Jana Remy
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Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
walking
deep thoughtsdisability

walking

written by Jana April 7, 2011

stormy
Today at lunchtime I walked a few blocks to my favorite coffeeshop and had a quick sandwich. Then I picked up a latte “to go” and headed out the door.

I wasn’t sure where I was headed, only knowing that I needed to walk for awhile. I meandered past rows of historic cottages, smelling the roses that drooped over picket fences. I walked past the student housing, seeing the undergrads milling around and heading back to campus for class. I crossed block after block of streets where I’d never walked before.

There was an inordinate amount of pleasure in feeling the wind pull my skirt around my lower legs, and whipping my scarf out in front and to the side of my body. The dark clouds that were overhead when I began my walk were mostly gone by the time I finished, and the sun was shining.

Earlier this morning, I’d logged into an interesting web-based project called “The Wilderness Downtown” that overlays images of running children with a googlemap of your childhood home (try it, it’s quite powerful). As my address, I entered in the home where I lived in Colorado–coincidentally the place I lived when I slowly lost my ability to run–as my knee lost its strength and flexibility while filling with cancer. I can’t remember the last time I was able to run, although I do remember trying that one time in 7th grade PE class when we were doing hurdles and I found that I simply couldn’t shift my weight onto the sore knee anymore.

The project prompts you to write a postcard to your childhood self. What I wrote:

“You will never run again. But you will walk. Miles and miles you will walk. And you will ski, and bike, and paddle, and swim. Sometimes you will cry, and hurt, and be alone. But more often than that, you will smile and laugh and have people to love.”

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Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2011-04-08

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4 comments

aubrey April 7, 2011 - 2:42 pm

wise and sweet! xoxo

Reply
Penny April 7, 2011 - 3:31 pm

Ugh, google streetview came to my old neighborhood when my old house was being gutted–there’s a big skip in the driveway, and the trees in front are gone. I was the sixth and last generation of my family to live there. I guess everyone ran away.

Reply
Jean Bellinger April 7, 2011 - 8:58 pm

I attended Chapman 1963-1965 before heading to USC in LA. Loved the walks also and occasional lunches at downtown drugstores. Everything was wonderful one day as I was walking around downtown with a classmate Lila Sparks until we heard JFK had been shot. Headed back to campus, and classes were cancelled.

Reply
Alisa April 8, 2011 - 2:47 pm

This pulled me out of Google Reader to comment. Love this post. Love your postcard to yourself. Love.

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About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

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