Soul Chronicles: Changing The Way We Walk In The World
Segment 12 in our series Soul Chronicles for the Chronically Ill
by Shaler McClure Wright
You’re listening to episode twelve of Soul Chronicles, offering a soulful perspective on how to navigate the unique challenges of living with ongoing health conditions. Special thanks to Health Story Collaborative for hosting this audio column. My name is Shaler McClure Wright and I live with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.
Story - “Changing the Way We Walk in the World”
Today I’d like to talk about the joy of walking. Putting one foot in front of the other. As in taking a stroll, jaunt, or constitutional. Walking is such a pleasant way to bookend a day. Yet in spite of the pleasure, sometimes we complain when we have to walk too far, or even worse, we may take for granted our ability to do so at all. And in my experience, once I start taking something for granted, it no longer gives me as much pleasure. Or perhaps I’d be more accurate to say I grow numb to the pleasure. And once numb, it can take a shock—like the loss of it—to remind me of how good I once felt.
I’ve lost my ability to take a walk at two different times in my life. My first loss lasted almost a year, and the second spanned about seven weeks. Don't get me wrong, I could still get from point A to point B, but not without difficulty. The difference between the two lay in the difficulties of trying to walk with illness v.s. injury. And to highlight those differences, I’d like to tell you the story of how each episode affected me and offered me a unique lesson in how I see myself in relation to the world.
One of my favorite habits is taking a daily walk to the sea. I live about a mile and a half from the ocean, and seven years ago, when I was in the throes of benzo withdrawal, that mile and a half felt like an impossibly long distance—because the path to the sea is rocky, with steep hills, and I was in pain. But I kept trying, even though I didn’t get very far.
One hot and humid day in August, I was sweating so much my glasses were foggy. Swarms of no-see-um gnats were buzzing even louder than the ringing in my ears, and thanks to a lingering sense of vertigo, my world was spinning with every step.
The hilly terrain made my heart race, and on that day, when the pounding got too intense, I stopped to rest at a stream. I seated myself on a smooth, warm rock rising above the surface of the water, and soaked my bare feet and ankles in its shade downstream. I was grateful for the moment of relief, but also discouraged. I could go no further. And while I sat, poised on my ‘thinking stone’, I felt my focus shift quietly to listening.
The simple act of listening to running water reminded me that there is a flow to life, and we fare better when we try not to resist the current. But on that day I felt like I was tethered to stillness, and the best I could do was watch life flow by.
I never made it to the ocean that day, and wondered if I ever would. Then, while still seated, I became aware of the warm sunlight inviting me to look up at the bright, cloud-painted sky, while my toes dug deep into the soft sediment of decomposing leaves, inviting me to enjoy the cool calm of the earth. And even though I was in a weakened physical state, I drew strength from feeling grounded, centered, and lifted by the beauty of the natural world. Because I was living with pain that was not visible to others, it was easy to feel overlooked. So being with nature was a welcome source of solace. I learned that day that even when my illness required absolute stillness, I could still be actively engaged with nature.
A few days later, when I was feeling a bit better, I stopped along my path to the sea once again—this time to watch an adult Blue Heron take off from an inlet in the marsh. But instead of flying in a straight line from the inlet to the ocean, he took time to circle his little cove, not once, but three times—just as the Blue Angels might’ve flown in a formation of honor. I wonder if he was paying tribute to the thick beds of sea grass that had given him shelter and kept him safe? Right then I made a promise to myself to honor the beauty of my surroundings in the same way— by taking time, and consciously acknowledging its existence.
The ocean continued to wait for my arrival, and as my physical discomforts subsided, the hills became easier to climb. And as weeks became months and months became a year, I continued to take each uphill step with growing confidence and vigor. I remember the first time I made it to the top of the biggest hill—the last one, leading directly down to the sea—I could hear the waves rolling into shore before I could see them, and I could taste the salt on my face before I could smell it. And from that vantage point of height, I claimed victory; the ocean was even more compelling than I had remembered. I like to believe she felt my return; that my presence mattered.
Looking back now, I can see that my daily walk served not only as exercise to increase my stamina, but also as a reminder that I am an integral part of the natural world. To illustrate what that sense of oneness might feel like, let me return to the words one of my favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, in “A Walk”, translated by Robert Bly:
“My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far beyond the road I have begun,
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has an inner light, even from a distance-
and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.”
To have felt the inner light of the natural world is to have felt a soulful connection. And to have been changed by it, even without understanding it, is a soulful act. Because of my walks during that time of impairment, I learned to recognize my relationship with nature as unconditional. It was as if Mother Nature could sense my invisible pain and instead of retreating, or avoiding, she welcomed me.
Now let’s look at the second time I I lost my ability to walk freely…
Once I was able to resume my daily walk to the sea, and for the next seven years, I continued to grow stronger. I still had another chronic health condition, but it didn’t limit my mobility in the same way benzo withdrawal had. But I also began to take walking for granted again. Yep, I guess I’m one of those people who needs to be taught a lesson more than once before it sinks in. And just last October, I was offered that chance.
