Want to Walk With Me?
*New Plan for the Next 3 months*
I want to share something low-to-the-ground and highly personal. Last week, in the dark of our living room, surrounded by the night sounds of a wet green summer, I cuddled up to Chris and asked: Should I publicly write about this right now? I have always believed in right timing and sacred process and discernment about how we narrate our story out loud to others. Chris reminded me, as he has over the last 15 years, that he isn’t my audience (true, true) but that they will probably appreciate the realness. That it will be okay. My nervous giggles revealed to me my location on the knife’s edge: fear and excitement can feel the same in the body.
Wait, but doesn’t Molly always share from the middle, the messy, the imperfect? Yes, often. But this one is especially raw for me. What can I say? I’m nervous for all the reasons I name below. As you know, I’m bent on reclaiming my attention. For years, I’ve been trying to ratchet down the modern do-do-doing and turn off the external noise (bye social media and scrolling and thumb texting) in order to hear myself and any messages of spirit. It’s felt like playing constant defense to make room for life force to bloom.
I’m hearing a lot.
I’m remembering, or as two friends reminded me, re-membering. Putting myself back together—physically, physiologically, mythologically, spiritually—into a new shape.
Recovering myself.
I’ve fallen back in love with the triangle of land we almost sold and left 8 months ago. It has always been a teacher for me (check out The Map of Enough, an oldie now). I continue to make my offerings—gestures of thank you tucked into tree hollows, hung on branches, scratched into the fir needle ground. During a turbulent season in my marriage years ago, I looked my friend Jess in the eyes during a road trip and told her that no matter what happened I wanted to be in right relationship with this dear man. That extended to everyone, people I don’t know, the planet. I would fall asleep with my hands holding each other as I whispered “right relationship.” What does that look like?
It starts by being in right relationship with myself.
Obviously. But only recently do I understand so in my bones. I’ve been rearranging my life and dissolving any shame or guilt as it shows up. “Who are you to get to do that if not everyone else can?” has been a strong voice in me. I remembering thinking it as a 4-yr old observing life on a sun-baked road when we lived in the Dominican Republic. Ultimately, that way of thinking helps no one. Other thoughts: This is indulgent, especially at this moment in history, especially when some of my most beloved ones are facing devastating prognoses. I no longer want to center my confusion about how to act or be or whether to enjoy what is good in my life. Again, that approach helps no one. I want to be responsible to inhabiting the fullness of my life and to taking care of myself and therefore having the capacity to sustainably center others. Anyone can mobilize for anything for a period of time. I’m interested in the long-game. How can I show up for myself and for others forever?
Here is where it gets more personal.
I have a goal of completing a 20-mile day-long unassisted walk on September 21st, the fall equinox, through a rugged, up and down trail in the Bridger Mountains. I’ve hike this route before with Chris right before we conceived Eula twelve years ago. Back then, we often set out on epic mountain hikes together. This time, though, I will be alone. Context: Super athletes who live in my town run or race this exact way all the time. I’m inspired by them and running is neither my desire nor advised for my pelvic floor. I’m curious instead about not a run or hike but a walk. Something about that word. It’s humble. It’s ancient. Almost any able-bodied person can go on a walk.
It’s not really about The Walk.
I could do it right now. I’m made of endurance dust and could finish it—but likely worse for the wear. This process is about the preparation! It’s about re-training my body/mind/heart not for this one walk but for a new way of living in which walking long-distance is available to me, a common experience, where 2-hours of daily walking is folded into my rhythm, non-negotiable, prioritized, where my walks are my meditation, my prayer, my school of focused attention, my communion with Earth.
I want to pray with my feet.
I want to track this re-membering process and share it with you.
3 months
I’m dropping the Question of The Month format for this period and creating a time container—3 months—that matches a season. I’m interested in naming the 10% “positive” micro-shifts and any challenging set-backs here with you and building my own latitude to tolerate both. (Yes, I also mean how to tolerate the good.) Inviting you in closer if you are interested because I’m sure you have your own version of what is wanting to unfurl and unfold in you. Writing down miles and elevation is the smallest part of this process; I will be logging the shifts of my interior landscape, my story, my nervous system, my body.
