dogs · fitness · walking · winter

Seven Things Christine Noticed On Her Sunday Walk

Christine Hennebury

I left my hatphones at home yesterday because I wanted to have a quiet walk instead of my usual podcast/book listening time.

And besides it just felt like a good day for noticing stuff so I decided to lean into that.

I’m not making this into a lesson in mindfulness or anything but as I was walking, I found it fun to make a list of seven things I noticed as I went along.

And maybe it’s related, maybe it’s a coincidence, but yesterday’s walk did feel more like ‘taking a breather’ than other recent walks have felt.

1) What are my feet doing?

Even though I have been consciously working on it, I realized that I was walking more on the inside edge of my foot today.

So, having noticed, I gave a little thought to walking on the ‘four corners’ of my feet like the YouTube yoga instructors say.

My legs enjoyed the change.

2) How am I breathing?

The ‘four corners’ prompt made me think about my breathing – I’m slowly working on breathing into the sides of my ribs as well as the front and back.

I think someone I follow on Instagram refers to that as ‘breathing on four sides’ but there’s a decent chance I extrapolated that description from something else they said. My brain likes making those kind of leaps.

So, having noticed my breathing, I kept checking in with myself throughout my walk. I wasn’t doing it continuously but it felt good to return to it over and over.

3) Do we have time to stop for a pat or two?

Usually, Khalee and I take the business of walking VERY seriously.

A dog on a leash stands on a sidewalk next to some snow
Khalee is deciding what to sniff next. Image description: Khalee, a medium-sized dog with light brown fur on top and white fur on her paws, belly, ruff and snout, is standing next to some gritty looking snow on a sidewalk. Her body is pointed away from the camera but she is facing a little to the right.

That doesn’t mean we take ourselves too seriously overall but it does mean that walks are about her getting to sniff everything. Walks are not about exercise, they are not about stopping to chat, they are about Khalee’s sniff opportunities and we only stop for her to, ahem, answer calls of nature.

Yesterday though, because I was really in a noticing frame of mind, and because it was warm enough that I didn’t need to wear gloves, I got Khalee to stop so I could pat her head and scratch behind her ears.

Shockingly, she is as soft and furry and great mid-walk as she is when she is curled up next to me at home. And she was very tolerant of my compliments even though she had to pause her sniff-mission in order to receive them.

4) No gloves and borrowed clothes

I love being able to go for a walk without having to put on gloves or snowpants. I did still wear a hat though…my husband’s hat, in fact. And this is his spare jacket, too. It was a borrow-stuff-from-Steve kind of day, apparently.

A selfie of a middle-aged woman in an orange coat and blue winter hat
Guess who left her glasses on the counter? Yep, it was me! I brought my smirk though. Image description: a selfie I took on the sidewalk not too far from my house. It’s a grey day and there is snow behind me next to the sidewalk. I am wearing a blue winter hat that says ‘Fastsigns. More than fast. More than signs.’ on the folded edge, and I am wearing a dark orange jacket with a hood. I’m a middle-aged white woman with a round face, I’m smirking in the photo but it’s a friendly sort of smirk.

5) Decorations are cheery, even out of season

Lots of people still have Xmas decorations up in their trees, on their lawns, and on their railings and I’m happy about it even though they are technically out of season. I’m sure there are lots of reasons they have been left up but today I decided they were left up for me to enjoy and I felt grateful about it.

I also felt grateful for the few houses that have hearts decorating their windows and I decided that I’ll going to put some heart decorations up in my window too. Even though I live on a cul-de-sac and few people go walking past my house, maybe they will cheer someone up.

6) A lot of people in my neighbourhood have wood stoves or outdoor fire pits

My walk was regularly punctuated by the welcoming smell of wood fires.

Every time I smelled a new one, I sent the people a little wish for good company, good comfort, and good snacks around that fire.

Maybe that’s a weird thing to do but that’s exactly the kind of thing that I do all the time. Probably best to get used to it.

7) I delight in unexpected greenery

Apparently one of the houses on my route – a house I have passed almost daily since last June – has ivy on the side of it.

Okay, it may not be ivy, I’m not up on these things, but the the fact remains that there is a house on my walk that has greenery covering a side wall and I have never noticed before.

I could only snap a quick photo because of the aforementioned sniffing business (the sniffing needs to get done and I do NOT want that task to fall to me!) but look at that wall of greenery! Isn’t that marvellous?

A side wall of a house covered in greenery
You’ll probably have to zoom in to see clearly, this is a quick iPhone shot. Image description: a photo taken across the street shows a wall of a brick house that is covered in greenery (ivy maybe?) The house is only partially visible behind a snowbank and the photo was taken at an angle that minimizes the possibility for recognizing the location.

I don’t know why I haven’t noticed (or maybe I noticed and forgot?) There’s a dog near this spot that is sometimes off-leash and Khalee gets a little ansty about that. And there’s often someone out front in another house nearby and I often say hi to them. And I guess this spot is shaded by trees in the summer. Could be lots of reasons I haven’t noticed before but I was happy to notice today.

(Also, why is still so green? Is this a vine-based evergreen? Clearly, there is more to discover here!)

ANYWAY!

The long and the short of it was that Sunday’s walk was especially good and I enjoyed myself immensely.

Khalee says that the slightly warmer weather meant that she had some especially good sniffs.

We thought you’d want to know. 😉

A dog sniffing the snow-covered ground
For some reason that part of the snow required extra sniffing. Let’s not speculate as to why. Image description: a side view of Khalee’s shoulders, head, and front paws. She’s a medium-sized dog with light-brown and white fur and she is leaning her head forward so she can sniff the snow-covered ground intently.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.