Rainy Morning Mastermind

My first walk of 2022 was so unexpected, refreshing, energetic, and, yes introspective

Rainy Morning Mastermind

1–31–22

I want to start this off by saying that I can't believe I'm finally posting this journal about New Year's Day on the last day of the month; I'll be honest, I felt off in January.

There's been so much resistance against me this month. It felt like a lot of work and life stress so far this year. Many inconveniences because of Covid-19, and it's a merry band of variants.

Plus, we've had a lot of snow, which adds stress because I work across town and I hate driving in it. I love walking in it. I've had some transcendent moments walking in snowstorms in January.

Still, as I said, I've felt a sadness that I don't understand. Even as I type this, I think it. My writing style is that when I'm not feeling too great, I don't write.

I like writing when I'm hopeful and inspired. I'm not a writer for my therapy kind of writer. So I've struggled to post so many unfinished drafts that I've lost interest in finishing.

I think there's a shift in my life that's going on that I don't understand yet. New Year's Day probably was the last day of 2021 because it was the last day I felt inspired to write a walking journal.

After the day I wrote about life, It seemed to get weird. I liked my journey in 2021 and all of the introspection thoughts that came along with it.

When I find happiness in something, sometimes I get stuck there, and I don't want to leave, so I was uncomfortable getting kicked out. I have to get out of my mind that life can't get better.

I started recording myself on my you tube page, and that's very new for me. It's a new adventure. I like to keep my audio and written side separate for some reason. Keep a mystique.

I was very uncomfortable with my speaking voice for a long time, and I finally conquered that fear this month. So many, it's just time to go with the flow of the change.

When I wrote this article, I thought I would repeat the year previously, and I did. The next day I realized that was the beginning of the end.

So I'm here today regrouping and trying to figure it out. I think change is here, and I'm just afraid. Facing speaking on a public forum without any music was always my personal Goliath.

I know all of this could be another article, but I wanted to have an alpha and omega perspective for this first month of the year. It's probably the end of a chapter too.

Time to let to allow these journals to naturally evolve. February, I'm going to keep defeating fear with perfect love.

Without further ado, here's my rainy new year's day experience.

How did I start the new year? I listened to an audiobook, creating content while walking in the rain. Motion activates my mind, and the rain waters my joy.

P.o.p..the writer

The rain came knocking on my window

Well, the ball dropped, and it's a brand new year. I'm up in the middle of the night just thanking God that I made it. I watch some of my traditional Twilight Zone episodes, then drift off into the deep.

Before I went to sleep, I remember I thought New Years Day I would stay in bed and binge on movies and Tv series. I was excited about watching the new season of Cobra Kai.

I had my relaxing day all planned out in my head. I deserve this day off to be restored, right? Right. When I woke up, I heard that all too familiar sound on my roof. Then I saw those lovely droplets form on my bedroom window.

It was raindrops calling my name. You see, we haven't received much precipitation this fall, so I had probably one good day walking in the rain. That's when we had the noreaster in October, I believe.

Ironically, that was my own little stormy walking wonderland, and I didn't journal it here for some reason. Today it was light rain but steady, so I thought you know what? I'm not sure when I'll get this opportunity again, so I put on my clothes and ventured out on this very wet New years day.

I love walking in the rain, and It waters my soul

Now, as I'm walking in this calm winter shower, I wonder what it is about walking in this kind of weather that intrigues me and makes me happy?

I honestly don't know. Is it the serenity of it? Maybe. If you follow my walking journey throughout 2021, I began to love many different environments associated with the atmosphere and weather.

Cool mornings, Partly cloudy mornings, breezy mornings, and the smell of fresh flower mornings. God gave me so much variety throughout, but it all started with my walk in the rain.

In the late fall of 2020, I remember one early afternoon I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood that I'd never experienced on foot. It was spontaneous and not planned.

I knew I needed a change in my spirit, and when you need a shift in your life, you have to put action and motion to it. Plus, I loved listening to audiobooks while walking. It's joyful. Me taking those first steps led to my little sister inviting me to join a yearly 500-mile challenge, and I accepted and merged.

I'm surprised it took me five months to write about my adventures, but I wrote Hello Garden in May, which started the walking journals.

