Walking with My Mom

As I look back on life and my times with family, certain trends stand out as to where and how our most intimate moments took place.  I remember meaningful conversations with my dad during the long commutes to high school, mulling over thoughts and philosophies and possible book ideas with my sister over wine and cigarettes, and walking, always walking, with my mom.

Some of my earliest memories involve going on long walks (or hikes) with my mom.  Around our neighborhood in Albuquerque, down the dusty ditch roads of Peralta, through humid neighborhoods with waxy looking leaves in Southern California, across shale and meadow in Colorado. Walking.

If you know my mom, you know she doesn't sit still very well.  I think there is a marriage for her between the movement of her limbs and climbing of her heart rate and the ease with which she prays and talks about her thoughts and journeys.  I can't remember a walk with my mom where I didn't hear her talk about how God is teaching her and forming her and helping her to let go of the things that hurt her.  I remember walking the trails of the Sandias, listening to my mom talk and cry about how she felt losing her own mom and listening to her explain how the things she has seen on her hikes have become analogies and lessons for her spiritual journey.

For my mom walking and hiking is almost like an addiction.  I think because with each step she takes, she feels like she is one step closer to her God.  One step closer to making sense of the chaos.  One step closer to being the person she wants to be.  And after decades of walking with my mom, I believe she is. And because of her, I am too.