Time on Feet is my monthly newsletter on Substack, to which you can subscribe for free…
What’s it about? Movement, mind, body and environment.
I wouldn’t be as precise as Rebecca Solnit, who claimed in her brilliant book Wanderlust that “the mind works best at three-miles-per-hour”, but I do believe that movement generates a different type of thinking. Often, setting my body in motion is the only way I can work out what I truly think and feel about something.
The phrase ‘time on feet’ is common in running circles; it refers to runs or training phases focused on duration, rather than on pace or distance. I’m being more literal here with my usage, reflecting the fact that while there was a time when I considered running to be a superior form of motion to all other (which I wrote about for The Guardian here), these days I am just as likely to be found dawdling and pootling, bent over a mushroom with my Seek app, or craning my neck to find the songster responsible for whatever beautiful sound is emanating from the trees, as I am running and racing.
For much of my journalistic career, I have written about the human body and mind, especially in relation to movement. But a few years back, a rekindling of my childhood passion for nature awakened in me an ecological consciousness (and conscience) that led me to consider the environment through which I move, rather than simply the movement itself. It feels as if this new awareness has slowed me down, and shown me the world through a new lens.
Join me as I explore the inner and outer landscapes of my time on feet.