jupitersterrain four

I have long felt that a good walk has an arc, like a story, beginning in optimistic expectation, when you see everything with a clear curiosity, before passing through a tough bit where it all seems to be going on too long, or the scenery palls, or the light deadens, or the weather turns, and then resolving, as you push on, into a quiet kind of triumph, perhaps accompanied by a resolution of thought, as you near the end. Whether you walk flat terrain, up or downhill, most walks are a series of mental undulations, in which spirits and perceptions expand and contract in rhythm with the body’s acclimatisations and surroundings, and your thoughts grow outward and shrink inward, too, as though the mind becomes a breathing lung




1.40am