Taking it one step at a time

Not to long ago, I came across a Friedrich Nietzsche quote that really resonated with me. "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking," he said.
He's right.
I've enjoyed power walking for years. I started more than a decade ago by walking from the Rye Town Park parking lot to the end of Playland Pier and back during my lunch hour. On weekends, I'd walk an even longer loop that took me from the park through some of Rye's most exclusive waterfront neighborhoods.
Those walks ended when I moved to Virginia in 2004, but I quickly adapted my routine, and the Great Meadow Field Events Center in The Plains became my new stomping grounds. But the 200-plus acre complex became more than a place where I went to exercise. It became the place where I went to release pent-up frustration stemming from a highly demanding and stressful job. It became the place where I went to think.
In fact, walking at Great Meadow became such an integral part of my life, I documented it in the following excerpt from my memoir, "Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey."
I park in the main lot, grab my solar-powered pedometer, cell phone, police scanner and keys, put everything else in the trunk and lock it. I make sure the doors are also secured, and then check my watch and pedometer settings before setting off at a brisk pace. I march a short distance, then turn right onto the gravel perimeter road, heading towards the northern end of the complex. I follow the path down two steep hills, then right along a small stream. The gravel crunches in time with my footsteps, left, right, left, right, one, two, one, two. My mouth is slightly open and breathing labored, but my pace does not slacken until I finally reach my turn-around point at a red barn.
Without pausing, I turn and retrace my steps. Now the stream is on my right, a large racecourse on my left. My quads are burning as I barrel up one hill then another, and I only slow to let my heart rate settle when I reach finally the top. My trek continues past the Gate 1 entrance on a slight downhill grade. I make a left turn from the perimeter road onto a smaller one that cuts through the middle of the complex and follow it to the end where gravel becomes grass. I duck under the yellow chain and caution tape stretched between two fence posts and find myself on spongy footing.
The uneven terrain poses different challenges halfway through my workout and I try to concentrate even though I’m tired. A misstep could easily result in a twisted ankle or worse and no one is around to help me if I fall. But my mind wanders as I head for a gate on the other side of the undulating field.
I think about looming deadlines and the police blotter, list of indictments and articles due by Tuesday morning. After three straight six-day work weeks, a three-day weekend has been a rare treat. But the extra day off has also put me woefully behind and I’m already battling stress.
I am through the gate and on another inner gravel path that leads back to the main one. I make a left and stride between a pond and huge grass polo field. The going is easier and my pace and thoughts both quicken. Now I’m obsessing over the memoir I’ve almost finished. The project has taken almost two years and I’m hoping I will exceed my mandatory word count. I’m also debating whether to use a pen name or my own, and thinking about attorneys, editors, cover art and book tours. Nagging doubts about publishing it dog every step.
I am, to put it bluntly, a very complicated person; to some a walking contradiction or perhaps a mere conundrum. A self-described Greenwich bitch and brash New Yorker, I am tough yet sensitive. Emotionally volatile, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can be remarkably candid, but I also cherish my privacy -- and my life is about to become an open book, subject to scrutiny by critics and anyone else who cares.
I have almost finished the southern loop and endorphins are flying. Reinvigorated, I walk it again before returning to my car. By the time I’m done, I have covered more than two miles and my anxiety is vanquished.
I continued power walking when I returned to Connecticut in 2012. My route these days is much shorter than those I walked in Rye or The Plains, but I make up for that by strapping a1-pound weight to each wrist. And in any case, I still benefit from the activity. Walking is still great exercise... and it still gives me time to think.
As I set out this morning, for example, I was thinking about the looming winter storm threatening the northeastern United States. By the time I got to the beach, evidence of that storm was already visible. As the wind kicked up, water seeped over the stone retaining wall and into the parking lot. The roiling Long Island Sound water was an angry gray-green and foam capped the waves that were on a crash course with the shore.
I noted and memorized every detail, knowing I would include them in my blog. And who knows, some of them may even turn up in my next book...
Until next time, "That's life..."