare it to.
Maybe. I was compassionate before I started gardening. Growing things makes me happy, so hopefully I’m passing on that joy to other people indirectly.
That makes perfect sense. I'm sure you ARE passing that joy along.
this is a lovely reminder of giving up convenience and gaining so much more. I have had irrigation systems in the past because they are so "effective" but i know that tending my plants, hand watering being a perfect way to do this, feels real.
Oh I love this. Maybe my little container garden is not so bad and maybe having to work harder to bring every little bit of water too it is also good!
We are retiring after 30+ years in public education and moving from north central Idaho to Lummi Island in the San Juans next spring, ruthlessly downsizing, shedding off dishes and glassware and heirlooms and furniture and a family piano and excess clothing and cookware and many many books. I feel so torn because people like me are needed in Idaho to fight the extremists, the "patriots," the religious who feel compelled to force their tenets on their neighbors, those who want to destroy public education, those who are cheering the most restrictive abortion laws in the US, those who believe that the Nez Perce and others should just somehow get over the looming end of the salmon runs. But I'm tired and disabled. I am selfishly choosing to withdraw to a place with nature reserves and trails, herons and eagles, tides and a CSA, reef fishing for salmon, a community darts league. I know very well that we are privileged to be able to do so, I recognize the hideous suffering of others all over the world and here and yet, I am selfish, I am so weary, so very weary, and the end of my life is far more real than it used to be. I am also bitter, Chris, and resent rednecks and what gazillionaires are doing to our politics and our planet, and avoid Ted Talks like the plague. Thank you for building this community. It is a solace.
Believe me, if I could retreat to the San Juans I would not hesitate an instant. That is one of my favorite places on earth. Enjoy it for the both of us.
1. I got stuck in Bittersweet around page 100 I think -- I wasn't sure exactly what was making me feel..irritable? when i would pick it up, but I think what you've described sums it up nicely. I thought I'd love it but I just do not.
2. do you ever listen to For the Wild podcast? I just started listening to this episode: https://forthewild.world/listen/dr-clint-carroll-on-stewarding-homeland-299
3. I am reinspired to keep my phone in the basement and celebrate our lack of a dishwasher.
Heidi, the only podcast I listen to, despite my occasional efforts to listen to others on occasion, is Desert Oracle. I've found I'm just not a podcast person, I guess. That said, I've bookmarked your recommendation and I PROMISE I will listen to it.
I'm not much of a podcast listener either! Just every once in a [great] while. I do enjoy this one though, when I remember it exists lol.
I want to embrace minimalism. It's not as easy when I live in a place where I usually have to drive to go for a walk.
I hear you. I'd love to become a bike person but the road I drive to and from Missoula is a death trap and I'm certain the law of averages would catch up to me. Though I'm thinking of getting a bike to store at my space in town for around-town travel. Other than that, my biggest gotcha when it comes to minimalism is books. I really need to cull (as three more arrive in the mail).
Yeah I'm getting a bike this fall but I'll be driving it to parks. Absurd. I daydream about selling and giving away my books and most of my things and moving someplace remote and beautiful.
I share this dream, man.
I love the dream - and my friend did this, lol, and I quickly realized I would never survive.
Right! Yes, I drive to go for a walk in nature because without driving I can only get the tiniest bit. Sigh. And often I wonder if I'm doing more harm than good.
I have to drive to walk anywhere myself ... or risk dying on foot or bicycle on a narrow country road from gigantic pickups piloted by mouthbreathing rednecks driving while staring at their phones.
Oh yes - this is the experience of my friend who lives in rural Kansas too.
I really appreciate the Bowman passage and want to chew more on movement and disability. As a disabled person who mainly spends time with other disabled people, conveniences and extravagances can also be hard-won accommodations. I think a lot about the convenience tax-- my ability (or necessity, regardless of whether I actually have the money) to buy something that allows me or my people to do something that others can do with ease and have more energy to do so very much rests on the labor/energy of other folks, who might very well also be disabled.
I was thinking of disabled folks as I was transcribing that, people for whom "conveniences and extravagances" are necessities. It's similar to what I call the poor tax, where people who can afford to buy commodities like propane for reduced prices in the summer do so, and people who most need the break get dominated buying a bit at a time at inflated prices during the season when they need it most. The world is built for the able, affluent, and unconcerned, and I hope you understand those are the people I am targeting here. It's hard.
I've been thinking about movement, too. I feel great after doing an hour-and-a-half of yoga, but a) who has an hour-and-a-half to spend every day? and b) I always have this nagging voice in the back of my head as I look out into the world, where for so many people it's all they can do to just get survival done every day. Standing there in Warrior Pose seems a tad selfish and indulgent. Yes, I need to take care of myself. But Good Lord, time is such an unforgiving commodity!
So, I'm interested to read Movement Matters. Thanks for the tip!
