Mental Health Awareness Week 2024 - Daily Blog

Ever since I learned to, I've been walking all my life. I'm a 68-year-old non-driver you see so it's very much a case of needing to. All my working life was sedentary, latterly in front of a computer screen, tap tap tapping away for six, seven, eight hours. Each day I'd walk an hour to and from the tram stop between central Manchester and home (this was pre-Covid and working from home) and the best part of the day was the walk in and out - a time to think through the challenges that lay ahead and to de-stress and calm down from the challenges met. It was good me time - as those conversations with that monkey on my shoulder ebbed and flowed knots untied.  

I'm retired now and it's still wonderful how important these daily walks are for me. I'm noticing more: the seasons changing, the sound of birds, the evolving architectural transformation of central Manchester, the way sunlight sometimes glares, sometimes softens, the smell and the noise of things. Walking continues to de-stress me, helping me work through any distress. It's a great problem-solving device. Conversations in your head flow freely, unedited. Permission is given.  

It's no surprise that Leopold Bloom, the hero of James Joyce's stream of consciousness novel Ulysses spends his day (Bloomsday) walking around Dublin. Or that when a 20-year-old JS Bach sought inspiration from the greatest German composer of his time, Buxtehude, he decided to make the journey from Arnstadt to Lubeck on foot. All 236 miles. Imagine what heavenly music came into his head as he stepped out. Google greatest novels about walking and there are reams - WG Sebald's August meander around Suffolk, The Rings of Saturn, is a favourite. 

There is an irony in seeking inspiration to walk by indulging in that most sedentary of all activities - reading. So, as you read this, look up, out and beyond.. Step out but please, no headphones. Absorb the sounds that are all around you. It's springtime, the pretty-pretty ring time when birds do sing and humans step out and breathe in the southerly winds. May the road rise up to meet you and may the wind be always on your back. 

Joe Keaney 

Something of his Art: Walking to Lubeck with J. S. Bach by Horatio Clare | Goodreads

The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald – walking through history | WG Sebald | The Guardian