Written by Guest Author, Shannon Miller // Walking wasn’t proof of life for you, it was proof of living. There was no duress to your outings. No sense of obligation. You often walked with coffee in your hand and took your time unfurling the thin blue dog poop bag. For you, walking was the entry point to life, not the escape.

I was thinking about the feeling of beauty on my walk today—a generous mile down the street and back again. It wasn’t the look of beauty I sought to know, but the feeling of it.

The birds are silent and hiding wherever birds do. Roads shimmer and shine, empty. People wait inside for the weather to pass, but I can’t pass it up.

I found something in the forest that I once lost. It was hanging on spider silk and dripping with the sun. It was tucked into the palm of a young leaf. It was a secret shared between birds that somehow, I understood perfectly. Urgently. I walked and I walked. Impossibly, I understood more and deeper.

I’ve come here troubled and desperate; I’ve come brimming with joy. I have come searching intensely for things I can’t name, and on days when I’ve wanted for nothing. The ocean has never given me bad advice. “Keep going,” it says as it reaches for my ankles and turns eleven new kinds of blue in the distance, “Keep on.”