Trying (And Failing) to Be "Present" During My Daily Permitted Exercise

I often write stream of consciousness essays like this, mostly whilst walking or on public transport, but I never post them anywhere. However, this week I read this Man Repeller article about the need for personal essays during quarantine and it gave me the push I needed to publish this one. There might be more, there might not! But I hope you enjoy this collection of my thoughts during my walk to, on and from the beach the other day.

I took this photo accidentally whilst tying my shoe

Shutting the gate to my house, I send a photo of the Creme Egg I am carrying to my boyfriend with the caption ‘Going to the beach with a seasonal snack.’ Photos like this one have become somewhat the norm, 9 days into self-isolation, in order to update him on my day, always trying to be funny, succeeding only occasionally.

I bite the top of the creme egg and begin to devour the filling. Usually I wouldn’t do this in public, but with only one other person to be seen on my road, and my inability to care about anything, including how I appear to others, in such a time of overwhelm, I do it with added vigour, smiling like a psychopath.

I fix my earphones into my ears, and press play on a podcast I’ve downloaded specifically for this walk. It’s an “in conversation” with Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adicihe by the New York Public Library. ‘Am I listening this so I can tell Instagram I listened to this while walking to the beach or do I actually want to listen to it?’ I thought to myself. I decide I do actually want to listen to it, although only partly for pleasure and also for education, although the two have become somewhat amalgamated in my head. I struggle with the pretentiousness of that idea, as someone who is notoriously condemning of anything pretentious - books, films, lecturers, songs, lifestyles etc. But after three years of studying English Literature, I’m beginning to realise I now enjoy many of these things, as has been made glaringly obvious to me now I am back at home, self-isolated with my family. 10 minutes into the walk, and the podcast, I am undoubtedly enjoying it but I will still post about it on Instagram later.

Part of what I am enjoying about the podcast is the sounds of the audience, their mumbles, sneezes; their laughter as Adichie reads out a passage from her book that describes Brooklyn as smelling like ‘warmed up trash.’ I breathe in through my nose in an attempt to characterise the smells around me. “Shit.” I think. “It smells like shit. But a nice kind of shit, a fresh kind. Animal poo, rather than human.” It’s almost comforting, after long days and nights spent in doors with only stale air and the artificial smell of anti-bacterial spray.

I’m walking down a side path next to a field and peer in at the houses I can see past the low fences. One house has a small conservatory, with a low roof that I might have to duck my 5’4 body in order to get inside. There’s a shelf filled with books. I can’t see their titles but they are old books, backed in fabrics made out of primary colours, rather than the shiny, bright contemporary paperbacks and hardbacks that fill my shelves.

I leave the path and approach one of the most infamous houses in my area, marked, as usual, by a small police van sitting outside of it, that I’m sure could be used for a better purpose during lockdown than guarding this millionaire’s property. I walk past the walls of the house, that are thick enough to prevent you from really being able to see the house whilst walking, but thin enough that you can catch glimpses of it that make you want to stop and stare. A design that I’m sure, like Gatsby’s, is intentionally alluringly elusive, built to encourage envy. “I am not envious”, I think as I walk by, smiling at a man and his dog stood 6 metres away from me. “But I wouldn’t mind self-isolating in there,” I sardonically say out loud under my breath, catching a glimpse of the huge circular balcony that is the size of the entire bottom floor of my house.

I chose this path to the beach for its practicality, having only an hour and fifteen minutes to spare before an online Barre class but it is one that I am not familiar with. I see two paths ahead of me, one that turns into a field and one next to a house I recognise. I opt for the latter, after skim reading a sign about the history of the area.

Once I am walking on it, I realise that there were in fact 3 paths, and I had not walked far enough to the one that was actually the quickest way to get to the beach. The path I am walking on is hardly a path at all, more of a break in marram grass made by those who were braver than me and followed their own navigation rather than that of a sign. I follow in their footprints, stopping every now and then as I notice a new path opening up beside me, sometimes taking it.

Arriving at the beach, there is, unusually, no breeze and I realise I do not need the puffer coat that is tied around my waist that I brought specifically to guard myself from the tough wind sent on by the ocean. I am greeted in the best way: by an enthusiastic dog with a ball in his mouth. I go to stroke him then realise, better not, pets can carry it without showing symptoms, and pass it on to others. I smile at him and he, irritated by my inability to imitate his glee, heads back to his cooperating owner.

I walk down the beach for around 10 minutes, taking photos and videos of the sand, the sea, the sun and my outfit. I consider posting them to Instagram now to encourage everyone to experience this spring-like day, but decide to post them later, half out of selfishness, of getting to be one of the few who chose to abandon their Netflix bingeing session (ignoring the ‘are you still watching?’ notification) and take their once-a-day permitted exercise, half because I want to use this time to be away from my screen, something that is increasingly difficult when the only social contact I get is on social media.

The irony is, I have been tapping away at my phone, writing this piece for the entirety of my walk. The podcast I was listening to is paused 11 minutes in.

I imagine the middle-aged people around me judging me, for spending my daily exercise on my phone. I’ve probably prompted a conversation in them that will fill the rest of their walk or run, about the toxicity of social media. “Well, too bad for them because I am not on social media but, writing.” I think to myself, irritatingly smug in the knowledge that their assumptions about me are wrong, ignoring the possibility that my assumption about what they’re thinking could also be incorrect.

To be truthful, being a person who writes is far more addictive than social media anyway. Hearing someone tell me they liked a sentence I wrote, or coming up with said sentence, produces far more adrenaline than a like on social media. And it takes me out of the moment more too. Because whenever I am seemingly in the moment, I’m reading, or listening to words (having mostly given up on music since the advent of podcasts) and sometimes, but admittedly less often than the others, writing them.

Maybe tomorrow I will use my daily walk to be. To be in the moment, to be adventurous. It feels as if this is how my time outside should be spent, seeing as there is now a limit on it. But I struggle to be in the moment, listening to the sounds of nature rather than the sounds of other people talking in my ears, or to be content to leave my thoughts in my head, instead, frantically writing all of them down, becoming distracted by something else I want to write about before finishing every sentence.

‘Excuse me, excuse me. Where’s the beach?’ A man, around my age, comes up to me, asking me this frantic question. I look up from my phone and turn around, to check the huge towering sand dunes behind me haven’t somehow disappeared. I see that they are, as expected, still there and point towards them. ‘The beach????’ He repeats, perplexed by my ignorance. I can smell his breath now he has moved closer, most definitely violating the 2 metre social-distancing rule; it smells like alcohol and I now understand his confusion. “Just follow that path down there,” I say, pointing. “Thanks!” He says and wanders off with his friend, the plastic bags they are carrying swinging and create a clinking sound from their contents.

“See now that’s what I should be doing,” I think to myself. “THAT would make a good story.”