Health advisors are unanimous: for the benefit of our physical selves, we elders ought to exercise more than we do. One author, Douglas Powell, is so convinced of its value that he risks telling the younger members of his extended family what to do. “If I could make only one suggestion to my children and grandchildren about optimal aging,” he writes, “it would be this: Get regular exercise.”
Among the forms of exercise open to most of us, surely the easiest and one of the best is walking. It’s an activity in which I engage every day myself, starting with an early morning jaunt to the corner store to buy the newspaper and continuing later with another excursion of a mile, back and forth from Harvard Square.
But, addicted as I am to this rewarding activity, I must confess to finding it sometimes boring. Not seldom, I experience an impatience to have the walk over, to be back home again at work in my office. Even in the stimulating urban village where I live, walking sometimes palls on me.
For this drop in interest, journalist and money guru Mary Frakes has the perfect remedy. In her new book, MindWalks, she displays a dazzling variety of approaches to walking. About her inventions, she says: “I discovered that the benefits of walking were even greater from the neck up than they were from the neck down.”
Frakes’ discovery came during a time of stress in her own life. “I developed the concept of MindWalks,” she writes, “at a time when I felt as though the world had chewed me up and spit me out.” Burdened by stress and bewildered at the downturns in her life, she took to walking, something that “gave my mind the time and space needed to work out problems and come to terms with whatever was disturbing my soul.”
Gradually, Frakes started to notice externally things she had never seen before. And deep within, she began to experience the growth of a new self. She has shared her experiences with readers in order to help them find nourishment for their own bodies and souls.
During weeks of carrying the book with me while walking, I have found that nourishment. It’s full of surprising insights that will change the way you both think and feel. Frakes’ writing style is fresh and lively, free of deadening clichés. I even like the size: small, ready to fit into a side pocket, reminiscent of the “big/little” books of my boyhood.
A possible problem for elders who read the book while walking is the danger of getting so absorbed as to trip over a curb or other obstacle. I posed this question to Mary Frakes herself.
The author responded: “I suggest people scan the road ahead of them periodically so that they can see the obstacles.” Besides, she adds, “a MindWalk is, in large part, being attuned to your surroundings and being aware of the world around you.”
About this fine book, I feel only one quibble. In a chapter on walking in the country, Frakes writes: “A MindWalk down a country road puts us back in touch with an environment that is real rather than designed by man.” As a committed urban liver, I reject the idea of reality being limited to natural growth rather than what human beings have built.
A few excerpts from Frakes’ hundred brief essays may suggest their richness:
- “As you walk today, free your subconscious to give you a mental slap on the fore-head.”
- “Deliberately slowing your pace encourages contemplation of both inner and outer environments.”
- “Walking allows you to be a scavenger of things that are too small to be noticed in the everyday rush but that have a beauty all the more special for being easily overlooked.”
- “If you’re feeling blue, take a route you walked at a time you overcame an obstacle.”
- “Mall walking doesn’t have to be boring. It’s all a question of where your mind is.”
- “Think of the physical trade-off between left and right as an outward manifestation of spiritual balance of the interplay of opposing forces.”
MindWalks will be available in book stores in middle or late June. It can be ordered be-fore that by a toll-free telephone call to (877) MINDWALK or (617) 576-3234.
If you are interested in starting a group to do MindWalks, Mary Frakes will send you a small booklet with instructions.
On another subject, let me alert readers to a television program scheduled for Channel 2 showing on the evening of Wednesday, June 2nd. Called “Stealing Time: The New Science of Aging,” the production is sponsored in part by the American Association of Retired Persons.
On the basis of the videotape promo sent me by AARP, I already feel mixed about its main message – – “We are close to turning back the clock on aging.” But I think readers will find it stimulating.
Richard Griffin