Why do I love the downpours so much? I believe my baptism and rebirth came when I experienced its comforting qualities in my article Love will give you a hug when you need it. Something happened to me during that experience.

The rain feels like my guardian angel.

A symbiotic audio verse

If you read my walk journals, you probably know that I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts as I move. I would love to switch it up and listen to some music sometimes, but there's something about how that mono vocal recording captures me.

I probably wrote about it 100 times but it blows my mind how creatively connected we are. This guy Daniel is the ultimate inspiration for me, so I hope you're not tired of hearing me talking about the guy.

He made something from nothing. His story is not mine to tell, but when you work a job that you don't want to be at and listen to someone who does what you want to do it gives you hope. It gives you fire.

He's a Visionary. He's like the future me. What I admire about him is he doesn't talk about it. He creates. Him talking about it is his content.

I respect him the most for his love and reverence for his wife and kids. That love is the most powerful and priceless thing you'll ever have in this world.

So back to the walk. I tell you, this guy and I have our own transatlantic virtual audio verse. It's raining profusely on my side while I'm walking, listening to his recording in nature's tears on his end.

Look out for my journal about seagulls. I told a similar story in another article. I tell you, his content is a blessing. Our backgrounds both tried to outdo each other. It was a dual of the dominance of the ambient rain. Either way, it eased my brain.

A plan, the spontaneous and the unknown

Every time I wrote one of my favorite walking experiences, I've always had a plan of what was going to happen.

I started the year off with a walk on New Year's Day, so why repeat that? I did that already, right? So I'm going to sleep in and watch all of the new shows that I'm excited to see.

Since I'm off from my night job tonight (Glory Hallelujah), I have a day where I can do absolutely nothing. That's a relaxing day for me.

So you already know if you read the first section that that didn't happen. I came alive in the soothing rain. I had only planned to walk 2 miles.

I love being out in it. It was light and misty but still enough to give me an enjoyable trek. I needed something from the store, but I realized that I was not far from my family's house.

I called my little sister to see if they had an extra one. They did, so I talked to her about my walking adventure whole I headed her way. She's the one that invited me to the 2021 run/walk challenge.

Joining that challenge shifted my life. So I picked up what I needed from their mailbox and started to head home. The rain begins to pick up. I'm enjoying being outside so much I'm taking all of these pictures along the way.

I think I overdid the photo-taking. By the time I got close to my home, I just knew I had walked 2.5 miles. I pulled my phone, and my entire walk session was lost. So I had no document of my New Year Walk to show off about on social media. I'm disappointed.

Yes, my body received the workout, but I love seeing my miles recorded. I walked 375 miles last year, and it felt good sharing that.

Hey, it was gone, though. So I stop in the house for a moment and hear that it starts to rain harder? Oh really? Guess I'm going back out. I'm getting my time recorded.

Before I began to walk, I recorded a random 9-minute video for my YouTube channel about this experience that you're reading. That's been a painful area for me to conquer. I climbed that mountain though.

Beautiful things always are found in the unknown. When I recorded two miles, the rain was coming down harder, and the walk was even more calming and refreshing.

I wouldn't have experienced that beauty if my data wasn't lost. Life flows that way. I didn't dwell on what didn't work out long. I accepted it and kept going.

From 9 am to 12 pm, I felt so productive and accomplished. I could've easily wasted that time reading the river of resolutions and the constant flow of HNY texts and posts. I was not knocking what people do because it was positive energy.

It was time to work. I don't have any more to waste on keeping up with everyone else. I have entire mental hard drives begging to get real estate on physical external storage.

The hard drive in my endless mind is in line to transfer my imagination to that finite space. I'm running my race.

The rain had ended when the evening came, and the fog had thickened. Visibility was like a few feet away. I keep hearing a flock of geese flies overhead.

I go onto my rooftop and see them fly in formation, then disappear into the foggy mist. I will not be in the same place I am today a year from now.

I'll get higher and closer to my dreams. Sometimes I feel like I've been a goose flying low in the fog. When you disappear, your vision becomes more clear and focused.

I'm an eagle, and my time will come where I'll be soaring above the clouds.

Free.

Thank you for reading. Hello February.