My daily barefoot walking/steps target is 3.1 miles for this week and so far I'm hitting it. Last week it was my left leg that hurt, now it's my right leg-- an old familiar pain which when I was younger I didn't know how to stretch away or manage. It's why I quit going barefoot originally-- somewhat nervous as to whether trying to work past it will reveal some inherent flaw in my muscle or bone structure that might prevent me from hitting my long term goal of 10 miles or more a day.
The sheepskin I ordered arrived before the leatheworking tools. So now I am literally laying on top of it, waiting until I can begin really working on it. The good news is it's quite warm and adds some more padding to my floor-bed. Have I mentioned yet that I dislike the regular american type of bed? Takes up tons of space in a room, is bad(in my experience) for the spine and joints, and is hell to move from one room to another. There is a large bed in my current room, a bed which I don't use. If I could be rid of it, I would have more than double my current 'living' space. Unfortunately, it's not my bed to throw away or move.
I have recently become fascinated by Sashiko stitching and Boro. It never occurred to me to stitch across a given patch to further anchor it to the underlying piece. I'll be keeping the technique in mind, though at this point I'm nowhere near wearing a hole through any of my clothes. Unlike five years ago-- I have so many! I am not living in just one pair of jeans and a couple shirts.
I am finding with walking even just the one more mile than before I started my program of intentionally increasing distance there are some changes:
I eat more, about the expected amount of 100-200 calories, but this is also partly due to the weather getting colder.
My sleep is better, longer duration, less difficulty falling asleep, less anxiety around 'enough' sleep.
Because my only real goals each day are to do a set amount of my paid work, and a set amount of walking-- I feel free and light in regard to my time. Only on days where social demands soak up time do I fail to get 'enough' done, though there are benefits there too: a bit of rest, and whatever benefit comes from social time/chores/etc.
I am less stressed and more robust to my own depressive tendencies. I still have sad thoughts. I still feel anger. But I recover much faster than I ever have before. Even so, that doesn't excite me-- it just solidifies for me that the path I am on, that of intentional physical training, even in something well, pedestrian, like walking long distances, is what I'm suited for.
Currently, I am writing less and reading much more. Having access to the local library's digital catalog via my phone has been a gamechanger, and has consumed and overwritten most all the previous time I would have spent on video games, TV and social media. (Though I did recently commit to rewatching Golden Kamuy. Because it's just that damn good. This coming from someone who answers most questions about TV with "I don't watch TV." Which is true: I rarely find anything worth going onto my 'rewatch' list.)
I recognize that most of the time I prefer silence or small conversations. Certain people talk a lot-- and it's clear from how they do it that they're not pausing to see if I'm still with them. They don't notice my lack of engagement, the lack of responses, the focusing of my attention elsewhere. Talking is not listening, and I often notice in those situations that it occurs to me that I should consider asking the other party to slow down or shut up. I have not yet done this: it is less of a hassle to weather the storm and then move on with my day, so far anyway.
I am sitting on a few things that I am on the fence about, considering saying goodbye to. A pile of old buddhism books, of which I have digital copies, and also my magic card collection, which I have barely played with over the past few years. And 99% of it isn't valuable enough for resale. And yet my friends still talk about playing sometime... and I don't have the time now. But it's at least another way to hang out with them... I could sort the collection and cut it down... but that also will take time and energy. In short, I'm just not to that point yet.
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