The last seven years have been a time. I think maybe someone broke a mirror. There has been a lot of death; more than I’ve ever experienced, and before Christmas 2023, we lost my husband Lee’s Dad. Then we lost Quad, the last of twenty years of rescue rabbits who have blessed our house with two decades of shenanigans. It has been a grim, dark winter, and we’re still figuring out new ways of being, without some of the people we love.
We aren’t good at staying still. In Quad’s last three years he was on his own, and so we made our world small for him, seldom leaving the house for more than a few hours. Walks were short and often local, a walking and re-walking that dug us into place but also wore a rut. Now we have time on our hands. What do people DO, when they aren’t giving small furry lads their eye drops, sweeping up hay and mixing critical care? For us, its walking. All of the walking, all of the time. We’re adrift, and needed some purpose, something to aim for, and 1,000 miles is a nice big number. Something achievable alongside day jobs and my PhD writing, but a challenge, all the same.
It is also an opportunity to develop some writing alongside my creative non-fiction thesis: something low stakes and adjacent, but different. So here we go. Walking is a practice of moving forwards and the spring is coming. This is a start.