Each morning when I get up, I write some set points in my planner. I write a BOD (beginning of Day) note. This can be anything from ‘who the fuck made 5 am so goddamned early?’ to ‘Be happy and work hard today!’ to ‘Why don’t my feet work in the morning? Getting old is fun!’
I also write a To-Do list of the day’s errands (pay phone bill, work out, call doctor about morning feet). But it’s my 3 MIT (most important tasks) list that really sets the tone for the day. I only allow 3, which means I have to be choosy. One of those tasks is always ‘2×60’ or ‘3×40’, which denote the breakdown of my daily writing. Two one-hour blocks or 3 forty-minute blocks. Either way, it’ll always end up as two hours. More writing can always be done in the afternoon, but as long as I get my two hours of new text done in the morning, I can go to bed with a clear conscience. If I don’t, then I don’t. And everyone in the house knows it.
As for my second MIT, there’s usually a major task bearing down on me, which obviously gets put into spot 2. This can be an edit, an article, or a content job under deadline. This leaves the coveted third spot in my MIT list. The Third MIT. What will it be? My other assortment of tasks awaits with bated breath. Will it be them? I put a lot of thought into the third MIT. Sometimes it’s a task, sometimes it’s an imperative, e.g. ‘stop being a dick’ has appeared a few times and was struggled to be put into action, while the one or two times ‘go to the pub’ ended up as my third MIT it wasn’t so rough to pull off. The Third MIT just depends on what is needed at that given time.
On Friday, I surprised even myself when I wrote the word ‘walk’ into that spot. See verbs like walk or breathe or eat shouldn’t be put on reminder lists, they should just be done. As well, I currently have many more pressing tasks that surely should have been prioritized. But, sure enough, when I looked back at my list later there was the word, the verb, the imperative: walk.
Since I was a kid, walking has been my favorite way to get places. So easy. So free. Just put on shoes and walk outside and you can go wherever you want. Bikes never did for me what they did for my chums. Skateboards suit neither my personality nor my natural-given coordination. And the slew of things these days that people will use to avoid walking – scooters, hoverboards, unicycles – nah, not for me. Perhaps this is why I get irrationally irritated when I disembark from an airplane and am confronted with a bus. Just let me walk. And even though I will occasionally go for a run, I don’t get the same benefits from that as I do a good walk. Also, I hate running.
When I walk, probably just the same as you, my brain takes a while to cut through a bunch of angry negative thinking. I have arguments with myself and others. Sometimes I even speak them out, no doubt leaving passersby to genuinely worry that I might have a family tied up on my basement floor. (Nota bene: I don’t have a basement and if I did, nobody would be tied up there who didn’t want to be.)
After the negative stuff gets out, I might be attacked by my problems as they try to rescue negativity. But I keep walking and those problems drop away like lacy clothing off a stripper. After a while, some creative and funny thoughts come in. It’s then that I always rue forgetting a notebook. For at the beginning of my walk I can’t believe that I’ll have creative thoughts as I am so clogged up by the detritus of everyday affairs. I try to count them on my fingers so I’ll remember them later, an action that becomes more obsolete with each day I age. When even those go away, I find I am just walking and not hearing anything. It’s absolute bliss.
As far as I can tell, this imperative was a mild coup d’etat thrown by my body and brain. I work out religiously, but a walk brings me different benefits – ones I haven’t been allowing myself as I have gotten busier and busier throughout September. When I get busy, I forget to enjoy things like outside and food, and I spend a lot more time hunched over my computer. This hunch becomes a quasi-permanent thing and so I walk around looking like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Thus, my body wants me to get out and walk. It’s also September, a month that begs to be walked during. It’s warm and comfortable in the sun but cool and comfortable in the shadows. It’s still possible to sit outside for beer at pubs and there’s nothing that caps a good walk than a beer at a pub. Even if that walk was only to the pub.
This Friday I obey my Third MIT. The dog and I go run errands. Much of the time I have to carry her around, but it’s OK. She is a Shihtzu and walking is a thing done in between bouts of stubborn lying in the grass following by periods of me carrying her around like Chinese royalty in a palanquin. She quietly observes things from my chest level as I buy eggs and bread and avocados, commenting with a few twitchy-nosed sniffs.
By the time my Smartwatch says 10,000+ steps, I decide my day’s work and its MITs have been sufficiently fulfilled. The dog and I sit on the bench outside the building. I call Burke and inform her of the completion of my day’s duties. We decide to cap it off with a visit to the pub. In an hour I have had two beers (aka: four) and I am grateful to my body for its little coup d’etat.
Later, I sit down at my planner to write my EOD (End of day): If my body wants me to walk more, shouldn’t it just let my feet work in the morning?
