{"id":961,"date":"2016-06-11T23:23:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T06:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=961"},"modified":"2019-11-15T16:17:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-16T00:17:15","slug":"time-away-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=961","title":{"rendered":"Time away 2, “a pair of eyes walking”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I look and look.
\n<\/em>Looking’s a way of being: one becomes<\/em>,<\/em><\/span>
\n sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
\n<\/em>Walking wherever looking takes one.1<\/sup><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

excerpt from “Looking, Walking, Being,”
\n<\/em>by Denise Levertov<\/em><\/p>\n

Long, meandering walks are one of the great joys of time away. Time for exploring with my eyes and ears, letting thoughts drift and ricochet against what I see, losing myself in the weather and the sounds of whatever’s around.<\/p>\n

\"Walk<\/p>\n

\"Two
Two walks, April 2016, drawn as remembered<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the itch to escape for a week struck this spring,\u00a0Kathy and Mark\u00a0offered their\u00a0home in Port Townsend at a time\u00a0they’d be\u00a0away. My daily walks that week began there.<\/p>\n

\"North<\/p>\n

Fort Worden2<\/sup> is an easy walk from their home, and the park’s\u00a0proximity was irresistible.<\/p>\n

\"Path<\/p>\n

\"Fort<\/p>\n

In a recent\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0piece, Teddy Wayne worries that we’re losing opportunities to be\u00a0alone with our thoughts, both physically and mentally.3<\/sup> We’re so distractible, and electronic devices that provide immediate gratification are so often close at hand. He provided data about our increasing use of these devices and brain science suggesting that they interfere with our capacity for introspection. He quoted Nicholas Carr\u00a0contrasting\u00a0a state of mind that values speed and quick answers with an “open-ended way of thinking where you’re not always trying to answer a question. You’re trying to go where that thought leads you.”<\/p>\n

\"Path<\/p>\n

As I head out to walk, with\u00a0my phone safely in my pocket, I leave\u00a0my questions behind for a while and settle into simply looking and walking and being.<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u2022\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

1 \u00a0Excerpt from “Looking, Walking, Being,” by Denise Levertov, published in 1996 by New Directions Books. I return to the whole poem frequently, and the book itself is a well-worn volume in my library.
\n2 \u00a0I introduced Fort Worden in an earlier post, “Home\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a confabulation.”
\n<\/a>3 \u00a0Teddy Wayne, “The End of Reflection,”<\/a>\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, June 11, 2016.<\/p>\n

\n

\"cropped-9099-Logo-red_D-nick-squared.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one.1 excerpt from “Looking, Walking, Being,” by Denise Levertov Long, meandering walks are one of the great joys of time away. Time for exploring with my eyes and ears, letting thoughts drift and ricochet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-time-away"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pXN0-fv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3931,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/3931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}