Lori, thank you. I have two thoughts on this. First, I think the world we are working to make (or return to, perhaps) is one where 90 minutes of time for something like yoga isn't unusual. But I feel you on this; when I had a yoga practice (I haven't been back to a studio since about two weeks before COVID shut everything down) the time commitment was often unmanageable. My second thought is who is being selfish and indulgent: you practicing a discipline that will arguably make you more in tune and compassionate with the world (which should be the goal of a yoga practice, right?), or the person who devotes 50-70 hours a week in some big moneymaking bullshit job that sucks the life out of everything and ensures a boot on the neck for millions? I should stop now, because I feel a rant stirring and the comment thread is no place for that kind of thing from the author of the post, heh.
Also, I hope you like Movement Matters, should you take it on. I've not read enough to recommend it or not. I love the passages I shared, and I love the idea that so much convenience technology for many of us is just an excuse to be sedentary, and that SOMEONE ultimately pays the price for our shiftlessness. I also love the metaphor for personal movement as community movement too.
I’m surprised how saddened I am about Engen’s death. The town feels hollow right now. Even after hearing about his cancer diagnosis, he seemed too strong of a presence to die. I wasn’t his biggest fan either but he was an effective administrator which sounds like feint praise but isn’t. He helped shape this community- for good and ill - during unprecedented growth and change. And I think his most important legacy was wrestling control of our water system from a multinational corporation. It’s hard to overstate how important that is considering what we’re facing with climate change.
Thank you for saying so, Greg. I too am deeply saddened, and I had strong feelings about many of his choices these last couple years. I fear for what comes next.
So many things here! I love the idea of movement as a way of contributing to (or at least taking less from) the world. I always think of these conveniences in terms of time, but it's also true that they reduce movement. Given I've spent the past 3 weeks trying to unwind what I already knew needed to be unwound in my body but wasn't doing enough for it - namely poor movement patterns, too much sitting and chronic tension. Ironically I purchased a program called "Walking Well"earlier this summer which is Katy Bowman and Jill Miller. I only got to the 2nd lesson and then somehow didn't have time for it.
We won't talk about the other 3 programs I have started or half-heartedly done over the past 3 years knowing I needed to fix my posture and movement problems...or how I kept resisting the idea of standing and working because I can't focus well until I had no other choice. It's still true, I have trouble focusing and standing still is also not moving (just ask my Apple Watch which keeps telling me I haven't stood this hour when I've been standing the entire time). Now I am trying to figure out how to write and make art while still moving more! I resisted creating an herb garden properly because I didn't think I could do the manual labor needed to get it started (which is definitely true currently), yet once created it would be better for moving and I'd be growing something that benefits me and pollinators and perhaps that's something.
As for Bittersweet, I do get that. I started it put it down, finally started it again last week. What I did get out of it was how our toxic positivity has evolved (at least in my white-suburban-protestant culture) from Calvinism to Corporatism and how my agreement to keep forcing myself to "be good" (yes, I almost quoted her book in my last newsletter but I had to cut it out because it told me my post was too long for email) is also part of that whole colonialism/capitalism thing that is not good for the world. It's also not good for me because whenever we are lying to ourselves, our body will let us know.
My latest idea that I can't prove but I am pondering on is that it is difficult to open our hearts when we cannot hold boundaries and speak truth. The culture I have spent my life in has taught me not to hold boundaries and not to speak truth and I struggle mightily to be truly, deeply, compassionate. I care a lot. I listen a lot. And I have so much fear it makes me want to run away into the woods on a regular basis (which by the way I would not survive because my survival skills are like barely above zero).
So way more than you wanted but I so appreciate you tying the idea of movement to being able to do something small for the world. I really want to figure out how to do this thing, what I'm doing now, writing/typing/journaling/making art, while moving more. It must be possible because it sure seems necessary.
I have an extra copy of this book if you'd like one: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691305/52-ways-to-walk-by-annabel-streets/
It's not prescriptive so much as slight encouragement with a bit of science and reasoning thrown in for walking regularly. I really enjoyed her book Windswept about women walking; she's a lovely writer.
(I also have poor movement patterns and sit too much, despite my walking proselytizing. And yet I feel so, so much better when I move a lot throughout the day. I discovered that a minimum of 5 miles a day is what my mind needs, but 10 is better for the mind-body, and it's not like I can get that all the time, much less anyone with less access to walking.)
Antonia - do you think it would be good in audiobook? I tend to listen more than I read (especially since I can't sit - and it would be ironic to sit to read a book about walking)?
I just listened to a sample and the reader has a lovely, engaging voice, so I’d say likely! Windswept is also available in audio (that’s under her other name Annabel Abbs).
Ok, I started listening on audio this morning! And I will find Windswept!