**For paid subscribers (thank you for supporting me and my work in this way!), I’ll also share 1-2 posts a month with songs, resources and books that are helping me along the way, as well as some prompts for you and short videos of me speaking to you while I’m walking through some gorgeous terrain. That should be interesting.
Why do it?
What are my particular edges?
These are the most vulnerable to share. Fears equally vulnerable (at the end).
As of now because all story is fluid…
Physically, can I walk with ease and continence and wise muscles?
I’m IN the portal of perimenopause. No bleed since January. Most of my same-age friends are just beginning. My mother was complete at age 48, so I’m likely close. I don’t dread it; I see it as an opportunity. I was born an intentional animal and want to travel through this transition differently than I did postpartum (oof). Beyond the brain nourishing foods and strength training, I’ve been radically examining my lifestyle: “What has never worked? Am I actually listening to myself? Where could I flow instead of push? Truly, truly.” My major swings happened a few years ago with hormonal imbalances and severe menstrual blood loss that ended in an emergency transfusion. One of the most noticeable elements is how the “reverse puberty” endocrine wildness affects the urinary incontinence from my birth injury with Eula. Some months it’s barely noticeable and my smile is wide and my rest is restful. Other times, I sink into a black sludge pit of utter despair because the simple movement of walking makes me pee on myself, a lot. So, I’m reorganizing my body from the inside out—attending to my core, shifting my breath-holding shallow breathing pattern, strengthening my hips, undoing major tension and holding in my fascia, letting my inner thighs know they don’t have to grip so much, metabolizing past experiences, releasing the tightness of my hip flexors, adjusting my posture accordingly, loving on my flat feet. This is slow and steady work. There is no pill. These are body patterns from pre and post motherhood. It doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop or even a bodywork session. It’s me with myself + a few teachers guiding me. I’ve done bits over the last decade, but always felt bound by “just surviving” mode with little kids and sleep deprivation and business building and did not attend fully to the healing. Frankly, I was also still in shock. But the time is now. It has to be. Sorry sweet daughters, the morning snuggles are shorter because Mom is on the mat getting strong again. The hardest part for me are the setbacks. I get traction and then my menses comes in or tries to but doesn’t and it wipes away all my efforts. It’s been a whack a mole situation since my late 30’s. I feel defeated a lot. I feel ridiculously hopeful too. Effort more? Effort less? Can I be agile again? I dream of a future where I can sprint across the lawn or jump off a porch or skip rope again, or—hmmmm—go on a long strenuous mountain walk and be free of managing incontinence. My medical providers have routinely told me that my chi is very strong (even when I’m my weakest) and that my bounce back from illness is remarkable. I’m taking that in. Walking, or so I’ve been told, is one of the best ways to find the body again.
Physiologically, can I re-train with middle mindset and capacity for both the good and upsetting feels?
I’ve over-coupled stress/pressure with healthiness since about age 15. I don’t really know an adult me without some sort of “health thing to fix,” even though I’ve been healthy by general standards most of life. I nit pick and try to perfect. I’m wired to focus on what is wrong instead of what is working. For example, when my naturopath reported near ideal blood labs (after 4 months of recovering from the debilitating anemia), I stood in my kitchen and noticed a momentary flush of relief followed quickly by a long decline of energy, like a disappointment. As in, I don’t know what to do if there isn’t a problem to make better. Wow, wow, wow. Vise versa, when the labs aren’t great, I have identified an initial energetic whoosh of excitement: “Let’s roll up our sleeves and mobilize.” Goodness. Right now, the health I desire for my body also threatens me because it undoes an adaptation that has ‘worked’ okay enough. I know that all might sound strange. It’s sort of like an addiction to crisis. It’s a high-pitched response to adversity that isn’t actually life-threatening anymore. This is shadow work and nervous system work because the pattern has fed me somehow. I’m interested in learning to tolerate grief feelings around health (instead of over-working, hyper-organizing or eating toast for days: any fellow toast lovers out there?) and in building my capacity to be with my good health and wellness.
Mythologically, am I willing to leave behind this old identity story of struggle?
