Hi everyone!
I’m a day late getting this out to you after yet another week with a sick kid and no preschool.
On the upside, cabin fever helped me to remember just how much I love walking. For me, as for many Europeans, walking is simply the way of life. But on a week like this, it also keeps me sane and helps me to find solutions.
For the last three years, no matter what’s going on, I grab the stroller, snacks, water, and a pair of walking shoes and head out, having convinced myself I have to pick up milk at the Trader Joe’s that’s 40 minutes away.
Surely, I could drive, as most people in California do, but when did road rage help anyone to feel happier? On the contrary, walking, like biking, has been proven to improve physical and mental health. And so I walk on.
In fact, so much of my life is devoted to walking and observing that I realized there was a whole new blog idea in there somewhere.
To sum up the last three years of my life, I’m A Mom Who Walks. In New York, in Los Angeles, in London, I have walked and walked and walked myself through the happy and the sad times, the triumphs and the losses.
I walked with my husband, discussing America, with my daughter discussing the trees and the leaves, and with my parents bickering all the way. I walked through the streets of London with a fellow writer I met on Medium, rocking my daughter to sleep. I walked through fights, tears and laughs. Through deep conversations and banter. Through difficult life decisions and long phone conversations.
Most of my creative ideas come from walking, too.
Movement is life, and I swear by it.
So here I am, planning to jumpstart the A Mom Who Walks blog, with parenting and life hacks, rants and solutions from your crazy neighborhood mom who walks everywhere (with a stroller) to stay sane. Because there’s nothing that a long walk can’t fix.
If you see it in your inbox, give it a read.
In the meantime, no matter where you are, what mood you are in, or what the weather is like, go on a long walk and be surprised by where it takes you.
I love this. Did you watch Mad Men? It makes me think of Helen Bishop -- the single mom who everyone thinks is so strange because she walks all the time, often without a destination. Radical in the midcentury, and maybe even now, depending on where you are in the world.