Take your artist for a walk

"Take your artist for a walk, the two of you.  A brisk twenty-minute walk can dramatically alter consciousness."

This is number ten on the list of ten tasks for week one of The Artist's Way, and seeing as it looked by far the easiest, I decided to do it first.  So after dropping the children at school this morning I drove on to our nearest country park and set off.

I'm not sure I remembered to bring my inner artist but I certainly brought my inner nag ("What are we doing in a deserted park at 8.45 on a Monday morning?  You should be at Sainsbury's or clearing up the house.  This is a complete waste of time, why aren't you doing something useful?"), my inner grumbler ("Told you it was chilly even with the sun out.  You should have listened to me and brought a jacket."), my inner worrier ("What if I get lost/attacked - those swans look vicious and what if the deer charge at me and look there's a big black dog coming out of the woods - run for it.") and my inner paranoid schizophrenic ("What are all these other people doing in my head?  It was nice with just the six of us before.")

Eventually, though, after a brisk ten minutes of walking round the lake and up and down hill the voices shut up and I had a lovely walk.  It was sunny, there were ducks, geese, swans, deer, the occasional dog and one or two joggers.   I discovered a sheltered glade full of bluebells (which smelt gorgeous) and frightened myself and two dozen rabbits who were hiding in there.  The sight of all those white tails disappearing into the undergrowth made me chuckle.

So by the end of thirty minutes, I was cheerful and refreshed which is an improvement on my usual mood at that time in the morning but perhaps not quite enough to count as altered consciousness.  Nor am I entirely sure if my inner artist tagged along or not. Perhaps she's saving herself for the trip to the dental hygienist later this morning. 

Comments

[BooksPlease]

Sounds as though you enjoyed the walk in the end. I hope your inner voices weren't too loud for your hygienist visit - mine would have been chunnering away all the way there and in the chair. Maybe that could be more inspiring to write about, if the walk in the park doesn't work.

Have you read "Becoming a Writer" by Dorothea Brand? It's more straight forward than the Cameron book and no mention of the "Great Creator" or whatever.

[SamHouston]

Even if your inner artist was late to join you, this sounds like a wonderful walk. I don't think that I could resist walking in such a wonderful park every morning after having just one walk like the one you described.

Good luck. I'm finding your new direction to be a fascinating one...and wish I had the courage to do the same sometime.

[Nic]

Lovely! I live in Oxford, and with a minor detour (maybe 5 or 10 extra minutes) I could walk to my department every morning via the University Parks. And yet I don't do it nearly as often as I'd like. Now I feel inspired. :-)

[Nic]

PS: I notice you've just read Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners. Did you enjoy it?

[genevieve]

It's a damn good thing to do, you know. I took my artist for a walk along a river yesterday afternoon, after wrangling a piece of writing all day. Still wasn't happy with the writing till after dinner, but the walk was sorely needed, and the notes I made after dinner almost pulled the whole thing together.
Today I need to take my autistic son for a demanding walk so that he will sleep tonight - so the walks I get on my own, I treasure, I actually get to stop and look at the river instead of racing along.
I also iron when I need to think - but I think I'm a bit weird.
Do keep it up, apparently Beckett went for long walks every day. You don't really need to consciously take the artist with you, she'll come out of her own accord after a while.