My Silly Little Brisk Winter Walks

It is very easy, particularly when the temperature and wind chill drop below freezing and the days are short, to be tempted to spend the winter hibernating. After a day of work the allure of my bed is sometimes too strong to even contemplate pulling on a parka and hat and going to get a drink with a friend at the bar, or even going out to the grocery store to get food to make something for dinner. What felt novel last winter — inventing new ways to see friends outside in the cold, creatively, pre-vaccine, or spending my time trying on new hobbies at home, or developing a new recipe — no longer feel fulfilling, but like a chore. It’s February, and we’re in the thick of the winter doldrums.

To counteract this, I have developed one antidote and one antidote only. It may not be sustainable, and I may yet grow to hate it. But for now it’s doing its job. Every weekend when I wake up, before I can roll over and fall asleep again and before I even so much as check the weather forecast, I get out of bed and get dressed. I pull on my parka and my Blundstones and a hat and gloves and I load up an hour of music on queue and put in my Airpods and go outside, and I start walking, and I keep walking — for a half hour, an hour, an hour and a half, until my phone dies. Sometimes I have a destination in mind — the park, the farmer’s market, the library, a kolache bakery I like in Bed Stuy, but sometimes I’m just walking briskly, with a purpose, but aimlessly.