Walk as a Child

Do you remember learning to walk? Most of us don’t. Yet, as infants learning to walk took our complete attention. As we got better at it (letting go of couches and adult hands to walk and run on our own), it became one of our best joys.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that walking (especially in nature) takes us back to that boyhood/girlhood sense of wonder and pleasure. In his “Notes on Walking” the 19th century essayist recommended the activity as a way to “dodge old age.”

Similarly, William Hazlitt captured the spirit in his work, “On Going a Journey:”

“I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.”

I take it Hazlitt was away from adult eyes when he did this. So for today’s exercise I suggest you find an untraveled path or an unpeopled time of day. Then, let the child who was you take over for a while. Try to see the world as he or she once did. And let your feet follow suit.

I expect you’ll do some skipping!