On Walking and Notion

There is something simultaneously stifling and freeing about walking in New Paltz. It can be refreshing, and wondrous- like when it's crisp outside and I spot groups of birds in the air or the Wallkill River- but it's also such an annoyance to trek uphill to campus after going anywhere. A walk is free, it helps slow-moving hours pass, and it's a form of exercise that I don't hate or attach self-conscious thoughts to. However, in a place where transportation is fickle and exceedingly limited, walking feels burdensome. And I don't consider it as "relaxing" or "mind-clearing" as some. It's an activity that I treat much like reading and drawing: I love it and can't imagine life without it, but don't indulge with as much regularity as I should.

From the New Paltz Postcard Archive at Sojourner Truth Library.

I'm thinking about walking because recently I've taken to listing out my days in a check-off-able to-do list on the app/website called Notion. For a very long time I have compulsively repeated to myself what I need to do and in what order- say, when I get home after an outing. An approximation: "I'm going to get inside, make lunch, take a shower, and do my math homework. I'll get home, put down my things, cook lunch, take a shower, get dressed, and finish my math homework." I would repeat these lists again and again, making specifications and adjustments, with the hope that if I cemented the order of action in my mind, I could not fail to carry it out. This, of course, isn't how it works. I am a procrastinator; I struggle with exerting effort toward a particular task at a pre-determined time. The bulk of my work for school and personal creative expression is completed in a varying number of determined spurts at random moments. Another problem is my fear of forgetting important things. I really distrust my memory.

Since I started using Notion, I haven't been doing as much of the same repetitive mental planning as I used to. I just write down a fairly detailed but achievable set of goals for each day, usually the night before. And unlike handwritten lists or some of the other online planners I've used in the past, I check Notion regularly. It's like a completely internal form of social media. I'm excited to check things off throughout the day (and anxious when I fail to). It's also customizable and cute. 

And yet, those things I want to, can, and should do daily for my own betterment/sanity (walking, reading, drawing) are not effectively encouraged using the means of planning. I sometimes sense that I am more likely to draw when I have not thought about the activity whatsoever beforehand. Yet I want to schedule the things I want to do! It feels necessary for me to figure out when I might do them. I put down "walk" in today's list between an information session about the BA/MA English program and a smattering of homework I have to get done this evening. With walking, especially, I feel best when I know it will not impede any necessary work, and when I head off early enough to return when it's still light out. Unless it's a night walk- those are more spontaneous and rare for me though. I'd never schedule a walk at night because seeing it on my list would make it sound tedious and unpleasant.

Will I really walk today? Will I? I don't doubt I will prep myself for my frightening oral presentation in Italian tomorrow, even if I am tired tonight. The consequences of not doing this are too great. I don't doubt I'll do my math work- simple equations using fractions, and questions comprised of 6th-grade introductory algebra. I even feel fairly positive about starting to develop a plan of action regarding my sculpture project. We are using power and hand tools to cut and assemble sculptures from fallen white ash trees. It's so beyond the range of my prior skills or artistic brain, but I feel obliged and even a little excited to really engage myself with it. A walk around 2:30 or 3 would probably be very nice and prevent me from experiencing the lumbering, stale stasis of early afternoon.

I can add a bit of incentive. I had breakfast late, so maybe I'll wait until after the info session to grab lunch-- maybe it can be my favorite meal on campus, the vegan hummus wrap from Element 93 (one of our built-in school "restaurants"). I could place the order on my phone while filling my water bottle and selecting a podcast or album or audio New Yorker article to listen to. I could pick up the order, place it in a tupperware (I would need to remember to bring this when I head out), and begin my walk toward the bridge down the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail or another benched spot a mile or two out. Then I could sit down and enjoy my food, looking upriver or into the trees. Of course, I would have to pull myself back to campus eventually, but I'd manage. And I'd arrive at my dorm feeling limber and happy. Or at the very least accomplished.

5:25 PM: 

I did take a walk. I did enjoy my wrap (so rich and warm and hummusy). I went the other way on the trail, could not find a place to stop and sit, and the bugs waking up to the warmth outside today were truly bothersome. It was kind of a bad time. 

What I didn't do is attend that info session I mentioned. I walked up to the room, saw only one or two students and a bunch of faculty around a small table, and couldn't bring myself to go inside. Such is life! Cowardice rears its head again and again. Another missed check box on my to-do list.

I know this all seems trivial but I feel so much like the substance of life as a college student can best be expressed as a bullet-pointed list. My existence here is made up of planning, then achieving or failing to act. I wonder whether other people feel this way too- like they are living in an expanse that moves like a conveyor belt, grasping onto tasks and classes and work shifts as they move onward- or if this is all me. 

Special thank you to Madeline for aggressively encouraging me to write a blog post. Here I would typically apologize for just writing my neuroses out, but I'm realizing it's a very Alison Bechdel thing to do (minus any illustration-- but makes me think a graphic-blog could be a cool project) which definitely increases my self-respect. I'll try and write again SOON!