Walk

Blog11

“Still doing OK here?” Tessely asked. 

“We’re still digging in!”  Mickey returned. “Keep the salad coming!”

Tessely waited graciously on Mickey and me at our favorite Italian restaurant yesterday.  At the end of the meal, she tempted us with delicious, mouth-watering dessert, but we tenderly refused it.  Too full! 

I took up Tessely in on small chat; I like to know a bit about folks who wait on me, those pleasant ones, especially.  Somewhere between her left-over packing (“It’s always good to take home what you’ve paid for, but couldn’t consume at the time,” I rationalized silently.), table clean-up, and summing up meal cost, I posed, “So- how many plates have you dropped and broken in your comings and comings?”

With her free hand, she gestures and let’s out, “Knock on wood; so far, so good.  None of that - thank goodness,” she added.  “My teammate, however, just dropped her tray earlier; glasses and plates all went every which way.”  She ends the story, “Poor woman; she had to quickly figure an exit and take a ‘walk of shame’!”

I let Tessely’s interesting, yet intriguing remark - ‘a walk of shame’ - cook up in my head as we drove away and head home.  Why was it a walk of shame?  Dropping a tray of plates and glasses, after all, is bound to happen in that environment.  It was one unavoidable hazard of the trade.   There was nothing to wail or fuss about, really.  It was one event from which one should pick up the pieces of embarrassment and simply walk away.  End.

The ability to walk … the very act, allows us to either advance or delay our thought and action.  To be able to walk up to someone so as to clarify a misunderstanding is a rare opportunity up for grabs. We should practice it -whenever it’s called for.  We all ‘walk the walk’.  We do the things necessary that people expect us to do in a situation.  We make sense of whatever is before us.  We toil and take up a task to challenge us even when we walk into seeming dead ends. By all means, we give our hardest and best so we don’t give up and walk out; walking out on a pressing conflict, a hard-to-fathom issue of life, brands us as a failure.  We walk on to get us going, get something done.  While we mustn’t walk off life’s bruises or injuries, we stand firm and walk tall at all costs.  We make sure no one walks over us.  We guard that someone would not just walk free … walk easy … for impinging on us an injustice.  When our day-to-day walk reflects that of what’s right, what’s good, for our neighbor and self, we claim the right to walk on air – proud. 

There’s no getting around it.  We live and fulfill all manner, and all cause of walk.  There’s unending walk of expectation to claim.  It is out there at every which way and turns, at the right time and place. 

Take a walk.