If I heal this part of me, will I even be relatable to friends or anyone who works with me? (Oooo what a trap!) Will I be abandoning others? Isn’t it my duty to suffer? Why should I get to go on long walks when people are hurting? Will people tease me or overly remark if I change? Maybe. Can I tolerate it? Probably. Refrain: It’s easier and less energy consuming to stay in what is familiar even if it’s painful. What part of me “likes” having this struggle? Let’s reckon with that. I want to look at it head-on. I am responsible for all of it. No one has done it to me. Oh you all, I’m also so tired of the continual I-don’t-have-time conversation. Though my mom has reminded me that the 40’s are typically the most productive and “busy” years, it still seems that no modern humans have time for anything. Me included!! Even though I’ve been changing that language, stacking my work/life rhythm, and trying not to add to that scarcity story when others are in it, I still get caught. A lot. I erased three voice texts to friends today because I heard myself in an old loop. No thank you. Still, how will I carve out 2-hours a day to walk? I will simply use old basketball elbow moves with my own self and do it. Firm but kind. My favorite question to ask myself: Which consequences am I willing to bear? Because any choice creates consequences. New theme song: My body can no longer be the consequence. Put a beat to it. Plus a daily reminder that I’m an okay human even when I’m relaxing. Damn, the programming runs deep. I am, after all, deserving and worthy of goodness simply because I’m alive. Do my cells believe that?
Spiritually, can I create a lifelong practice of walking prayer?
My 1-hour daily meditation evaporated with motherhood and was replaced by desperate pleas in the night or spontaneous face down moments in a grassy meadow. Those acts are fine, but I have longed for a practice again. I don’t want to sit. I don’t want to sit for anything. Sitting has hurt my body. I want to move. I have begun to pray while walking on this land we live on and steward. Silently and also with the sounds of a made-up-on-the-spot poem song. I experiment with writing orally—tongue and voice instead of fingers typing away. It’s different. My brain works hard. When I turned 40 yrs old, I got the intuitive hit that I would one day become a writer who doesn’t use words. What does that even mean? Sounds? Definitely less intellect. Maybe oral storytelling. Maybe not the page. We shall see. Owls fly overhead. Elk emerge. I hear messages come up from the earth through my feet. I listen for instructions. I lay my back or belly into trees and ask them to hold me and my prayers and the people. These trees and their indifference, their wide presence; I relish them. I bend down to commune with leaves and flowers. I call back my attention. I am here right now. I want to be an 89-year old woman walking in the mountains. More messages come to me in vivid dreams. At night, I say to my girls, both on days when I’ve been an attuned mother and on days when I’ve made grumbly mistake after mistake, when they’ve reflected back to me that my voice was annoyed, “Remember to ask for guidance, remember to sink into the moss, remember, remember.” One says, I know, I know, Mom, we know. The other says, Do the moss meditation again, please, please, tell us again that we have nowhere to be and nothing to do but be right here.
From the land recently
Collect your waters, let them pour from your eyes instead.
Collect your blood, let it pour from your heart instead.
Photos of the green land (usually under snow) and me as a 30yr old new to it.
My Fears
What if it doesn’t work? What if I come on here and say I’m going to prepare for this 20-mile walk and I can’t do it? What if I hurt myself? What if I pee all over myself? What if the responsibilities of motherhood and work take over—or I let them? What if I realize my body is too far gone? What if it’s not solveable? What if this reality of the last decade finally finally hits me? What if I can never be agile again? What if I don’t have the emotional stamina? Oh, but I think I do now. What if grief swamps me? What if I can’t bear the set-backs, what if I give up; what if I go into collapse? Well, then I’ll tell you about it. The 20-mile walk is a 4am start time. What if I encounter an animal alone, even if it’s a mountain goat, in the dark? Last time we saw many glowing eyes! Will I be able to breathe fully as I walk through that dark? What if preparing for a walk is a distraction itself—what if I’m not paying attention somehow to the world? What if I get a flood of energy from the process. Am I ready for that? Can I let the imaginal cells of the flying creature inside of the caterpillar actually grow?
What will happen?
I don’t know, but it sure will be something.
What about you?
Are you a journey of some kind?
Please share with me below. As you know, I’m here for all the cultures of support.
Thank you to the technology gods for making this kind of sharing possible. My mom recently nudged me to consider my computer as an accomplice instead of a big bad enemy. Ah yes! Forever setting boundaries with the screens but now appreciating them for all they do.
Love,
You may enjoy Hagitude by Sharon Blackie.
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