A Nondescript Saturday Evening
I am yet to grow comfortable with walks. I have read multiple substack quotes about how a walk can be life-changing. But for the life-changing elements to pass through, I have to let my walls down first. Whenever I am outside, among humans, especially strangers, my walls are higher and sturdier than usual. I am always on guard, scanning the surroundings for judgmental stares and glares, all set to retaliate with equally cold glares. It is probably the consequence of growing up with a doting father who was tad too overprotective for my own good, giving me a list of everything that could potentially go wrong the moment I stepped outside the house. Now when I look back, I see the starting point of the overthinker that I am today. Dad has let go of that unnecessary overprotective strain, moving on to more accommodating forms of love. Seems like I haven't. Not yet.
Despite my discomfort with solitary walks, I still make it a point to push myself out on Saturday evenings. I bribe myself by promising a treat of piping hot filter coffee to round it off, and most of the days, it works. Other days, my bed wins the battle. Today, after a long debate between my bed and the overenthusiastic part of my brain, I stepped out. The weather was just perfect, as usual.
Today my heart was a little heavy. Some days, our mind stops sharing the burden, let's go of its logical winch and all the burden falls on the poor heart. Due to that, all my emotional energies were channeled to backing up my heart, and hence, I couldn't focus enough on the world outside. When the world inside is in turmoil, the world outside loses a little bit of its significance. And it made all the difference. Perhaps the magic of walks are better appreciated when paired with a heavy heart. Every step I took felt like a promise that despite everything life keeps moving, bringing in new scenes that restores the lost flutter of the heart (I also discovered that walks can make you quite philosophical).
Talking of scenes, here's one; I was panting a little by the time I got to my emotional support coffee place. I have been a regular there for a whole of two months that it feels like stepping into a space of warmth and familiarity, despite the overwhelming number of people there. The moment I stepped in, the bhaiyya yelled, "madam keliye ek strong coffee banao." When I tell you that the art of noticing and etching that in your memory is the softest form of affection, these are the things running through my mind. As the bhaiyya got busy with his coffee making, I stood by the table, and my eyes fell on a couple. I was initially irked by the ruckus they were making (some might call it jealousy; I call it the beginnings of adulthood). However, the irritation soon turned to something tender and soft.
They were sipping tea and chattering on, when suddenly she ruffled his hair. He was so confounded, perhaps by this out-of-syllabus action on her part that he choked on his tea and spilled it on his pants. As I was watching this, perhaps vicariously living through them, my defenses suddenly went up, expecting him to get mad. But to my absolute surprise and utter joy, he just laughed out loud, looking at her and went on squeezing the tea out of his pants. They laughed a little more and walked away. And like all fleeting scenes in life, this one made me think too. The way I was all set to project my own fears onto something entirely external to me, and the way that projection was diluted by a small step, taken differently. Perhaps this is at the core of walks and their magic. Perhaps it's all about transforming the projection of our inner fears into acceptance of a different kind of reality.
I think I will be more frequent with my little walks from now on.