Just A Quickie....

....before heading out to take a walk on this beautiful first day of August (August!! already!!)  I was thinking on my earlier walk today how I used to walk all the time wearing headphones, striding to my music, focused rather inwardly, although noticing my surroundings but probably not taking them in as I thought I did.  Because when I walk now, I don't wear headphones.  I stopped doing that during the pandemic, simply for the reason that if someone was coming up from behind, I wanted to get out of their way and give them a wide berth in case they weren't going to give one to me.  Not wearing my headphones opened up the world for me, the sounds, the sights, the feels.  It's totally different.  I love walking to birdsong or cicadas now or to children laughing or the myriad other sounds that aren't muffled anymore because I'm not shut up inside my music.  Not that I don't love music, but I don't love to listen to it anymore on my walks.  I guess we all change up our routines every now and then.  I've been walking as exercise and for my good mental health for, oh, decades and it wasn't until the pandemic that I put away my headphones.  It's hard for me to imagine now going back to walking with music.  Nope, this blog isn't really earth-shattering today, just one gal's observations, which is what I do more easily now on my walks :-)

Wherever the day takes you, I hope it's where you want to go, with a song in your heart and a smile in your soul.