A Nice Walk

 What happened to going for a pleasant walk? It appears that "going for a walk" these days, must have a purpose. I hear such drivel as "I need to lose weight", "I am doing my 15,000 steps", "my doctor says I am too fat" and "it keeps me young". When I go for a walk, it's either to go somewhere specific or to simply look at gardens or woods or listen to birds singing as I stroll along. When I see some poor soul grinding down the pavement, arms aswing, ear buds in place, noses pointed dead ahead and puffing through a sweaty nose, I feel sad for them. No, it isn't going to make you lose weight necessarily, it isn't going to make you live longer and it isn't allowing you to have any fun being outside in what's left of Nature just to be there and love it. All of those reasons are not proveable. Listening to your doctor is mostly like talking to a treadmill. They are almost always on the thin side for one thing and have no idea what it's like to lose a mere ten pounds without some kind of agony. Sorry doctors. They keep their weight down because they are among the most busy and stressed out professions around, notwithstanding weekly or more golf dates. Also being male is a leg-up in the weight loss department.  My dear doctor is a slender man whose dietician has a body like a venetian blind slat. She was born to be slim albeit she is at the gym a good part of the week and is vegan, poor woman. Most of my friends, other than those who have suffered chemo therapy, I kid you not, are carrying around more weight than their doctors recommend. I am sure that at the top of every patient file, Number One piece of advice listed is: "you have to lose weight". I am so tired of hearing that line that I sleep through the first two minutes of my allotted fifteen when the doctor finally arrives in my cubicle with its two chairs, one computer and a large thing to lie on covered in paper towel. The rest is a meeting with the blood pressure gizmo and the usual prescription fill. Oh yes, a few polite questions about how I am meant to be answered with the word "fine". A sign tells patients that they are permitted only one complaint and that is baffling because a lot of aches and pains are associated with more than one cause or reason. But it's okay because I can try to make another appointment with the lady at the desk who, when I call, asks me without waiting for an answer, "can you hold please". I usually get out an "uh" before the music comes on and I wait for some time listening to it on a phone speaker that makes everything sound like the dishwasher on full. Back to going for a walk. The people who seem to enjoy their walks most are the dog walkers. At least they have to stand and wait while Spot or Fifi dirties up the boulevard and they perhaps listen to the bird song in the pretty, trimmed gardens along the way. Few of them are encumbered by the required plastic bag and if they are, it mostly ends up behind someone's hedge before it gets back home to the condo dumpster. It's a fact. I like a walk that is a walk. I want to smell the air untainted by dog urine or car exhaust or some idiot smoking a cigarette. I do not favour sidewalk as a place to plant foot or having to ply a crosswalk that is ignored by a good many drivers too busy with the handless cell phone speaker or the kids romping around in the back in their car seats and belts. Going for a real walk is becoming a rare and wonderful thing. That's why I like sitting in my swing on the deck, looking up at the eagles soaring, the gulls wheeling and the song birds flitting amonst the cedar trees.