The gains will feel small and the losses too large
Keep marching, keep marching
You’ll rarely agree with whoever’s in charge
Keep marching, keep marching
‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need
That progress is possible, not guaranteed
It will only be made if we keep marching
Keep marching on …
Shaina Taub
From the musical “Suffs”
I don’t know how the election turned out. We may not know for a while. Maybe the worst thing ever for this country. Maybe the best thing ever. One or the other. Or maybe both, with 50% believing one, 50% believing the opposite.
But whatever happened, the Master Walkers Club will keep walking, keep walking, as we did last Friday, as we have for the past 30 years. We walked a 10-mile stretch, 25,000 steps, along the Lake Geneva shore trail in Wisconsin, two of us in our early 70s, the other younger and in better shape, groaning the least.
We have hiked 26 miles around the entire lake at least seven times, 12 hours, dawn to dusk. We hiked half at least a dozen times. The other years, we traversed smaller sections, as graceful aging and good sense dictated. Last Friday’s 10 miles took five hours, so we weren’t out to break any records. Some years we hiked the Fox River trail instead, closer to home — during the pandemic, for instance — but we always end up coming back here. Others joined us once (or several) upon-a-times, but the three of us make up the hard-core master walkers.
Keep walking, keep walking on …
We read poetry during our rest stops and discuss, snacking on trail mix, apples and cheese, gazing out over this lovely lake, processing our passing lives. I was 43 when we first took this walk in 1995. Now I’m 72.
This past Friday, we talked about everything from the looming election to our grandkids to what dreams have come true for us. It was a wonderful day away from our day-to-day.
All walking is a journey and so is life, so they complement one another. Our lookbacks arouse varying degrees of enthusiasm. Same for looking to the future. Mostly we focus on the present and try to appreciate our surroundings and each other.
The path is familiar now with fewer surprises. We pass new and more elaborate houses, too ornate to pique our former fantasies of living here where the disassembled piers are stacked up each fall like idyllic summers, banked in memory.
With age comes experience and the accumulation of sameness, so changes are refreshing, though challenging our declining recall. Did we see this before or did I just never notice it? Or are the places the same and we’re the ones who changed?
Keep walking, keep walking, taking the road more traveled, a well-worn path toward a destiny we all face — alone — reminding each other that life is good, but better with excellent companions.
Three other hikers pass by and ring the bell left on the path that reads, “Expect a miracle.” Later we pass them and ask, “Did you get your miracle yet?”
“Well, these blackberries are awfully good.”
Some miracles are small — blackberries, a lake unruffled by wind, renewing cherished traditions. Some miracles take longer, like electing a woman president. Expect them anyway.
Keep walking, keep walking, keep marching, keep marching on …
We pool our memories. We are the glow at the end of the journey. Reading a poem by Joy Harjo, “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet,” we form a trinity, crossing the boundary into the beautiful world.
“Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. … Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. … Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.”
Someday, one of these lake walks will be our last, contingent as they are on mobility and health. Or death may break up our triad. Or we might decide to hang up our hiking boots by mutual consent. When that happens, we will only know in hindsight which walk was our last.
All the more reason to mark and appreciate each in the perfect now, and keep walking, keep walking, keep marching, keep marching, through troubled elections in a troubled land because we are all suffragists now.
After each hike, we end up at Lake Geneva Inn, which offers a fine view of the lake, late in the day. Over a celebratory glass of wine or beer, we watch the afterglow golden up the sky in the west and turn the water silvery orange. We toast a past we cannot change, a future over which we still have some control, and to this year’s hike, which is, as always, christened the best of the batch.
We also commit to continuing our annual one-day ordinary odyssey for as long as we are able.
And to sharing the extraordinary odyssey of our ordinary lives.
Before we melt into memory altogether.