Seventeen Minutes of Bliss

I took a twenty-three minute walk on my lunch break today. The weather is beautiful—eighty degrees, sunny, breezy. It’s a little humid, but as I was walking along in the shade, it wasn’t so bad. But you don’t care about that, do you? You just want to know why I only got seventeen minutes of bliss out of a twenty-three minute walk, right?

Well, I left the building, so of course, for the first minute, I was thinking about how glad I was to be getting out of the stuffy confines of my office, away from the stress and piles of work that need to be done by the end of the week. As I started walking, I spent another minute wondering if my new daily walks were going to end up being a problem. My lunchtime activities have been a problem in the past—where and with whom I chose to eat, whether I flipped through a magazine or read a book during my meal—so I’m worried that now someone will complain that I’m snarfing down my lunch in seven minutes, and that’s not how a lunch break is supposed to work. It is lunchtime, so I guess I say, “Bite me.”

As I continued to walk through the surrounding residential area, I was lulled into a sense of peace. It’s an older part of the city and the homes are old-fashioned with sweeping, beautiful landscapes. Some of the houses are on very small lots, but the landscaping is just gorgeous. (Living in a brand new subdivision, I miss out on simple pleasures in life. Like trees that are more than six feet tall. And bushes that have leaves. And rose bushes that actually produce roses.) I love the yards with gentle swells on the property, rock gardens, weeping willows, elms, maples, snowball bushes, almost any plant or flower you can think of or imagine, including some that I’ve never seen before. Beautiful.

As my feet carried my body farther away from the office, I felt like I was walking backward in time. It was like living back in Chicago. There were moms out with their young children, older folks out doing yard work or sitting on lounge chairs in their driveways. Even the trees were spreading their “helicopters”. You know, the little seed pods with the wings? I scooped up a handful of them and they all blew into the wind, spinning downward.

For the next three minutes, I thought about how relaxed I felt, reveled in good feelings, old feelings, enjoying the summery weather, breathing in the earthy smell as new plants burst forth from the ground.

I don’t remember the eighteen minutes after that. I know I was walking, but I was so clear-headed, so peaceful, there wasn’t a single thought in my mind. It wasn’t until I hit the main road again and was approaching the parking lot to my office that I started thinking about how I didn’t want to go inside. I wanted to join those other mothers who were outside playing with their children. I wanted to find the older folks and sit in a lounge chair and drink lemonade. Of course, duty calls and I entered the building, slowly trudging back to my office.

But you know what? Those seventeen minutes of bliss lasted. I feel so relaxed right now that I’m using my afternoon break to dash off this post for our blog. It took me only a few minutes to write because I knew I just wanted to share my good feelings. Here’s hoping some bliss is headed your way.