THE TRAIL OF FOOTSTEPS LEADS ME TO THE ORDINARY

by Rikki Horvatic

Each step is a reminder. Resilience echoes, built over eight years. Sometimes I resent this. I feel the inviting call of my comforter and bedsheets to avoid sunlight and wind and birds. The dog is a constant reminder. If I cannot care for myself, then I must care for her. She must have her walk.

So, we walk.

The town is small. There are 600 people, a post office, and a gas station. Forgotten Midwestern towns all look the same. There aren’t any others painted with my footsteps, though. I haven’t drawn their maps with my physical body. This movement and the trajectory are methodical and repetitive. There is no guesswork.

It is a practice, this taking step after step. Mostly it’s a devotion. Each footfall cries out in devotion to living and being and experiencing.

I used to trick myself into walking with enticing podcasts or books to keep my head preoccupied. The constant yammer is nauseating. The mind plays naughty tricks. It spins round and round about imaginary emergencies. It tries to pull me towards constant consumption. I have been able to keep this voice at bay…not always, but sometimes at least. Now I am able to walk in silence, sometimes at least.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever spent a decade getting drunk to avoid yourself, but being able to walk in silence after that feels like climbing the tallest mountain.

Is this an improvement? I would say so. There is an intimacy within my heart space. I feel as though my soul and I are getting reacquainted. Depending on your proclivities, you could also see this as getting to know god/the universe/everything. You know, as in we’re all connected. Feeling connected to anything greater than myself seemed an impossibility.

I’m cool with god now, though. Perhaps we’re even friends? We are intertwined, one and the same after all. I don’t have many of those now that I’ve quit drinking, but I do have these feet carrying me along a path and a heart swelling with the terrible ache of being alive.

It feels like a fight to get here daily. The talking box in my pocket is a constant pull. Constant blue-light micro-hits of dopamine pull me into its orbit. What a sun that phone is! The power it emanates over my life is nothing short of god-like. But more if god were a vampire, constantly sucking my soul dry of any of the delight I’ve foraged for myself.

So, at least twice a day, it stays in my pocket while I walk. I am a pilgrim back to my own attention.

The dog pulls this way and that. She doesn’t respond well to commands, at least not commands from me. This makes each walk a battle. My arm aches almost immediately. The shoulder is already sore from grasping my phone. That stupid phone.

I can’t hate the phone. I also have an addictive personality, so I didn’t really stand a chance. For a long time, the little square portals on the screen provided me with comfort as a recovering addict and stay-at-home mom. When COVID-19 took hold of the world in 2020, we all plugged into the virtual landscape in a more permanent way.

You might as well have hooked us all up via umbilical cord to the machines that helped us remember how to be human in a world that…stopped. At that time, the technology was medicine. There was gratitude from this mom of two small children who suddenly felt camaraderie while also still feeling so alone.

Despite the pain, heart and arm and feet, I keep going. My foot presses heel, toe, into the pavement. This tangible proof of my existence is a balm. Who would I be if I stopped? What would it look like to cave to convenience?

In all honesty, I have about 30 years of unhappy evidence to show for the path of least resistance. Today I choose the discomfort. Most of a life spent clinging to comfort leads me to believe that a new path must be forged. New means unknown, fear, change. These are prices paid along the path.

Some folks say we take it one day at a time. I say take it one step. Put one foot in front of the other. Feel the burning in the legs. Notice the air that still fills your lungs. We all have demons to dance with. Let us keep hearts open, for the world does not bend to the rules of binary. Let us dance through the in-between. Perhaps we carve the same route every day. Perhaps one day we turn right instead of left. Keep your soul guessing. I’ve found the guessing helps, the constant unknowing.

To feel tethered to routine, which I was certain meant soul death. When I learned routine was vital for survival, I learned to spin circles around its constant requirements. I learn what works best. I mold it around the shape of my needs. I speak openly, and hold hands with Shame in the hope that Love will help it bask in light. I do not have to fear being seen. This is a reminder on many levels. Daily, these words remind me that I walk a path in a town in which I feel unknown…in skin that feels uncomfortable. As much as I squirm underneath the gaze of eyes that may or may not be there…I still walk. I am a pilgrim back to myself. I allow my footsteps to guide me. I know this trail will last the whole of my life. And still…I walk.