Confessions of a Mall Walker

First, I have to confess that I’m not sure that is an original title. It just popped into my head this morning while I was walking in the mall with the other early-morning-before-the-stores-open-walkers, contemplating the meaning of life. I may have read it somewhere, heard it somewhere, or maybe I just thought it before on an earlier walk.

Lest you be misled by the title, I’m only in my third day of Mall Walking -- this time. I’ve done it before. One winter I was a faithful daily mall walker. Other times, sporadic.

Then I have to confess that I hate walking. Today I hated walking. I hate getting out of bed and facing an hour of my time melting away doing something unproductive and somewhat uncomfortable. But, on the up side of that, I know that after I have a few more days under my belt I will actually look forward to walking. Not necessarily at the mall, but just walking because it will feel good. So I’ll drag myself out each morning and do it -- just because.

I confess: the mall is not my favorite place to walk. Obviously. Who would choose to walk in a mall if one could walk elsewhere. I’m not a shopper. I rarely read the shopping ads, and I never go to the mall just to browse. Never. My place of choice to walk is Provo Canyon. It’s just around the corner from where I live, and there is a nice paved trail which meanders along the river between the mountains on a reasonably level plane. Miles are marked off and the terrain has become so familiar that I know exactly where I am in the whole scheme of things, a rather comfortable feeling. At certain times of the year there are lots and lots of fellow walkers, runners, skaters, bicyclers, hikers, and long-boarders to share the experience. This time of the year, not so much, and that is a part of the reason I don’t walk there now. A few months ago a young woman disappeared from the nearby BYU campus, and there was much speculation whether she had fallen victim to a predator in Provo Canyon where she was known to ride her bike. Made me stop to think. (My grandmother always used to say, “They’d drop you under the first streetlight,” but that is little comfort in the daylight. ) As it turned out, the innocent coed was found at the foot of a high trail by Bridal Veil Falls where she had gotten too close to the edge. No foul play. But I still feel that it is wise not to walk unaccompanied in remote areas when you are not likely to see a fair number of other people along the way. So this time of the year, I resort to the mall. Though it seems a horrible incongruity to use the words “resort” and “mall” in the same sentence.

If you’ve never walked the mall before business hours, you might be surprised to learn how many people use the facilities. Many are senior citizens -- gray haired ladies in sweatpants and sweatshirts, balding men in plaid shirts partially covered by worn out sweaters, people inching their way along on metal walkers with wheels following doctors’ orders to “get some exercise”. There are new -- and not so new -- mothers recovering from pregnancy rushing behind strollers with tiny babies smothered in flannel blankets. There are the warm weather "athletes" with their expensive walking shoes and headbands, who have chosen the mall over the canyon trail. I see familiar faces almost every morning. Faye, my friend, neighbor, and writing group companion walks here regularly with her sister. A native American man with his long dark hair hanging down his back ambles along with less determination than most. A lady in her 30’s or 40’s shows up daily in a muu muu with her blond hair falling from its failing anchor on the top of her head. And there are the mall workers, the men who ride little yellow fork lifts or other interesting vehicles around replacing burnt out lights, hauling boxes of who-knows-what to who-knows-where. Store clerks arrive early letting themselves into their places of employment via roll-down metal gates which they quickly pull back down almost to the floor and relock in place, half inviting, half forbidding to outsiders. They are there to tidy shops, hang blouses, dresses and pants on racks or clothe naked mannequins, and count out the day‘s beginning till.

I have a brisk step and a long stride and it takes me about 17 minutes to make one round of the whole mall, including each and every little niche along the way. Right now I’m settled for two rounds, but will need to increase that soon or I’ll think myself lazy. And besides, 34 minutes isn’t really exercise, is it?

My mind wanders while I walk. Sometimes I look at the stuff in the windows and wonder how we’ve gotten to be such a consumer-oriented society. Usually, I just let thoughts float thru my mind at their leisure, like I’m supposed to be writing longhand on three pages of paper each morning. "Morning pages” are suggested by Julia Cameron in her book the Artist’s Way as a means of unblocking our creativity. Thinking the thoughts and letting them float isn’t the whole key. Writing them longhand seems to be. But I’m on a schedule here -- I can either exercise and let the thoughts just float around up there, or I can stay home and sit at my kitchen table spilling them out onto a lined tablet. For the time being, I’m opting for letting them float. I really need exercise more than I need to be “unblocked”.

Which brings me to my last “confession”. I hate being overweight. I could write a book about this, but it would be a very depressing book and I’m not into spreading my depression to others. I’m overweight more than the acceptable limit (in my own mind, and on the doctor’s Acceptable Weight charts). Maybe that’s part of the reason I hate to shop. I see cute clothes. But in my size, they cease to be “cute”. Being fat (ok, there, I said the word, fat), I still have trouble accepting that fat could possibly apply to me who was skinny most of my life. I grew up with parents worried that I was too thin. I was. My mom took me to the doctor to see if I was ok. I stood behind a funny x-ray type screen where he could look at my whole body in one glance, and he didn’t see anything unusual. He could just see my bones a little better with the x-ray vision than without. Although he could probably have counted many of my bones without the x-ray. I had a high metabolism and lots and lots of energy. I could eat anything I wanted, and as much as I wanted and never gained an ounce more than was necessary to support the added height of my years. Once a well-meaning family member paid me to sit still. A teen age neighbor boy nicknamed 7-year-old-me "Bones". All that movement kept me thin. I gained just enough through my teen years to lose the label “skinny”.

When I was 25 and married, I weighed 125 lbs (5’7”) before I became pregnant with my daughter. I gained the allowable 20 pounds with my pregnancy. The morning after she was born, I weighed 125 pounds again. I still needed to exercise to get things back in place, but I didn’t have to worry about losing pounds. When my daughter was two, I started losing weight again. I thought I was sick. I went to the doctor. I weighed 105 pounds. I wasn't sick, just stressed. I had to try to gain weight. (Oh, for those days!)

Now I have to get serious about losing lots of extra weight. I’m tired of hauling it around with me, and it slows me down, and even worse, it depresses me. So I will walk the mall (and in the spring, Provo Canyon) until I lose every single unwanted ugly ounce.

I confess, it won’t be easy.