CHAPTER 208 IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET WHAT IS THIS MAGIC IN YOUR WALK? 2016

 CHAPTER 208 WHAT IS THIS MAGIC IN YOUR WALK? 2016

 

When my parents were dying I began to use Bellevue a lot for my walks.  By 2016, I was using this park quite a bit. It opened early in the morning and I was able to configure a 5+ mile course through it.  

I had divided it into four quarters each having several
stations.  I could now vary my cat about, going into a differed quadran as my entry point. Even though I was walking the same paths, they seem more varied  by the way I entered the park proper from the parking lot. 

On the turn from May to June of 2016 I choose to enter by what
I called the first quatrain. I parked and walked the curvy main walkway up the hill to the  front of the Mansion went around it walking the path about its back yard

then started down the hill side the meadow. This is where they hold events such as the Ice Cream Festival year-end and year-out. I would walk the paved path down the hill, cross the entry road to walk the paved  path back up the hill to the parking lot. I would cross the low, go up more hill in the drive to the Carriage House lot and thus begin the second quatrain of my journey…except…

As I went down the meadow path almost even to the Praying Rock I felt an odd sensation in both arms and leg. Can’t quite describe it, but  a-sudden my legs wouldn’t work right.  I could only step in short little shuffles and looking down I saw my feet were splayed with the toes pointing outward.  If they had

been pigeon—toed, that is, pointed inward I would have had a great chance of falling. The duck-toes kept me somewhat balanced, but did not help my walking. 

I shuffled on down the path. I thought this might quickly go away and I was thinking of finishing the four miles left on my walk. After all, I had been at this walking thing for many, many years and besides I was a man who was told you worked through your pain. 

I limped across the entry drive and began shuffling up
toward the parking lot. Nothing was changing in my body. There was still the strange tingling in my arms and in my legs. My toes would not straighten out and men, oh man, even the parking lot looked miles away.  How would I make it another four miles. I thought it might be best to get in my car, if I could reach it, drive home and rest.

This is what I did. I drove home and lay on the sofa and rested. Nothing changed. I got up and humbled about, and nothing changed. I went to bed that night and slept, but come morning nothing had changed. The time had come to see a sawbones and ask what was going on with my limbs.