I don’t look down when I walk.

I look in front of me, around me, sometimes behind me, but I don’t look down when I walk.  Probably, this says a lot about me: where I’m going, how I got there.

Last week I was helping a friend move—if we are still calling it that.

“You have to be careful about this,” I said, looking at the 6 inch (in my guess) black corkscrew nail sticking out from the floor.

This should have been my first clue.  Even with my glasses on, I don’t see well enough to have known it was a six-inch black, corkscrew nail.

My concern was that my friend would walk out onto her balcony without shoes and step on the nail.

So, it turns out, the nail was not in the floor but was in the screen.

I found this out when I walked through it.

When I look down, I don’t see where I’m going, I see how I’m getting there.  Maybe that’s why I don’t do it.  In life, I often over analyze the steps it takes to get from where I am to where I want to be. 

That should make my path more logical, my choices more coherent, my successes more certain.  Sometimes, it does.  Other times, analyzing the steps keeps me from taking them. Often, when I’ve tried, watching my feet causes me to stumble or slow my pace.  I get where I’m going eventually, but mainly only once I look up.

As of today, the screen door is still laying beside, not on its track.

I don’t look down when I walk.