Vox Meditantis

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

Sunday, 26th October 2025

The question arrives with Sunday’s slower pulse, tucked between breakfast and the soft deliberation of whether to walk before Mass or after. What is your favourite form of physical exercise? It should be simple – harbour walks, obviously, those dawn circuits with Father Walsh where theology and weather reports trade places in comfortable silence. But this morning, after last night’s moon meditations and David’s careful dish-washing still warm in memory, the question catches differently.

Because exercise, I’m realising, has always been less about movement than about what I’m moving away from.

The Architecture of Walking

Father Walsh was already at our usual meeting point when I arrived, earlier than his custom, hands deep in coat pockets against October’s new edge. Before I could offer my standard greeting, he said, “I need to tell you something, Catherine. Before we walk. Before I lose my nerve.”

The harbour held its breath.

“I’ve been offered a transfer. The diocese wants me in Wilmington, effective January. Senior chaplain at the hospital there – significant role, good work. I haven’t decided yet.” He paused, watching a gull argue with the wind. “But I realised this morning that if I go, I’ll be leaving the only person who walks at this ungodly hour willing to let silence do its proper work.”

Something shifted – not catastrophically, but definitively, like furniture rearranged in a familiar room. Tim Walsh, my dawn companion these seven years, my theological sparring partner, the man who asks what I’m actually thinking rather than accepting my professional deflections… leaving.

“How long have you known?” I asked, which wasn’t the question I meant but was the one that arrived first.

“Three weeks. I’ve been trying to sort it myself – the way you do, Catherine, when you’re used to holding everyone else’s uncertainties but struggle terribly with your own.”

The observation landed with uncomfortable precision.

We walked then, because that’s what we do. But the rhythm felt different, each step suddenly countable, the familiar route acquiring the tender quality of things we don’t yet know we’re losing.

What Movement Actually Does

Halfway round the harbour, Tim said, “You’ll want to know why I haven’t decided. Why I’m even considering staying when Wilmington is clearly the smarter career move.”

I waited, practising the discipline he’d just described – letting silence work.

“Because I’m tired of optimising my life for a vocation that’s supposed to be about incarnation. God in the particular, in the daily, in the stubborn refusal to treat everywhere as interchangeable with here.” He stopped walking, turned to face the water. “I moved seven times in my first fifteen years of priesthood. Excellent for the CV. Catastrophic for actually knowing anyone beyond their Sunday performance.”

“And here you know people,” I offered.

“Here I know you.” He said it plainly, without flourish. “Which means I know what a life looks like when someone’s extraordinary at witnessing others whilst remaining carefully elsewhere themselves. I recognise the architecture, Catherine, because it’s mine too.”

Oh.

The Consultation I Didn’t Request

We sat on the bench near Tom’s usual morning station – he’d passed us earlier with a wave and a prediction of rain by afternoon, hip clearly bothering him more despite his dignified adaptation. Tim stretched his legs, regarded his scuffed walking boots with what looked like affection.

“Here’s what I’ve noticed these seven years,” he continued. “You walk this harbour every morning with missionary zeal. Never miss. Rain, snow, the occasional existential crisis – you’re here. And I’ve always admired that discipline, that commitment to… what? Physical health? Mental clarity?”

“All of the above?” I offered, hearing the deflection even as I deployed it.

“Or,” he said gently, “to having somewhere you must be before the day’s actual demands arrive. A legitimate excuse to be in motion, alone, processing yesterday’s sessions and steeling yourself for today’s. Exercise as acceptable avoidance.”

I should have been offended. Instead, I felt the peculiar relief of being accurately seen.

“I do the same thing,” Tim continued. “These walks aren’t spiritual practice for me, Catherine – they’re the hour when I get to stop performing priesthood and just be Tim, middle-aged man with dodgy knees and theological doubts, walking with someone who doesn’t need me to have answers.”

The harbour offered its morning commentary – rope creaking against bollards, gulls conducting their territorial negotiations, the distant groan of the ferry starting its day.

“So when Wilmington asks whether I’m ready for more responsibility, better opportunities to serve… what they’re really asking is whether I’m willing to give up this.” He gestured at the water, the weathered boardwalk, the whole ordinary vista. “Whether I’m willing to trade the only hour of my week when I get to be insufficient in company for a promotion that will require me to be inspirational on demand.”

The Question Behind the Question

“What does this have to do with exercise?” I asked, though I was beginning to understand.

“Everything. Because I think we’re both using it – this virtuous morning habit – as shelter from the question we’re actually avoiding.”

