Walk It Out

Morning walks and creatures in the dark.

Over the last few years we’ve gotten very busy here at Stupid Fresh Mess. Outside of the company’s exclusive covers, I had the Big Marvel project which was 27-ish covers on top of my normal cover schedule at Marvel and on top of my creator owned books. On the writing side, I’ve had monthly I Hate Fairyland scripts, Ain’t No Grave and the follow up to Twig while wrapping up Strange Academy. Oh, and as always, those pesky kids that need raising. It’s been an amazing but packed few years. I’m not listing all of this as a flex though. A little bit of the opposite. I’ve been so buried in one project after another each day that I realized I was ignoring one of the most important parts of life, especially as we get older.

Self Care.

Mental and physical self care are so vital and yet, so many of us push those things to the back of the line when we start getting too busy or overwhelmed. I definitely am guilty of this. A little over a year ago I got back into therapy and that did wonders for the old noggin. I mean, I’m still a hot ass mess, I just understand the mess a bit more and have a few more tools to help clean it up. One of the places I needed to use this mental tools why most was on the physical.

I went from walking 5 miles each morning to pandemic Peloton daily, to taking month long gaps, to nothing at all. And the nothing at all held the record for longest streak. That’s not a great streak to have. I was talking with my Doc and he said “get up each day and just walk for 30 minutes.” Once I got passed the 45 excuses I wanted to make up on why I couldn’t do that…I just did it.

I woke up the next morning, threw on a podcast and started walking. It was…not easy. Haha. I’m not a small person. I’m not a young person. And when you’ve been sitting at computers and at drawing desks for the better part of two years, the old joints are not excited that you’re working them out all of the sudden. But like writing and drawing, you get better the more you do it.

Over this past month I went from walking a mile for the first few days to 4 or 5 miles now, depending on the time and where and when I need to be at work or dropping kids off at school. It went from “ugh, I have to do this.” to “I can’t wait to do this.” very quickly. It’s become that oh so needed and rare “me” time. Where I can just soak in podcasts, audiobooks and music. I hit that OUTDOOR WALK on my Apple Watch so I can track my progess after and look at the map of where I’ve been. Seeing that number go from 2.34 miles to 4.57, to 5.10 over a just a few was exciting. I’ll Get lost in my thoughts and let my mind wander through all the possible stories I want to tell. It just took one month and it’s one of my favorite things again. Hopefully the weather stays warm enough to do it for a few more months.

Now that I got all that setup out of the way, I'll tell you a story. I’ve been walking on a trail that weaves around lakes, over bridges and through woods. It’s so inspiring. There’s something about being out in the fresh air, feeling the breeze and hearing it in the leaves that connects me to that “story side” of my mind much more than just sitting in my studio in front of my computer.

I’ve also been walking on a trail around one of those pre-fabricated suburban communities with the fake lakes and the fountains in the middle and the mega playgrounds. A very Truman Show type of place. It’s less inspiring but close to my house- 2 laps equals about 4 miles. I pick this place if I’m in hurry, just don’t feel like the extra drive time, or if I was almost eaten by the savage beasts waiting for me to cross their bridge at my first place.

Not actually me walking. This is the Truman Show…duh.

Yeah. You read that right. I JUST ABOUT FUCKING DIED.

Ok, I didn’t. Whatever. Here’s what happened. In my new excitement for my morning walks, I arrived at the trail before the sun came up. I could see its slight orange glow of the top of the trees in the distance but it wasn’t even close to lighting the trail up. Of course I thought about the fact that there might be some critters out there in the forest but surely they’d leave me alone until the sun came up and sent them. Pressed play on my podcast, clicked the OUTDOOR WALK workout on my watch and started on long trek.

Or, my very short .13 mile trek.

I left my car, walked across the road, and just a little down the path to where the trail starts on a bridge that crosses into the woods. Once I was there I realized it was much darker than I thought and slowed my pace. Before I got the start of the bridge, I noticed a darker area, but couldn’t make it out. I thought maybe my eyes just weren’t adjusted to just how dark it was, so I pulled you my phone and turned on the flash light. I froze.

There, a mere 15 feet in from of me were what seemed like a dozen sets of sliver eyes reflecting my phones light back at me. It might have been a few dozen. Who knows. I’m just saying that there in the darkness, 245 glowing eyes belonging to some sort of monstrous creatures were staring at me letting me know there would be no passing on that bridge at this time.

I instantly turned around, swiftly returned to my car and drove to do my walk around the Truman Show set where the deadly beasts I’d encounter would be some sort of Doodle named Mittens or Geoffrey or whatever other names bougie people names their Doodles.

Now, some people think I have an over active imagination and instead of me seeing the 45,567 glowing eyes attached to the hairy backs of ancient woodland Elder Gods, that it was probably a few bunnies. Maybe even one bunny. All I’ll say is…I barely made it away from with my life.

Needless to say, I wait for the sun to be up now.

Now I’m gonna wrap this up with request. I’d love to hear some recommendations for some podcasts. I love interviews with writers talking about story and craft, specifically OUTSIDE OF COMICS. I need to soak in things from outside this industry. I’m also open to any good book discussion podcasts. I like hearing others talk about stories. Again, outside of comics is preferred. I’m just too familiar with the comic world. haha So, if you have any good podcasts or specific episodes, please post in the comments.

Thanks!