I chant my steps

I've been able to resume a daily walk.
I use a cane, I count each step, chanting in my mind
...twenty two, twenty three, twenty four.........
I don't know why I do that.
Each day I can get a little further without stopping to rest.
The act of walking has become a brave repetition of small movements
that strengthen me, ground me, and give me ritual.

I am sewing a line to celebrate my daily walk.
I've have been considering doing this for years.
Last winter, each time that I completed the walk, I moved a square of white linen into a basket, although I didn't know how or what I was going to do with them.  Some kind of path perhaps.

The repetition of day after day of stepping reminded me of stitching.  It was as if I was sewing myself to my local landscape.  I wanted to make something that referenced the running stitch I guess.
A walking step/stitch.

Then I broke my leg.
No more walk.
Instead, I looked at the horizon.  I sat on my deck.
I began wrapping those squares of white around around sweet clover.  Wrap wrap wrap.
The clover stalks grow as tall as me.  In the summer they smelled sweet.
I bent the branches, cut the stalk, and bandaged them with cloth and thread.
I thought that somehow, these could still represent me and my walk. The walk un-walked.

My daughter told me that they looked like bones.

go over, go through, go into what we already know
material objects open a door to inner ness

I spaced the white steps into a relaxed gait, using cloth that I have saved, full of memories.
My life path, a patchwork of time.

My path will measures the distance of the walk I can do now and I'll speak more about it when it is installed during the elemental festival in 2 weeks.

Gravity is measured by the bottom of the foot.                  Juhani Pallasmaa said that