Walking On

 Moving out of the house we’ve lived in for 48 years required three weeks of nearly non-stop sorting, tossing, packing, and lifting. Throughout the project, I was amazed at our stamina. It was physically demanding, but day after day, we were in an altered state that allowed us to get the job done. Now, we are on vacation in Massachusetts, and I’m happy that temperate weather has replaced the heat of July. I feel like a kid who has finished her chores, and now I can go outside. On the other hand, I have to face the fact that getting older has reduced my playtime options. 

We played outdoors all the time when I was a kid, and my passion for roller skating morphed into rollerblading as an adult. This was an activity I learned alongside Teresa on the long, flat roads near the McDonnells’ homestead. For safety’s sake, I gave that up towards the end of my sixties. However, I did keep bike riding, which came to an abrupt and painful end when I took a tumble and broke my ankle in several places. This past week, on August 7th, I celebrated the second anniversary of that fateful day. I’m all mended now and happy to report that walking, a skill I mastered as a child, remains at the top of my fun things to do. I probably evolved from a plains animal because I am happy to walk for miles, and I’ve always been this way.

When I attended Wanisik Girl Scout Camp in elementary school, my favorite part of the day was the long walk down a hill, across a bit of field, and through a shaded wood to the swimming pool. The frequency of that walk exposed me to the richness of nature; the way that roots, rocks, ferns, trees, light, and shadow could say so much without any words. It was an early experience that led to the inner territories where quiet self-reflection takes place. Paradoxically, I’m a born people lover with a social side, so I love the flow of conversation when I walk the sunny stretch of the Cape Cod Canal with friends and family. Woods-walking by myself, though, remains my preference. I like how it drops me into a wu wei spirit of doing/not doing. The busyness of house moving crowded out the emotional realities of such an enormous change, so I like how walking these days in quiet surroundings is playing an essential role in helping me to process my current state of being.

I’ve walked the woods here in our town of Cedarville since our first summer in 1980. Sitting just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the area is defined by nutrient-poor, sandy soils, which have never attracted intensive farming. Great swaths of the region remain forested, and as I walk, a multitude of maple, scrub oak, pitch, and white pines, and the ever-friendly, waving-mitt enchantment of sassafras surrounds me. Such a protective canopy frees me to let in the mixed feelings of moving. I'm excited by the new chapter, I'm sad about leaving behind our beloved house, and, of course, I'm uncertain about what lies ahead. Massive glaciers from the Laurentide Ice Sheet of 12,000 years ago caused the continuous up-and-down roll of the trails. As I stretch my legs to meet these hills, I'm meeting head-on the up and down fears, excitements of change; both the inevitability and rightness of what sometimes feels like turmoil.

Forty-odd years ago, one of my favorite walks here took me alongside open, low-growing cranberry vines growing in sandy bogs, which in the eighties were still operational. With the end of local production, a crowd of trees, woody shrubs, and brambles eventually took over. Today, I seek out remnants of the cranberry’s crimson leaves that still peak through the thicket during every walk. Those vines speak to me of tenacity, which these days helps to carry me through.

An old favorite route has always been to wind my way towards Great Herring Pond and stop for a sit in the Wampanoag Tribe’s Old Indian Burial Ground. Many of the graves there are so old that they are unreadable. The Massachusetts Commonwealth formally recognized the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in November 2024 as a distinct, continuous community. Their history places them in Plymouth for thousands of years, and they are still active today. When I think about the past atrocities inflicted on Native Americans in this region, I gain perspective on my current sense of feeling unsettled. I think of their resilience, their ability to endure and thrive. C’mon now, Gin, I say to my wimpy self, I think you can do this.

You can do this!