This Exeter Life: Walk It Off

I carry my stress at the site of old injuries—specifically my lower back. Do you do this?

For months now, I’ve been battling pain and tightness in my lower back and hips not reasonable for someone of my moderately youthful age. I suspect it’s job-related.

Last night though, I was out for a quick evening stroll in town with my honey and the strangest thing happened—all the tentative hesitation, the hitch in my step, and the subtle wincing vanished suddenly. I’m pretty sure Exeter was the cure.

I fancy myself an active and relatively fit person. When I read that the average American walks about 400 yards per day, I’m stunned. That’s less than a quarter of a mile! I can’t even walk to the end of my street and back without breaking this threshold. I’m totally baffled as to how you could possibly get through your life walking a measly 400 yards PER DAY.

And then I realize: I’m becoming that person. Just this week, I caught myself thinking of my 200 foot stroll to the restroom at my office as exercise. No wonder my body hurts all the time. It’s from lack of use!

Thankfully, we live in Exeter. A town that all but mandates you stroll its sidewalks in any season, at any time of day or night, in any weather condition. Many of us can walk to work, walk our children to school, walk to the cleaners, walk to the ice cream parlor. Swasey Parkway, the cemetery, Gilman Park, the Town Forests, Water Street, Front Street, and High Street are at our service, ready to save us from our increasingly sedentary lives. All we need to do is walk out our front doors and the sidewalks and paths take care of the rest.

Some of my favorite Exeter moments have been when I was on foot tromping through freshly fallen snow, at night passing by lit windows and lives in progress, shuffling through autumn leaves, or arm-in-arm with my honey working out the kinks after a long day on my keister.

And after weeks of neglect, it’s sure nice to know that my body can still recognize a cure for what ails it: a walk in Exeter.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I have to walk to yoga.

See ya out there!