Walk with Me?

Friends, it’s no secret around here that I love to lace up my boots and go for a walk.

I love to get outside.

I do not like the word exercise.

But I love to see the world on my own two feet.

For most of my life, even though I love to go for a walk, I have been a fair weather walker.

And even in this Northern Country, where the cold winds blow and the air is so often damp, I try to hide from the weather.

I stay indoors.

I drink tea.

When it is raining at 3pm, I curse the fact that I have to get out in the weather for a walk to school to meet my youngest.

But after I walk the mile and a half to meet him, and the mile and a half back home…

I am always glad I got outside.

Always.

There is not a day that I come home saying,

“Well, I really did not need that walk today.”

I am always grateful. For the steps walked. The air breathed. The trees glimpsed through mist. The glistening gray buildings.

And on the weekends and holidays, I find that more and more I am ready for the longer walks. Living in a gray city makes me long for the wider spaces, and there are plenty of them to be had in Scotland. We have tried to make a habit of finding them.

We plan to continue the search in 2014 with more journeys to glens and lochs (valleys and lakes).

And to our weekend walks, I am adding my own longer walks to the year’s plans. Walks that take days, or even weeks. Sometimes alone and sometimes with friends.

And to these, I will add city walks, because we plan to see even more cities in the new year and there is no better way to see a city than on foot.

Walk with Me?

So…walking.

Walks to school and to the market. Walks to church. Walks in the country and walks in the city. Walks on a Saturday and walks over lots of days.

This will be a year of walking.

And I am wondering, dear reader, if you might be reading this and thinking about going for a walk.

Might you walk with me?

To a place you don’t usually walk? Or to a place you walk all the time? A long walk or a short walk?

In this new year, who knows how many walks we will take, really? But for the sake of writing about walking on this blog, I am starting a project called #48walks.

For me 48 is sort of an arbitrary number. It is one walk a week with four weeks off. It is 12 walks a season. It is 48 walks during Lent. It is 4 blog posts about walking per month. It is 48 photo essays. It is whatever you want it to be.

I thought about calling it #40walks because I turned forty this year, but I don’t want it to just be about me. I want it to be about walking outside and seeing something different because we chose to go on foot. About meeting a friend for a breathe of fresh air. About taking 20 minutes to see how the seasons have changed since you last went to your favorite spot in the woods. I want it to be about whatever you want it to be.

For me, walking is going to bleed into the stories I am telling. Because I loved telling Twelve Days of Stories, I am going to set aside Tuesdays on the blog for telling stories. And though they will not always be exactly about walks, they will have an element of walking. They will be about what I am walking towards. (In January, I am Walking Towards The Unexpected.)

Because walking is always literal and figurative.

We are going for a walk in the woods (or to the store) and  we are walking towards the future.

So I invite you to come along on #48walks literally or figuratively, or both.

This year I am going for #48walks and I would love for you to come with me.

Want to come along?
(Please say Yes!)

Here are a few ways to join in on #48walks:

• Say hello in the comments on this post and tell me that you want to go for a walk!
• Or join the FB group where you can share photos or mention where you are walking this year and meet other folks who are coming along.
• When you go for a walk, use the tag #48walks on Twitter or Instagram.
• If you have a blog, you can blog about your walks. If you don’t have a blog, why not start one! Or just use a good old fashioned notebook to record what you see this year when you go for a walk.
• Grab a notebook. Number to 48 and brainstorm a list of places you want to walk this year! (Or 12 places you want to walk to in all four seasons, or 48 people you want to walk with…)
• Subscribe to the Chino House to stay in touch or just email me (alisonchino AT gmail) to tell me you want to walk!

There are no rules about how to be involved! Choose one or all of the above. Or just lace up your boots, walk out your front door and see what’s out there!

Cheers to a year of walking, friends!