Oh my gosh yes - this is the third time I've seen that book referenced recently so clearly I need to read it. And oh wow, I have thought too that 5 is the minimum but it's hard to get - and I can't think when I've gotten 10 but yes, it would be better for me. Now I need to figure out a way to make a living that doesn't involve being on a computer all day.
Yeah, it’s so hard to get enough space or time to wander for long enough—how is anyone meant to find a true baseline?!
I appreciate Katy Bowman's work so much. It has changed the way I think about movement and opened my eyes to the way doing the less convenient thing -- which often requires me to move more -- is about more than just my individual efforts to live a less sedentary life.
Thanks, as always, for your writing.
Thank you, and I love that you are familiar with Bowman's work. It gets a little sciency for a rube like me sometimes but the main point she makes is one I deeply appreciate.
"There are billions of people who can tell us exactly what this life looks and tastes and feels like but no one is asking them." YES. I really don't know whether to rage or completely despair at reading DJD's comments. I don't want to go off at him, but is he serious? If he is, then it reflects a serious paucity of both imagination and of exposure to stories that are unlike his own (and why "op-ed arguments"? How many people have access to a widely-read op-ed space who aren't already people almost exactly like him?). (Also seconding "Moon of the Crusted Snow," which was one book that popped to mind while reading this. Also N.K. Jemisin's "Fifth Season" trilogy. Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents." Martha Wells's Murderbot series. A few of Barbara Kingsolver's books. Emily St. John Mandel's "Station Eleven," which, while I didn't really love it, does in fact tell us what this life might look and taste and feel like.)
I heard an interview with Susan Cain a few years ago on I think Tim Ferriss's podcast and that was it for me. Do people reach a certain level where they get invited to do a TED talk and then circulate through all the same podcast hosts and end up on the same retreats and completely lose perspective on what life is like for everybody else?
Point well taken about #landback. One of the things I appreciated about the issue of Briarpatch you told me about (last year's?) that focuses on it is understanding exactly how complicated it is/would be. No phrase or idea should come to be a stand-in for actual, physical, real-life justice and equity, no matter how messy they get; maybe that's something we always have to be on guard for.
I hadn't heard of "Movement Matters" but those quotes hit me right where it counts!
Most people don't want to hear this, maybe especially from me, maybe especially because it feels like so little, but trying to turn one's community into a connected, walkable, bikeable place is, I honestly believe, a forefront of everything Bowman and many others talk about. It's a battle all the time, a battle with one's friends and neighbors, a battle with what comfortable people think they can give up, and what they think they should be entitled to. It is *unbelievable* sometimes how little people are willing to cede to get a community that a 10-year-old can safely bike from one side to another, that a wheelchair user can navigate with no inconvenience or risk, that someone doing shift work can be employed in without worrying about their car breaking down. And yet the payoffs are enormous, including climate, air quality, rare earth metal extraction, water pollution, equity, accessibility, ...
None of it is enough. All of it is a start.
I was reminded what I ultimately didn't like about Cain's QUIET book. It initially seemed like it was for people like me then clearly became something for the business section at the airport. I felt ambushed by myself when I finished it.
Believe it or not, I've never read that, either! I keep wanting to because introvert = me, but felt much less inclined after hearing that interview. And she came across as very nice! But I'm really tired of hearing from the TED/lifehacker/Burning Man (?) crowd. It just seems to undermine so much life advice if you can't even figure out how to begin addressing what your advice looks like from the perspective of a single mom who's got a neurodivergent kid or one with a chronic illness and who is haunted every damn month by whether or not she can buy enough groceries on top of everything else.
If I never see or hear another TED talk again it will be too soon. I mean, they aren't ALL bad but damn there is a certain ilk that is so off putting....
(Also I tend to lump it in ever since Sam Harris once told someone that they'd been invited to the TED stage because Chris or whoever who makes the decisions is a friend of Harris's and takes his advice. It's just another club!)
🤮
I think one of the last ones I saw was by a guy who'd grown up in a kind of cultish fundamentalist church and then went to work on Wall Street or somewhere and he got around to this stellar point that the TED crowd in front of him had some of the same psychology as both. Wish I could remember which one it was.
🙄
Yeah - it was written for people like me - or at least like the person I was when I first started down this path. Which is to say maybe it's an entry point for someone - but if it's an end point instead of an entry point it isn't enough.
That last paragraph - I live in a place where there is almost no walkability! It's terrible and it's terrible for us. Not just for our bodies but it's terrible for connection. I go out and walk in my neighborhood just to try and meet people. I have met most of the people who own dogs - but no one else! Because no one walks. There isn't a single store I can walk to, other than a gas station (which is pointless) and my dentist & doctor's offices. They are tearing out a field to build another car wash. :( I once lived where it was walkable, on the west coast, and even then only mostly and sometimes (but at least I could walk to the store and pick out food to cook for dinner, and because of that I cooked a lot and a lot more healthy than I do now when I have to drive 20 minutes to a grocery store). I wish we could help people understand that not only would it benefit the world but it would benefit all of our mental health and sense of connectedness.
