It started as an accident, when I left it on the kitchen table, and it turned into the best habit I have.
The first ten minutes were strange. My hand kept going to my pocket, like a tongue to a missing tooth. I worried about not being reachable, although nobody was trying to reach me. Then, somewhere around the second field, I noticed that I had stopped narrating the walk to myself for an imaginary audience.
What changed
- I take the longer way round, because there is no map to tell me otherwise.
- I remember more of where I have been.
- I have spoken to more strangers, mostly about dogs.
- I get bored, which turns out to be where the ideas were hiding.
A walk without a phone is the only meeting in my week with no agenda.
Practical matters
I am not a purist. I take it on the hills, for safety, switched off at the bottom of the bag. I tell someone where I am going. I carry a pencil and a bit of card in case I think of something, and I rarely do, and that is fine.
The pictures I did not take that summer are still some of the clearest ones I have.
Sample content for The Pixel, a fictional personal blog.
