Walkabouts

By my definition a walkabout is a time spent between you and the outside world. It’s an intimate beautiful time spent walking cities or forests or any place we find ourselves frequenting or visiting. During this time phones are pocketed, eyes and ears attune themselves to the atmosphere around us, and we disconnect from the digital world. I spend my walkabouts, as an aspiring journalist/poet with my mustard yellow journal in hand. This journal contains all my budding poems and my continuous battle with my place in the world. During a walkabout I find places to simply sit, write, and detail the things happening around me.

This idea of going on walkabouts came from my father. He use to tell me about them and even take me on some when we found ourselves on vacation. But instead of a mustard yellow journal in his hand, a perfectly pristine Nikon perched itself in his palm. A prized possession. I idealized that camera. It told stories, it captured artistic and emotional areas of my fathers experiences and point of view in the world, that to me as a then seven or eight year old, completely glossed over. Perspective to me at that age wasn’t a concept I had any understanding of.

And as I sit here now, in a coffee shop located in my new home, Lexington Kentucky, I am thrust back into my childhood. I’ve walked The University of Kentucky’s campus multiple times this week and haven’t even covered the entire campus itself. But on these walks, watching the rain beat heavily on the pavement and getting soaked before a 9am class or watching the sun peak behind thick trees and painting everything in a sea of golden light. I think back on the joy walkabouts can bring. The tiny things we begin to see or notice when we aren’t glued to our phones. The beautiful intimate connection with nature and our perception of nature that forms when we tap into our conscious and reflect on it through more artistic means. 

Whether that be poetry or photography, I encourage everyone to go on a walkabout. Leave the phone off and pocketed. Tune into your surroundings and reflect on your existence in this world. How aware are you of your surroundings?