I traveled to Cannon Beach, Oregon with a dual purpose—one, to spend quality time with my brother; and two, to escape my newly empty nest back home. My only child had just started college in September, and I needed to rediscover myself as someone other than his mom. Since walking had always been therapeutic for me, a trip to Cannon Beach sounded ideal. The Oregon coast is so dramatic, it seemed like a perfect place for soulful reflection. Indeed, with a sky darkened by flocks of pelicans, and the towering landmark Haystack Rock—dotted with nesting puffins and reeking of fresh guano—I felt I had stepped into a world where nature was more dominant than humans.
I was walking barefoot on the cool, firm sand with my brother and his two large dogs, when I failed to notice the Great Pyrenees stopped abruptly right in front of me. Instead I had been looking up, admiring the looming presence of Haystack, and in my moment of distraction, stubbed my foot against his motionless hind leg. After making sure I hadn’t hurt him, I noticed my baby toe was sticking out at a strange angle and felt a warm pain spreading across the top of my left foot. Soon it turned eggplant-purple. Turned out I had fractured a toe and metatarsal, and I was surprised by how much that encumbered me. Those tiny broken bones meant that once again, I would temporarily lose my ability to walk with ease. This time, not due to an invisible illness, but due to a visible physical injury that included a cumbersome orthopedic boot.
I never could’ve anticipated that due to this injury, my journey’s purpose of rediscovering myself would now be weighted down by a clunky, white stormtrooper boot—limiting my movement to a slow shuffle, along with a limp and an aching lower back. That boot became the center of my world and literally changed the way I walked in it. Because of the boot, I had to walk slowly and move with care. It was a visible impediment and caused me to stand out. You might even say that boot became a symbol of my physical limitation around which others could gather. Because that’s exactly what happened.
For the first time in my life, the pain and discomfort I was experiencing was easy to see. Friends and family could relate, and went out of their way to be helpful, show their concern and offer sympathy. I felt seen, and appreciative of their support. And then, to my surprise, I began to feel a resentment growing inside me. Resentment for years of loneliness while living with ongoing episodes of yet another invisible illness; one that until recently, I hadn’t even been able to name. It was an ugly feeling—resentment—but since it had reared its head, I decided to pay attention.
And when I did, I came to realize that I had played a part in my loneliness too. I had not made enough effort to help others understand how I felt. I had not invited them to cross the threshold to my invisible world. And just as I hadn’t realized how much walking meant to me until I couldn’t walk, so too I hadn’t realized how much feeling seen by others meant to me. In fact, I hadn’t even recognized that I felt unseen, until I felt its return.
My son had always been more aware of my ongoing health challenges than others because he and I spent the most time together. Now that he had gone off to college, I became aware of how much health information I had held back from others. And I wondered, “How can I feel such resentment when I’ve made no effort to be honest about my pain?” And then, looking down at my clunky white boot for the hundredth time that day, I realized I wanted to learn how to share my feelings more honestly, especially my feelings about living with illness.
Then, with the boot symbolically keeping my attention focused on my feet, I suddenly had a kicker of an insight: After I’d kicked myself out of my empty nest, and then accidentally kicked the hind leg of a giant dog, I was left to find out the most important kick of all would be the kick I needed to give myself in the proverbial ass. I discovered I needed to be more open with others if I wanted to feel more visible to others.
It’s safe to say that if I hadn’t lost my son as a live-in confidant, or if I’d been without the inconvenience and limitations of visible injury, it would not have been possible for me to recognize that my perception of being invisibly ill was at least partially of my own making. In addition to learning I never wanted to take walking for granted again, I also learned that I need to be my own best advocate. Any one of us can change the way we walk in the world. And when we do, it can change the way others perceive us. But it’s up to us to make ourselves visible and muster the courage to make that choice.
I’d like to leave you with one final image that just came to me today, while once again walking my daily path to the sea. I was taking a break from writing this chronicle and stopped at my special stream. And as is often the case, the water was patiently holding a message for me: There were five little bubbles circling around a shallow pool on the water’s edge, but none of them was big enough to break free from the swirling centrifugal force of the pool and return to the flowing stream. It wasn’t until they merged together, until five bubbles became one, that they gathered enough energy to move forward again. When the bubbles were separate, they were stuck. When they came together, they could move again. Such is the power of opening ourselves to others.
For those of you living with pain that is hard to see, I hope this story leaves you feeling less alone. Becoming more visible is a process, and it’s not always easy. But perhaps that’s to remind us—not to take it for granted.
Go here for more episodes of our Soul Chronicles series.
Shaler McClure Wright is fascinated with the mysteries of creative process, the healing power of creativity, and the creative synthesis of method acting, intuitive learning and depth psychology. A graduate of Wesleyan University and The Actors Studio, Shaler has worked as an actor, writer and educator for more than 40 years, and lives in southeastern Connecticut with her husband and son.
Website: www.shalermcclurewright.com
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