If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. ~ Raymond Inmon

I love to walk.  I mean, I really love to walk.  It began when I was a little girl, maybe 7 years old.  Many evenings after the dinner dishes were done and the kitchen cleaned my mom would ask me if I wanted to go for a walk with her around my small hometown.  About the only thing that stopped us was if it was pouring down rain outside, but a little shower or drizzle never stopped us.  I would chatter away...she'd comment here and there.  In the time period when I was a child through the late 1950's/ early 1960's people rarely closed their curtains or drapes at night and we loved looking through the windows as we passed the houses, admiring or rejecting the decorating talents of each woman within.  People weren't suspicious in that day.  If they saw you looking in, they waved, you waved, and on you'd go.  My walks with my mom continued until our last one when I was 35 years old.  She had terminal colon cancer but she still loved getting out for the exercise and fresh air.  I didn't realize as we walked that day it would be our last.  But as we were heading for home all of a sudden she staggered and cried out in pain.  Thankfully we weren't very far from her apartment.  By that time the cancer had metastasized and we found out the pain was caused by a large tumor low in her abdomen.  A few short weeks later she was gone.

I walked with my kids.  I have walked miles and miles and miles with my husband, and when I power-walked for several years, I walked by myself.  At times I've thought about finding a walking partner, but in my own time through a day I like the freedom of slipping on my shoes and heading out the door without having to worry about anyone else.  My walking time is a large portion of my prayer time.  How can I go out among so much beauty and not have a heart full of praise?  Doesn't matter the season or the weather...there is beauty to be found in even the most simple and mundane things around us. If you don't see something at ground level, look at the sky!

When my grandsons were born I was asked to take care of them while my son and his wife worked and they were with me from the time they were each a month old.  We walked, too.  I had a double stroller and we roamed around in about a 5 mile range on a daily basis.  We lived in Portland at the time and, as with my mom and me, the only thing that stopped us was heavy rain.  If it was freezing cold, I'd pile on quilts and warm blankets.  We were a common sight, I guess...I know I had plenty of strangers stop me in stores and ask me, "Weren't you over at BiMart on Woodstock yesterday?!  How far do you guys walk, anyway?"   This was when we were at Fred Meyer at 82nd and Foster the next day. We stopped and watched roofers and construction workers.  Road maintenance crews. We often visited the nearby fire station...going there seems to be a memory that's stuck with both boys when I ask them if there's anything they remember about Portland.  Must've been because of the fireman hats and badges they'd get, as well as the thrill of being allowed to climb up onto the fire engines. We'd stop and watch ants on the sidewalk and birds making nests.  We counted all the old horse rings along the curbs on our way to the library. We'd go over to the neighbors and visit their chickens.  Oh, those are precious memories.  My son and his family are flying to Portland today and if they have time to take the boys around our old neighborhood I wonder how many of them will come to mind. Whatever they might remember will impress me, considering they were just turning 3 and 5 when we moved here to Michigan.

I don't know why I got out of the habit of walking here on a regular basis but I did.  My husband and I would go out occasionally.  Finally, just in the last few months, I've gotten back in to it.  I guess I'd forgotten how much I loved it, how much I missed that part of my prayer time.  Now, as he's facing retirement, we're looking forward to the day when we can spend a lot of time walking again.

And, luckily, I know when I'm ready to head out the door, he'll be ready too.  We 'read' each other that way. Almost 44 years together, we ought to.  Like he said not long ago we're so blended together in memories and experiences it's hard to know where he begins and I end.

You want a secret to a happy marriage?

Walk.