I like to walk...walk. It is a Multi-Faceted Splendored Thing

Greetings Thrill Seekers and Fellow Time Travellers recently whilst I was walking on my urban safari [around the environs of Panania ]I was musing that in several weeks it will be my fifth anniversary of walking this particular route in Panania/ Picnic Point.

I thought about the past five years in terms of walking the same route twice a day, every day for I estimate that I've only missed about 25 days- weather, flu, etc.

The benefits of all this exercise are physically great, but it's so much more than that. It's an opportunity for me to socialise and watch the comings, the goings and the growth in my neighborhood.

To me this social aspect has become as important as the physical aspect of my daily past time.

As I have scribed in previous blogs, I spend a minimum of 3 hours per day walking as part of my rehab.

I am often asked “Why do you spend so much of your day walking?”

My answer after some consideration was “Well you see. I found out as the result of a stroke what it was like, to be unable to do one of the most basic of human functions - walking!’

So, I want to ensure that that I never experience that again”.

But there is more..so more than just walking.

I enjoy the solitude of the early morning, the pinkish tentacles of the sun creeping over the horizon.

The sounds of suburbia stirring, the workmen getting into their trucks, off to the building sites, the sound of birds warbling as they greet the new day.

I love meeting my fellow early walkers, the 2 Indian ladies with their lovely sing song accents.

The young mother with her two children in the pram out for a quick walk – the children insisting on “high fives”, the Labradoodle who recognizes me from fifty metres away and charges me for a hug!

The elderly lady whose paper I pick up and put on her front steps every morning. Sadly, the other elderly lady whom I did this for passed away some months ago.

I still say a quiet “Good Morning Kay” when I pass her former house.

Another highlight is when I first started walking five years ago, I met a young married couple and a few months later she announced that she was pregnant.

I now see them with a 4-year-old son who sits proudly on his father's shoulders while she pushes her pram with her recently born daughter

At about 4 o'clock I do my second walk. My special walk

This has a special highlight because halfway through I stop by my special spot, my seat in the park where I sit quietly for about 45 minutes and muse on the events of the day.

I greet the chap who drives past in his electric wheelchair with the world's worst mullet haircut on his way to the Picnic Point Bowlo for "a couple of cold ones with his Vietnam Nasho mates"

So walking is much more than just a physiological exercise; it's an opportunity for me to look at the rich tapestry of life in suburbia.

I see growth, I see youth and sadly I see passing but then again, we are all mortal.

It makes me feel good-it's a pastime that I would strongly recommend

My Key Messages.

Well children of the Cosmos, my stroke was an epiphany- a message from the Grande Buddha to change my life and lifestyle or else my days were numbered!

Stroke survivors if you can get out and walk even if it's for half an hour every day or as much as you can fit into your daily schedule.

Not only will you better yourself physically but it will help you in both a social and spiritual sense

Remember. Keep moving towards the Enlightenment- for that is where the answers abide.

Brian A Beh, - A Stroke Survivor and Habitual Walker