This year’s late winter weather is the wickedest I can remember in ages. So much so, that I had to drag my Spyder snowboarder’s coat out of mothballs yet again today in order to take my walk.
I glance out my patio door only to see raindrops the size of three-karat Tiffany solitaires – I swear – blowing sideways.
Steeling myself for the trek that lay ahead, I inform the Huz of my findings over my right shoulder. “Hail?” he inquires.
“Nope. Just plain rain,” I sigh.
Shoot. I wrote, worked and Voo-Doo danced my through the morning, putting off my walk because I had “important things to do” – and now it’s 10:30, the day is fleeting by and I’m staring out the windows at horizontal rock-sized raindrops.
It’s apparent to me the jig is up. Since I have to get out and do it anyway, I figure like this: if I have to bundle up to schlep over to East Bank Club to do the treadmill or the quarter-mile indoor track for an hour at least, I might as well schlep myself along my whole walking route while I’m at it. What’s the difference? Besides, I planned on picking up an important script from Walgreen’s on my way home anyway, so one way or another I have to get out and just get it over with. Rain or no rain.
I quickly remind myself that I’ve certainly walked in weather worse than this – but it’s been horizontal snow blowing in off the Lake at 40 MPH with an 18 below wind chill. Somehow the frozen stuff is easier to deal with on a walk than today’s soaker. Seriously.
What the hell. I bundle in the Spyder and fluffy knit scarf but draw the line at donning my Rocky-the-Flying-Squirrel aviator’s hat – THAT is strictly for winter blasts. This is spring, after all. We’re one-third into April, are we not?
Whoever thinks it’s easy for me to get out and do this walking thing day after day is crazy. It takes tremendous dedication and drive to be able to sustain the kind of daily walking I do, but the payoff is so incredible, so great that I don’t know how I could not get out and do it no matter what. All I have to do is look in the mirror to remind myself of what daily walking has done for me and I always end up doing it anyway, so I have no idea why I even torture myself so.
Hypnotized by my favorite music and the rhythm of the walk, the next thing I know, I’m streaking past my local Walgreen’s on my way east up Ontario. I remind myself that I must come home this exact route to get the script because now, once I’m this far, I’m already warmed up and into the walk so the last thing I want to do is break my big mo by stopping now. I press on.
Trying to talk myself out of going the whole way to the usual turn-around point at the end of Chanel on Michigan and Oak, I tell myself to see how I feel by the time I get to The Ave and then decide if I want to continue on or not.
But, as is always the case, the next time I am conscious of my surroundings is at Neiman-Marcus’ front door, already on Michigan, several blocks north of Ontario.
“You’ve come too far to turn around now,” I muse. “Just a few more wet and windy blocks to Oak Street. What kind of a whuss are you anyway?”
Next conscious point is in front of Water Tower – some nut kneeling on the swampy sidewalk taking pictures of the monument itself snaps my attention. There are those who won’t even consider getting out to walk in this kind of weather and here’s a guy so motivated to get that perfectly mysterious shot, he’s on his knees as if in thanks for merely being alive.
As I approach the Hancock, I’m aware that my legs are keeping pretty dry. My feet are just a wee-bit wet.
On the southeast corner of Michigan and Oak, I cross back west and head for home eventually via my Walgreen’s.
I must remember to stop and get that script, otherwise I’ll have to venture back out and who has that kind of time today? My day is already jammed with appointments, physical therapy, manicure, pedicure and Pilates, so there’s not a second more for additional cardio, and I refuse to drive where I can walk these days, so . . .
Streaking past the eternally gorgeous 4th Presbyterian Church, a lightening bolt flashes and the sky rips open even more. Rain pours down so hard that it bounces up to my knees now soaking my legs from the bottom of my Spyder down to my feet. My shoes feel full and begin to squish. “Keep your ass moving,” is all I can think. “And stop at Walgreen’s!”
I obsess about the Walgreen’s stop because many a time I’ve blasted right past some errand destination while incredibly intent on my walking way. Today is not the day to miss my one and only stop.
For as miserable as it is outside, I have to say the best, most dramatic walks are always on the crappiest days. Trust me on this. Something about the drama of it all.
I arrive home, script in hand – yes, I made the stop, managing not to get arrested for strangling the pharmacy tech for taking so dang long to check me out when I was the only person in line.
“Sweat is dripping down my back like the rainwater off your drive-up roof. I’ve just walked five miles, I’m hyper-heated and it’s about nine thousand degrees inside my coat – so could you please speed it up, young lady?” Is what I really want to say, but smile – mentally choking her instead.
This is daily walking in the big city in the rain. Excuse me, make that horizontal rain, bouncing rain, soaking rain. Rain – rain.
Walk today for the health of it. Walk today for your life.
