Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

The Walking Life (Part 3)

This part...the final part?...shall be short. Mercifully so, for you and I reader still have much walking to do.

So...December 17, 2023. I walk through the new Nagasaki AMU plaza. The old clock is gone. A new digital clock is front and center. The mall is shiny and new, a testament to modern retail consumption. The digital lanterns with short movies of Nagasaki tourism are a nice touch. The upstairs garden is nice too. There are shades of bigger cities like Fukuoka, Sendai, and Yokohama. It reminds me of my time, walking, lonely but free, through those malls. Izumi Chuo in Sendai, too. It reminds me of the time I spent in Izumi Chuo by myself in 2017 or 2018, drinking beer, enjoying freedom, just being still! I had survived Saudi Arabia. I had survived my youth. I had survived. I was free...but also alone.

Now...January 4, 2024. I decide to try a new walk. This one is the little town of Mie, just past the modern French bakery / cafe June Coffee. It is a little village hidden in an enclave near the sea.

I realize that I need something in 2024 – I need a spiritual renaissance. I need to feel like the world is still fresh and wide open. Walking, of course, helps. But I also realize that I have to make my thinking simple again. I need to unplug from technology and be more open to the sensations around me. I realize something. The streets are empty. Houses and houses, some activity. Like many places in the Japanese countryside, there is beauty, but there is also a kind of lonely emptiness. Like my heart, the Japanese countryside wishes to fill itself with joyous content.

My walk ends too soon. I am back on the bus heading home. But, I realize, I will need to walk more. I will need to write more. And, I will need to discover something new.

Why strive? Why not just take what the universe gives you? Be thankful. Walk. Do not strive. Enjoy every breath.