I'm Adalimone and this is the slowdown.

I love to walk.

When I'm healthy and mobile enough to walk, it's one of my favorite things to do to

re-center myself or rather de-center myself.

Growing up in Northern California, I could walk from my house in Glenellan to the Sonoma

Regional Park, the backway through the oak trees with a short path that trespassed

on private property.

I'd walk for hours there with my dog, a yellow lab named Dusty.

Later, when I was a teenager, I remember once my stepmother didn't love the fact that

I came home from school and immediately turned on the TV.

So she told me to just go for a walk to get out of the house.

I was so mad at her and so despite her, I did as she told me, I went for a hike.

And a horrible thing for my teenage self happened.

She was absolutely right.

I felt so much better among the trees and high grasses and even as I watched carefully

for rattlesnakes and mountain lions, I felt like my brain was emptying.

All the gossip and politics of junior high unstuck itself from my skin.

And I was reminded that I was part of something larger than school or friend groups or someone

I had a crush on.

From then on, I'd walk many days after school and I did so through high school and then

through college, walking down to gasworks park almost every day, watching the boats and

seagulls pass by.

...