Walking Meditation

I woke up dirty.  The room was always filled with a thick funk like a thousand dead rats.  The sheets stunk.  The pillow, hollow where my breath had singed a hole through its soul, was a carcass under a sheet.  Mattress springs ached with every movement.

The alarm clock was all the way over there, across the room.  It had to be all the way over there for it to serve any purpose.  If I kept it on a bedside table, like any normal person, it would be too easy to roll over and slap it silent.  I learned that lesson early; alarm clock across the room, on the floor, low and out of reach, maybe under a chair or behind a cabinet.  You didn’t want to know what time it was, only that it was time to get up.  Those evil red numbers, mocking you as they count the hours they steal from you each night.

I kept my alarm clock behind an old bookshelf.  A heavy bookshelf filled with good novels that I looked at when I was bored.  It hissed.  That alarm clock had a temper.  It growled and pouted and like an infant until I crawled out of bed on my hands and knees like a beggar.  It was relentless.  In the dark I shuffled through dirty shirts and banged my forehead on the legs of chairs.  It took all of my might to pull that book shelf away from the wall.  And when I finally got it to slide, inch by inch, I didn’t look at those red numbers.  I unplugged it from the wall and threatened it.  If it didn’t keep its mouth shut, I promised to heave it out the window.

By that time I was awake.  My eyes were adjusting to the light that came in from the window and it was impossible to go back to sleep.  It wasn’t even worth attempting.  I grumbled around in all that funk.  I dressed in the first set of clothes that didn’t smell sour.  There was no point brushing my hair.  It was falling out as fast as I could look at it.  On my pillow, on the floor, between my toes, my hair was leaving and it wasn’t keeping it a secret.

I wore a hat.  It covered the thinning spot on the crown of my head.  There was breakfast, a stale muffin, or a sheet of bread with butter.  I ate as I walked out the door.  Walking was the best medicine in the morning.  It didn’t matter how much funk had filled that room the night before.  After say, twenty minutes of walking, my lungs were fresh again.  The toxins washed away, replaced with horns and sirens and car exhausts.  At least it wasn’t the stink of that bedroom. 

I’d walk until I was awake enough to be vigilant.  There was always something strange going on at that time of the morning.  A broken sprinkler shooting water straight up into the air, a child’s bike that survived the night, two different piles of dog shit on top of one another.  These things would catch my attention.  That’s how I knew I was fully awake.

I trudged along until I found some gas station that sold cheap coffee.  I drank it black, right in station while the attendant wasn’t looking, and then I filled it to the top again.  I paid for the second cup with change.  It was always good to get rid of that change.  It rattled in my pocket and turned me into a dog with bell on its collar.

The coffee didn’t stimulate me, but it loosened me up.  I’m talking about shitting.  Coffee always made me shit.  The gas station, or the public library, or wherever – public toilets are the same no-good disease chambers wherever you go.  I didn’t bother putting down paper on the seat.  If it wasn’t dry, I’d give it a quick wipe.  Otherwise, I’d sit right on the bowl, etched graffiti and all, and I’d let that coffee do its job.

Then it was off walking again.  Right or left, didn’t matter.  I looked for things along the side of the road.  Dead animals, old wallet size pictures with names and messages on the back.  I’d pick them up and look them over.  The pictures, not the dead animals.  I’d give those pictures a good looking over, spotting all the freckles on the person’s chin, or the funny way they scrunched their nose when they smiled.  The backs were the best part.  It always baffled me how ill-equipped people are when it comes to writing things on the back of wallet photos.  Their humor is canned and rusty.  “Don’t mind how fat my face looks,” or “Here’s me and Cindy looking good, lol.”  It always got a little gross reading those notes.  They were personal, but just enough to make them disgusting.  They were never sincere.  I always got photo number eighteen out of twenty-four.  I could tell because the handwriting was sloppy by that point.  Part of the message was always standard.  I could tell those words had been written seventeen times before.  Then they’d scribble their name. I never knew what it said.  Brian or Brianna or Benjamin – who cares.

That’s how I’d spend the beginning of the day.  By the time I got back home, I was hungry enough to eat a full meal.  When I was good and full, it wasn’t hard to sit down and write.  My head was packed with all of those interesting things I discovered during the walk.  I’d write until late in the evening.  Maybe drink a beer after that.  Shower, plug the alarm clock in, move the book shelf, and crawl back into bed.