Gratitude Monday: ratty or not, I walked

Yesterday I did the walk for Multiple Sclerosis that was held in Reston. This is the first time I’ve done it since my friend David’s death. I’ve been feeling pretty ratty lately—everything pisses me off—and I almost bagged it. But realized that wasn’t really an option.

On the ratty side, it’s really annoying to me that the organizers here in the National Capital Area do such a cursory job at this. The walks I did in the Valley They Call Silicon were just amazing. They always left me feeling energized and grateful; one of the things I found so wonderful was the enthusiastic participation of high school students, and the almost festival atmosphere. Maybe it was that it was held in a park, and not in a faux urban “town center” run by Boston Properties where they just want you to get the hell out before the punters show up, but in Los Gatos people were in for the day, with chairs and tables provided both before and after the walk for people to socialize.

Maybe it’s just the difference between California and Virginia.

(Also, in years past, the Reston walk route went through actual wooded areas, for which the community is famous. This time…it was through gardens of concrete; ugh.)

Well, anyhow—I hauled my sorry ass out to the faux urban center and around the uglified route for three miles, and I am profoundly grateful that I could do it—that, sorry as my ass is, I had the muscular control to get out and walk. And that I could also contribute monetarily to the National MS Society to help fund research.