What is a simple pleasure in life that brings you joy?
I have not always understood this, but walking is one of the great simple pleasures of life.
Not walking for fitness, though that matters. Not walking to get somewhere, though that helps. Just walking.
I often follow the same route. The dog beside me. The morning still cool. The same trees, the same footpaths, the same corners, but never quite the same day.
There is something good about routine. You pass the same people. At first there is only a nod or a casual hello. Then the hello becomes a sentence. The sentence becomes a conversation. You learn a name. A family story. Something about work. Something about grief. Something about joy.
A street slowly becomes a neighbourhood.
I am currently reading Kate Bowler’s Joyful Anyway, where she reflects on joy as the belief that existence is good. Not easy. Not painless. Not always happy. But good.
She quotes Stephen Colbert, speaking after the death of his father and brothers: “It’s a gift to exist.”
That line has stayed with me.
Recently my wife had coffee with a friend at a beachside suburb. Girls only. Rather than coming later and bringing another car, we went together. While she had coffee, the dog and I walked for two hours.
We followed streets I had often rushed past in the car but had never really seen. We found quiet beaches on Pittwater and sat listening to the water lapping against the shore. We watched boys fishing from jetties. We passed a small sailing club I did not know was there, with children out on the water in their skiffs.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was the pleasure of it.
Walking does not solve much. It does not remove sorrow, answer every question, or make life simple. But it helps me notice what is still good. The dog beside me. A familiar face on the path. Water against the shore. Children in small boats. The ordinary kindness of another morning.
Perhaps joy is not always a feeling we chase. Perhaps it is something we notice when we slow down enough to receive the day.
It is a gift to exist.
So for now, I walk.
Walking slows the world down enough for me to notice it, appreciate it, and find joy at the start of the day.
The Afterword 
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