The Lost Art of Walking

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‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’, or so Lao-tzu, the Chinese Taoist sage, is often quoted as saying. In fact, this is a free translation of what he actually said, which was more like, ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet’. My own feeling is that with most journeys, and especially the metaphoric sort, it’s extremely difficult to decide where and when that first step occurs. We’re already in motion before we know where we’re going, before we even realize that we’re on a journey at all. Designating a particular step as first or, for that matter, last is a tricky and often arbitrary business.

However, in my own case there was one particular step that was very different from any of the other steps I’ve ever taken in my life. It was a misstep, a stumble, a fall, a disagreement with gravity, a bone-breaking coming together of all-too-fragile body and all-too-solid earth.

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