“Perhaps when we no longer know what to do, we have reached our true work, and when we no longer know where to go, we have begun our true journey.” ~ Wendell Berry
I was watching TV one night when something on the screen made me drop everything and be quiet. It was a scene where the main character, a man who loved his daughter very much, could not change what was happening to her. So he went out into the wilderness as a form of prayer.
I put the remote control down and didn’t take it back. Not because what he did was foreign to me, but because it was familiar deep in my bones. I’ve been doing this all my life without ever having a name for it.
The first time was in my twenties. I recently met the woman I would marry and am still married to today. He lived in an apartment off the Sawgrass Expressway, maybe seven or eight miles from where I lived at the time.
I could have driven. I had a car. But I wanted to see him, and something in me had to go on foot that day.
I trudged onto University Drive and just kept going, past the strip malls and traffic lights and onto the side of the freeway. By the time I got to his door, my legs were tired and my shirt was soaked. But I was happy.
On the way there I struggled to hold on. He deserved this. Somewhere along the way, I learned that tenderness often has to travel through the body before it can reach another person.
My parents live about five miles away and I’ve walked that land more times than I can count. Walking, step by step, through the corners and yards where I grew up affects my condition. By the time I get there, I am fully present and appreciative of the gift of being able to see them.
Sometimes the person I reach out to is my son, who wears the number five in sports because he was too young to explain why. When I learned that Brooks Robinson, a Hall of Fame third baseman whom I admired for both his talent and kindness, also wore this number, I walked several miles to and from the baseball card store. I wanted my son to know that someone who wore his number was a person worth looking up to, and it felt right to take this journey.
Once, when I was carrying more stress from work than I knew what to do with, I walked fourteen miles to the beach. I didn’t tell anyone. I just walked until the street ended, the ocean in front of me, and the tension lifted from my shoulders.
These long walks have always meant that to me. A way of transferring something from the inside out. A way to use my whole body to say that this challenge, person, or moment matters enough to be honored.
A few years ago, my daughter went through a difficult time. My wife and I did everything we could to support him. But I was left sitting with that helpless feeling that every parent knows, where they would trade places with their child if they could.
Sometimes all you can do is love someone from a distance and hope it somehow works out. I did everything else I could think of and came up empty. So I laced up my sneakers and headed west.
I passed bus stops and plazas, empty lots where the city starts to thin out, passed the point where the sidewalks end and the land becomes something wilder. It was cold in South Florida, probably in the forties, but I kept going. I kept going until the last gas station was behind me and there was nothing but open space in front of me.
I stopped at the fence that marks the start of the Everglades. The sawgrass stretched all the way to the horizon and the sky was endless. Nothing out there knew my name and didn’t care what I was worried about.
My feet hurt. My lungs were working hard. I exhausted myself to get there.
Standing on the edge of the wilderness, I allowed myself to want everything to be okay in the most raw, unguarded way possible. I stood there for a long time. Then I turned around and headed home.
When I got back, the temperature had dropped to the mid-thirties. I went out into the backyard and into the pool and the cold hit me like a wall. I stayed in that water thinking about him the whole time.
It was a small act, and perhaps a foolish one. But I felt it was the right thing to do.
I don’t know if anything helped, although he is better now. I’m not pretending the road or the cold water had anything to do with it. But I think now I understand what I’ve been doing out there all these years.
When love runs deep enough, it builds up inside you and needs to move. Some talk to friends, some write, and some hang on until things get better. I pour myself out to those I love until I’m spent.
I’ve learned that no matter how much we want to, we can’t always change things for the ones we love. Something about acceptance that takes time and distance. Walking is how I work through what I can’t resolve so that I can be more fully available and grounded to those I care about.
I think I was so deeply touched by the scene on television that night because I was doing what that man was doing long before I saw him on the screen. Neither of us had a better choice, and neither of us needed it. She went into the wilderness for her daughter and I walked to the edge of the Everglades for mine.
We don’t always get the answers, but the love is there, and we find ways to keep expressing it anyway.
I think that might be the most humane thing.
About Daniel H. Shapiro
Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is the keynote speaker, author and mentor. He is passionate about human relationships and the stories we carry with us. To learn more about his book, 5 Practices of a Caring Mentoror about your mentoring and speaking services, check it out yourinherentgoodness.com.