I feel the same about the last paragraph. The most "community" walking I've ever done was the month I spent last year at my Crested Butte residency when I walked everywhere. It was glorious.
I agree with all of that! I wrote a book about walking and walkability a couple of years ago and what surprised the heck out of me through the process was the strong evidence of connection and community's relationship with walkability. It's just amazing. It makes *such* a difference and yet it is a tremendous effort to help people within my own community see it when such efforts inconvenience their ability to drive and park anywhere they need or want.
Antonia, I'm having one of those humble moments where I'm realizing what an expert you are in the area of walking as I hear you referenced in "52 ways to walk", finally go look at your "About" page and yes, it's referenced right there and then find your website. Thanks for your patience with me!
Karen, I just want to say I’ve walked WITH Antonia. It was like playing basketball with LeBron James. Like playing tennis with Serena Williams. Like watching birds with Snow White. *sigh*
I appreciate that but, uh, don't we all just *walk*?! In whatever way possible. I don't even hike very fast! (As Victoria can attest to -- I lagged behind with the tortoises on our trail crew.) On the other hand, it's so nice to walk slow and take in the world ...
"Watching birds with Snow White" 😂 I am never taking an apple from you.
🍎
Now I love that because I think I walk even slower now that I am always paying attention to everything around me - and I was not a fast walker before! I had a friend in Vancouver that always made fun of me for walking slowly.
I don't want to tell you how to feel, but please don't feel bad on my account! I feel like a dork whenever I mention it, but on the other hand feels like it's disingenuous to pretend I haven't done a ton of research on the subject. There are no easy ways for the humble of the world to talk about one's work 😂
I know right! It actually reminded me how little I really know about anyone (it's as true in person as online!) and how easy it is to start to think you "know" someone through their written words. Which reminded me to think about how people read my writing - and how well I know myself but they don't know me. Sometimes I think everyone following my work has followed it forever so of course they'd know I have walked at the same county park for a decade now - but of course they don't! Just a really good note on perspective!
It's a funny way we exist now, isn't it? I'm not even that "online" (no social media accounts) but am sometimes surprised by how much people think they know about me. So little of my life is revealed in my writing! There's something worth reading an essay on ... ;)
Oh my god that is a wall of words. Just ban me already! I apologize.
And by the way, thank you for the fiction recommendations. I've been meaning to read the Jemisin and Butler books for a couple years now and I appreciate the reminder.
Butler is pretty bleak, more for the realization of when she wrote and how accurately she described climate change and how humans would respond *socially*, but she is so, so good. Jemisin's are also not sweet and soft, but the way she shows how people can go through incredible destruction and loss and retain their humanity (*fight* to retain it, even when they don't want to) just blows me away.
This is why I write these rambling screeds, Nia.
To give me space to babble?! You are so kind ;)
I'm glad you did so I don't have to feel so guilty! :) Plus you have great things to say.
Thank you, as always, for sharing. I have not read BITTERSWEET but it makes me want to vom 🤮
Let it rip, Maddy. I'd even hold your hair if I could.
Luckily I shaved half of it off. It reminded me of this enraging article I just read (I’ll spare you the details, you know the drill better than I, rich white men cosplaying as rural white Western braggarts to the utter detriment of actual people and places https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/the-fabulously-wealthy-are-fueling-a-booming-luxury-ranch-market-out-west/)
Ugh.
As always, it's a pleasure to spend time with you via your writing - makes me look forward to the new book that much more.
The Anishinaabe turtle creation story puts me in mind of the Buddhist Jataka parable of the little grey parrot: https://parabola.org/2017/01/31/the-brave-little-parrot-retold-by-rafe-martin/.
May we all do all we can, small as that may seem.
Or the Flight of the Hummingbird!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naj6zZakgEg
When we move, the whole world follows in our path.
Common
All I have to recommend is minimalism. Just try... cutting back on everything... maybe 10%... just to see if you can do it. If you desire a more difficult exercise, fast for three days, water only. You will quickly see the monster inside you that you've kept tamped down with food, alcohol and drugs.
Thank goodness I don't have a drug or alcohol problem to contribute to my general unsettled state, heh....
Yes, celebrating every moment on Turtle Island that something has tried to kill us and has yet failed.
So much to absorb here….but the movement part at the end really got me. I’ve started a job with 10-hour days and figuring in the commute and lunch I am away from home for 11+ hours a day which I tell myself is the reason I no longer take evening walks. (That and I left my walking partner-friend in my old town.) I walk on breaks at work, but will start being more intentional about all movement, even standing at my desk. Thank you for all the brain fodder.