I went for a walk today. I did something I don't normally do, I made the conscious decision to leave my phone at home. I didn't want the distraction.
Typically when I go for a walk I have my phone in my pocket and airpods in my ears, music or podcasts or audiobooks playing while I meander through my neighborhood - not today. After a long and bitter cold winter, with the sun out and wind blowing I wanted to take it all in.
I walked the same path I've walked dozens of times but took the care to look about - not just to where I was going. I listened to the noise from the bits of gravel under my shoes as I walked down the road. The sounds of the various birds high in the trees and in the bushes. The sky was a beautiful blue, with white puffy clouds. The temperature shifting between warm and cool as the wind pushed those puffy clouds between me and the sun.
There were robins in yards along the way, keeping a watchful eye on me as I strolled down the street past them. Taking a few quick hops further into the yards if they deemed me too close for comfort. The grass was starting to turn a deep green in most yards, happy to see the sun and rain. Flowers were beginning to poke from the ground, among them some bright yellow daffodils.
I took note of the sound of the breeze, and the different sounds it made as it swayed the long grasses versus the pine branches. The different sounds of the cars as they drove by, some a rumble and others the scraping of rotors needing cut. The way the back of me left show was ever-so-slightly rubbing my achilles and might start to give me a blister.
When I started this walk, I felt anxiety. I felt this need for my phone to be within reach - what if someone needed something? Then I reminded myself that I used to live this way not that long ago. I could do this, enjoy the slower pace - the bombardment of all the things around me instead of shutting myself off with noise and keeping my head down.
I needed this.