Since childhood, movement has been an integral part of my life.
For Christmas, I would beg for Richard Simmons VHS tapes. I started working out at eight and never really stopped. Through pregnancies, illnesses, and life’s ebbs and flows, movement has remained a constant.
In fract, just two weeks after brain surgery, I was back to walking more than a mile and practicing Pilates.
My body functions best when I move.
My creativity shines brightest when I am moving.
And somehow, my nervous system feels most at peace when I am moving.
If you really want to see me at my happiest, look for the woman wearing sneakers.
Hair in a bun. No makeup. In workout clothes. Probably sweating.
Walking briskly through a nature preserve, birds overhead and a story unfolding in her head.
That’s when I feel most beautiful.
Not because I look my best.
Because I feel most like myself.
A little scrappy. A bit earthy. A lot natural.
I’ve always been a free spirit. I like movement. I like adventure. I like following an idea wherever it takes me. Somewhere along the way, I’ve learned that my creativity doesn’t arrive when I’m sitting still, waiting for it.
It arrives while I’m moving.
I walk, and I create.
Characters come alive.
Conversations happen in my head.
A scene I’ve been wrestling with suddenly makes sense.
A sentence appears.
Sometimes an entire chapter unfolds before I’ve made it halfway down the trail.
My body moves, my lungs fill with fresh air, birds call from the trees, and somehow my mind becomes completely free.
I don’t go walking to escape my life.
I walk to find it.
Nature is where I think.
It’s where I dream.
It’s where I write without a pen in hand.
And it’s where I feel most connected to the woman, I am, beneath everything else.
The woman who doesn’t need to look a certain way.
The woman who can stop in the middle of a path because a bird has caught her attention.
The woman who can laugh out loud because a character just said something ridiculous in her head.
The woman who can walk for miles and come home with an entire story.
There is something about movement that unlocks me.
Maybe it’s the rhythm of my feet.
Maybe it’s the air.
Maybe it’s the trees.
Maybe it’s simply the freedom of being somewhere that asks nothing of me.
Nature doesn’t ask me to be anything.
It simply lets me be.
And maybe that’s why I feel beautiful there.
Because I’m not thinking about how I look.
I’m thinking about how I feel.
Alive.
Strong.
Creative.
Free.
There are many versions of me that I love.
The woman dressed up for dinner.
The woman getting ready for an event.
The woman who appreciates simplicity.
But there is one version of me I never want to lose.
The one who keeps moving.
Keeps creating.
Keeps noticing the birds.
Keeps following her own path.
Keeps letting her imagination run ahead of her.
Keeps believing in the impossible.
Because somewhere between the trees, the fresh air, and the rhythm of my footsteps, I don’t just find my creativity.
I find myself.
And that?
Is pretty beautiful.
