Walking partners

"Walking Partners, found here

This is a check in about my promise to live a more healthy lifestyle. It is now my fifth week of walking almost every morning with my friend, Olga. We walk a good 40-45 minutes up a hill, past an orange grove, down a road from which we can see the entire Inland Valley, and then back home. The first week it was hard to make it through the day without falling comatose onto my desk. I was exhausted from all that walking.

Now I'm used to it and if I wake up tired or with a headache or something, I just call Olga and beg off. I've done that twice in five weeks. Then there was the time I had to drive to Palm Springs early in the morning. But for the most part we've walked five days per week. We've sometimes varied our route according to how we feel, but we are still out walking.

I feel better and it's obvious to me that my blood pressure has improved as a result. I haven't turned into a fashion model though. I think Olga may have even gained weight. I'm not sure sometimes if the walking is good for her. She says it is.

One can learn a lot about another person by chattering away every single morning. We talk about our mothers (she has an elderly mother living nearby who has factitious disorder and issues daily demands to get her to a doctor, the ER, or call 9-1-1), her children, her divorce, my job, our mutual musical interests. Olga grew up in a country in Eastern Europe in which the nurse came to the school and vaccinated the entire classroom with one needle. Many of the people from this country have Hepatitis C. Olga does, so she lives with great uncertainty and discomfort. I am fortunate to have her as a walking partner because she has been so sick in the last year that we both wondered aloud at times if she would survive. 12 years ago I helped Olga get away from an abusive womanizing husband. He continues to be active in the community and to go uncensured by his church, whilst she lost her standing at the church and holds only a peripheral position to the one she enjoyed before she divorced him. But she can laugh and be her own person now, even though her ex-husband almost ruined her financially and she will never own anything. She has her life, her children's love and loyalty, and she has several part-time jobs.

Every morning my eyes are open to new possibilities and ways to think about life because Olga's views are different from mine. I enjoy hearing a European perspective about relationships from her and she laughs at all my stories and thinks I'm witty and a good friend. It is a win-win.

Back to my report to you: my next focus is to eat more carefully and healthfully. I'd like to be eating less white foods (potatoes, pasta, bread) and more brown foods: beans, brown rice, whole wheat, and lots of vegetables and fruit. As we get closer to the summer in which I don't have to do any teaching (just live at the computer, writing), I'll work on the next part. For now, I'm delighted to have made the changes in lifestyle and feel much better.