Walking Diaries #5 with Krista Steele

Full Circle

Jan 15, 2024

Welcome to the Walking Diaries where each month a friend of mine will share a story/reflection/poem/photo essay from a walk they took. With each diary shared, I hope you’ll be encouraged to lace up your shoes and put one foot in front of the other. Want to catch up on the Walking Diaries? Last month’s Walk in Bethlehem from Jordan Miller-Stubbendick is a must - read.

Krista Steele

and I met online through Exhale Creativity. This summer we had the chance to do life together for a few days. After a vacation in Columbus with extended family, we had a few extra days on our own. Cue my messaging Krista to see if she knew anyone with a rental house. And to my delight and surprise, Krista offered her home. Our kids played together. We went to the local pool. We spent the nights talking about raising our kids, faith, and the dreams we have. You would never have guessed this was our first time meeting in person. Krista has a way of noticing and listening that brings a reader into her stories. I hope her words inspire you in your relationships and encourage you to take a walk.

My husband, Jeff, and I met on a walk. We were supposed to meet at a Starbucks but it was the first day of spring, and what a glorious entrance spring had made! The clouds had parted and the sun shone as if for the first time. It was just warm enough for me to leave my winter coat at home and I couldn’t bear the thought of wasting the afternoon listening to a generic pop/jazz blend and drinking bad coffee. In Ohio, we don’t take sunny days for granted. Winters here are the color of depression, a heavy, lifeless gray that feels like it will never lift. Winter days are short and cold and wet and we spend the rest of the year storing sunshine in our bodies like so many grain silos.

Between you and me, I wasn’t expecting more from this date than a good story to tell. I almost canceled, but I needed to walk my dog anyway and proposed a change of location instead. With paved paths that wind gently through the trees, walking through Rocky Fork metro park is an escape to childhood with its towering trees and secret paths. Returning to nature has always been a return to myself.

We walked around the whole park twice that afternoon. Later that week we went on our first real date, and six months later we walked that same path with our sisters trailing behind, sweating through several long miles in the September sun, waiting to take photos when he dropped to one knee and proposed.

It’s been seven years since we met in the Rocky Fork parking lot. Seven years, a wedding, two degrees, a handful of jobs, two moves, two kids, a puppy, a dozen pairs of worn out sneakers, thousands of miles and more dreams than I can count.

Jeff is texting me as I’m writing at the library. He asks me if we can go for a walk after each of us finishes our work for the day. “Of course!” I say “Rocky Fork?”. So much is different from the day we first walked that path back when we were two kids in school with futures paved in question marks. With our work done for the day, we pack the kids into the car and wrestle the dogs into their leashes. We double check the diaper bag and make three trips back inside for snacks, water bottles and a worn out lovey affectionately nicknamed Lieutenant Dan on account of his missing legs, long ago chewed off by our dog, Scout.

After the ordeal of getting out the door and into the car, I sigh in relief when I finally see the sign for the park up ahead. Walking at Rocky Fork feels like stepping through the wardrobe to Narnia, and we could use a little magic. Back at home there are real problems that need real solutions. Questions without answers and a future that’s uncertain are right there on the other side of the tree line. We’ve spent hours talking about what might happen. There have been more nights than I care to count when fear kept us awake long into the darkest hours of the early morning.

But for now, we find comfort in the canopy of oak and maple trees that curve over the path, sheltering us beneath their leaves. James, our two year old, squeals “tunnel!” as we enter the forest, delighted. His is a world of wonder where anything is possible. When, I think, did I leave that world? Passing through the dense woods, I feel my shoulders drop and my soul return to the wonder and magic of childhood.

As we turn a corner, the trees open up into a field of grasses and wild flowers swaying in the wind. The sound they make in the breeze is like a sigh. A breath of relief and pleasure and awe. Along the path, goldenrod lick the sky like the tips of a thousand flames. The dainty chamomile turn their tender faces toward the sun, and the purple aster pulls its petals in tight, defiant against the impending frost. Lucy, four, crouches down to admire them, plucks a few and brings them to me. “I picked these for you, mama.”

Deer saunter by just ahead and we freeze, whispering as we wait for more, listening as they move through the brush just behind a fallen tree. We laugh at a chipmunk as it scampers under a log and point to the squirrels with their long bushy tails held high.

We came to the park heavy, weighed down by uncertainty and fear about the future but as we round the final bend back to the parking lot, something is different. I’m different. I’m twenty-six again, newly engaged, not sure of what the future holds, only that I want to experience every minute of it with Jeff. I’m twenty-seven and crying after our first married fight, which is a funny story but one for another time. I’m twenty-eight and pregnant, twenty-nine and pushing a stroller around and around and around as Lucy dreams to the sound of the forest. And now, I’m a few days shy of thirty-three, hands full of tiny wildflowers, kissing my husband in the exact spot where all of this began; still in love, still unsure of what the future holds, still sure I want to keep walking with him.

Krista is a therapist, writer and homemaker based in Columbus, Ohio where she lives with her husband, Jeff and their children. She never leaves the house without a book and always adds a bouquet of flowers to her Trader Joe’s cart. If Krista had a rule of life it would be Mary Oliver’s words: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” You can subscribe to her Substack and Ohio residents looking for a therapist can schedule an appointment with her.