good atlas

I’ve been walking a lot, lately. Walking for the sake of it, with no destination in mind. There are so many beautiful observations and things to learn about life through walking. 

I started walking this way when I realised just how much it helped take my body out of the throes of my mind in the deep of my depression five years ago. It’s been five years, and walking, amongst other things, was one of the ways I inch closer towards the fullness of my being, connected to tiny but myriad ways to the universe. Like the soft touch of moss, or the sound of yellow Ioras sing-songing as they flit by. Walking is how I fall in love with life again, and again, and again. 

It’s a wonder how I walk the same roads and parks so many times yet always find a way to discover something new. I pair this with birding, a thing I picked up two years ago after reading Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, and found myself resonating with the notion of readjusting my conception of time and learning to tend to it at my own pace. 

Walking, as much as birding, as much as watching trees like you’re in an art gallery, slows the world down to a scale that becomes delightfully tangible to the body. Alone, or with a friend that shares the same dispositions as you, and time no longer becomes a matter of concern. The scale of your existence warps. You find a magnitude of childlike joy in just watching a frog leap clumsily away from you after having felt your finger on its skin. You notice where the sun hits a tree branch at a certain hour of the day and there is exactly where moss or a gargantuan bird’s nest fern will grow. 

“How do bird’s nest ferns grow? Are they parasites or is this mutualism or commensalism? What bird is that? What fruit is this? Is that leafless tree truly dead?…”

And the loneliness I thought is something that afflicts me is really an immense space to fill with possibilities and my love for the world as I notice the abundance of it, slowly slowly, gently gently. 

And just like that, two, three, four hours pass me by, and I realise I have just been walking. And what a wonderful feeling that is! 

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During a recent trip to Australia to visit family, my sister booked a staycation at a cabin in the woods. The town had only three shops — a grocer that is also a cafe, a pub that serves local brews, and a general store. By 5PM, the winter sun began to dip behind the hills beyond a farm. I was walking very slowly, with earphones lodged in my ears listening to my 2025 playlist. I stood a long while watching the sun sink, bringing with it its last light. In front of me, I saw a magnificently white horse grazing on grass. Beyond it, a giant solitary tree that has survived and is still thriving against the ravages of time and changing seasons. 

I was moved to tears, and the only thing to do when you’re moved is to stay completely still. Or perhaps the truth is: to be moved, you have to stay completely still.

On my walk back to the cabin, it was already dark save for the street lamps that cast soft, circular spotlights on the street. Samora Pinderhughes’ “Better” played in my ear and following the lead of my legs and arms, I began to dance the entire stretch home, completely unfazed. Taking long strides and side steps with my arms swaying to the music, wholeheartedly consumed. 

Oh, man. The fullness of joy and every indiscernible emotion in this moment, in this stretch of three minutes or so that felt to me like a sliver of eternity is something I will remember for a long time. Slow memory lives on in the body, and you don’t need words. You let your body and your heart do the talking for you and you know that when you commune with the universe this way, at your own pace, at your own unique way of loving it, it comes immediately to you:

What a precious thing it is, to be alive in this world. 

To witness the unfolding of it and to take your place in the family of things. The world speaks to you, seeing it in slivers yet you contain the magnitude of it and your heart is constantly aching, with joy and with grief, dancing irreverently, insisting everything upon you. 

And so you walk on.