ESCAPE ADELAIDE SOUTH AUSTRALIA

 

 

The best-spent hour and a half I spend of the day three days a week are when I walk the six kilometers to our local 'fitness centre'.

These walks provide more than an escape and I wonder why everyone in the world does not do the same thing. It was a forced experience to begin with. But often we are shoved into the next thing for our learning, growth, evolution, karma or whatever the trendy concept is.

I have been going to the gym since the year dot as they say in the comic books.

However, the walking experience descended upon me several years ago when my car came to its ultimate death following a series of convulsions; dark smoke pouring out of the exhaust, forming fantastic phantom figurines in the mist. Once I saw Mother Mary smile at me then give me the finger. I wrote the Vatican about it, believing my car had gone through an initiation and was worthy to be referred to as a sacred relic and should be worshipped as is fitting of a sacred relic. They never answered - so I let my older son and his cru piece (bomb is their term) or graffiti it completely. Even the windows were pieced.

Anyway to make a long story short, not having my car, I was forced to take a bus to the gym three times a week. One day, I missed the bus back home and as the buses run once an hour I was not in the mood to wait an hour for the bus. That is if the buses are running. They are rarely on time, and now thanks to the Prime Minister's (a sorry example of a Leo if there ever was one) new GST tax prices are going up about 10% for buses and trains and trams. Wouldn't it be great if we had a 10% increase in service and 10% increase in being on time of public transport? I was in a very grumpy mood, which I usually got into before taking these walks. I thought the hell with it I am going to walk home I don't care if it takes forever. Luckily it did not take forever but only an hour and a half. And somewhere part way through my walk I actually began to enjoy it. I walked through parks, and on trails I didn't know existed and maybe they didn't but I don't care I traverse the paths through life, real or not.

That was three years ago. I never got a car again. Lost interest in the things. My 16-year-old son has one of those nasty things, and I drive a new government car on weekends and I use to borrow my girl friend's car before the government gave me a car on weekends to play with. Otherwise I walk.

Of course the side affect of walking is the physical body side of it all. At 52 I have managed to become un-fat, or rather in our post-everythingism age, post-fat, deconstructed fatness. I stopped eating a lot too. The physical appearance was never a goal; yes I was gaining weight, felt sluggish and was a very grumpy person. But also, I was a single parent of two full on teenage boys. And living in a foreign country and constantly going to family-court, fighting the ex-wife so my baseball playing son could travel interstate and overseas to play ball. These court battles became more and more ugly to the point where the ex got her personal psychiatrist, to write untrue and most slanderous things about me and submitted her great delusion wisdom to the court in affidavits. She had never met me, communicated with me in any form, spoken to anyone who knew me, except her patient - the one I was fighting in court, and she said the dumbest things I have ever heard. For example SHE WROTE:

            "I noted in his writing that he talks about disintegration within his         personality; and there is evidence of thought disorder such as loose             associations and flight of ideas, which together with his general        suspicious demeanour suggests psychotic thinking..."

The good doctor then quotes a few lines out of context from a prose piece, submitted as part of my Honor's degree at Deakin University, and which my university assessor's comments of the exact same piece are

"There is a wonderful energy in your work and some

strong things...I hope (I'm sure you will) that this is only

the start of a long career for you!"

            I received a High Distinction for that piece which she refers to as disintegrated and evidence of a thought disorder. And she goes for several pages with this type of nonsense. I was so amazed at how unethical this all seemed to me that I wrote the South Australian Medical Board a 20,000-word rebuttal of her affidavits. And of course on my long walks I am putting together a law suite and claims of contempt of court etc. against this person. But this is all going off track isn't it? Fortunately for my son, the court has given him permission to play baseball and he is now heading overseas in July to play in a tournament with the Australian National Schoolboys squad then he flies to Toronto to play with the Australian AAA National squad across Canada and on to the U-18 World Series. Six national teams (including U-16 World Series in St Louis and a tour of South Africa) and 7 States teams and every trip overseas and interstate (about 16 trips) has been thanks to the family court of South Australia for their permission.       

Drifted a bit here. But walking is great for the body and the mind. I worked out my court trials whilst walking, and of course won everyone. I worked out designing web pages, my Ph.D, metaphysical ha ha, relationship thingies within my relationships to my children, girl friend, neighbors and the world at large.

So in short. Walk! It is the way to fix the world. No matter what is going in my life, I go out the door and walk, even if it is raining. Amazingly, most people drive to the local deli even if it is only a few blocks away. The television, Internet, radio, sounds everywhere block out our thinking. We never hear the messages we go through life numb. It is our own stupid fault. There is always an excuse. My life was not worth a dog's breakfast before I began to walk. At first I was grumpy because I had to walk, I was upset that there was not enough time. Now I get grumpy if I don't walk. Walking is better than sex, a good meal, everything - well except sleeping, I even enjoy it as much as all my times in court with the ex (several dozen times). I love sleeping, though I don't do it much, save it for a treat. No mobile phone, no CD player or radio, just me and my mind. I have even found routes to the gym, which avoid all suburbia.

So that is it. Walk. There is time. Nothing is more important. Relationships, business, everything can be fixed by thinking it through on a walk. Oh, and stop and look at a tree along the way - no I am not going to say hug the damn tree, we aren't in the '60s anymore, just see that there is more than the rush around stuff we think is important.

As a fact I thought up this article whilst walking.

And I have plenty to think about on my next walk. I erased a disk with my son's complete semester's schoolwork thinking he was done with it. Without any back up this is equivalent to the dog ate my homework. Sometimes parenting comes unstuck. My excuse? Transit Mars returned on that day. As well, Transit Uranus (in my fourth house and home ain't feelin' to good at the moment - I may as well sleep out in the paddock with the roos this week) is in opposition to my five planets and MC and Part of Fortune in Leo now and squaring Jupiter in my first as well as Saturn and all that stuff in Taurus squaring and opposition and beheading me. That's my story and I am sticking to it. Well I have enough to reflect on for the next ten walks, so if you see me walking along your trail, best to give me a miss this week.

Cheers mate!

13/06/00

 

 

 

 

 

 A funny side note to this car

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adelaide public transport - walk instead

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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