“Which is?”

“Whether the life we’ve built, however admirable, is actually the life we want. Or whether we’ve simply become very skilled at constructing sophisticated forms of loneliness and calling it vocation.”

The words hung between us like breath made visible in cold air.

I thought about yesterday’s moon prompt, Jenny’s observation that I’m already doing brave things here, David washing dishes with sacramental attention, the watercolour class I’ve signed up for, the oral history interview where I’ll be subject rather than facilitator. Small terrestrial risks instead of dramatic escape.

And I thought about Tim’s seven years of dawn companionship – how much of my courage to finally attempt ordinary intimacy has been underwritten by these walks, by his steady refusal to let my professional persona pass unchallenged, by the reliable rhythm of someone who knows and doesn’t look away.

“So you’re leaving,” I said. Not a question.

“I don’t know yet. But I realised this morning that my decision affects you – which is new for me, having to consider that my choices have weight in someone else’s daily architecture. It’s uncomfortable. Also possibly the first actually grown-up thing I’ve done in years.”

The Invitation I Didn’t See Coming

We resumed walking, slower now, neither of us ready for the circuit to end.

“Here’s what I wanted to say before I lost my nerve,” Tim offered. “If I stay, I need to stop using these walks as the only hour I’m genuinely present. I need to risk attempting real friendship – meals, conversation beyond weather and theodicy, the messy work of letting someone past the clerical collar.”

He paused, choosing words with visible care.

“And if I go, I wanted you to know that watching you these past weeks – signing up for watercolours, inviting David to Bartók, agreeing to Maggie’s interview – has given me courage to at least ask the question. Whether Wilmington is advancement or just another elegant way of remaining hidden.”

Something in my chest unknotted – that same sensation from Thursday’s concert, the slow movement’s descending phrase making sorrow sound like dignity.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said. Simple truth, unadorned.

“I know. That’s why I’m considering staying.”

We finished the circuit in companionable silence, but it was different now – not the practiced quiet of two people avoiding depth, but the settling that comes after honesty, when you’ve named something true and the naming hasn’t destroyed anything, has perhaps even built something you didn’t know needed building.

What Exercise Actually Means

Back at the Victorian, I stood at the window with cooling tea, watching the harbour’s Sunday morning rhythms. Tom making his rounds despite the hip. Early Mass-goers heading toward Father Walsh’s church. David – I recognised him now – walking toward the café with the distinctive gait of someone whose evenings have recently included concerts and careful domesticity.

My favourite form of physical exercise has always been these dawn walks. Rain or shine, grief or satisfaction, thirty years of showing up to the same circuit, bearing witness to the harbour’s moods, moving through New Corinth’s streets with the disciplined attention I bring to everything.

But Tim’s right. I’ve been using movement as management – processing yesterday’s clinical weight, preparing for today’s, burning off the restlessness that comes from holding everyone else’s emotions whilst carefully rationing my own. Exercise as virtuosic avoidance, dressed up as self-care.

What would it mean to walk differently? Not as preparation or recovery, not as the hour when I get to be alone with my thoughts before the day demands professional presence, but simply as… walking. Being in my body, in this place, without agenda beyond the pleasure of movement itself.

Mother used to walk for no reason at all – she’d see a street she hadn’t explored and simply turn down it, following curiosity rather than circuit. Father walked with purpose, destination always clear, but he’d stop to help if someone needed directions, arriving late without apology because connection mattered more than efficiency.

Between them, they demonstrated that walking needn’t be either therapeutic or productive. It could just be life, lived at three miles per hour, available to interruption and surprise.

The Sunday Rhythm

Kevin’s river clean-up at noon – I arrived to find him marshalling volunteers with his characteristic warmth, creating space for newcomers whilst honouring the regulars who’ve shown up monthly for years. Priya was there, high-vis vest over good clothes, somehow making litter collection look architectural. Tom had begged off – the hip, Kevin mentioned quietly, might need looking at properly.

We worked in comfortable proximity, the physical labour offering its own meditation. Bending, reaching, the small satisfactions of making something incrementally cleaner. Exercise without performance, movement in service of something beyond the self.

David appeared mid-morning, gloves and bin bag procured from Kevin, settling into the work with the same quiet competence he’d brought to Thursday’s dishes. We exchanged smiles, brief words about last night’s rain, nothing requiring depth but building the ordinary scaffolding that depth eventually rests on.

This is exercise too – not the solitary harbour circuit but the communal choreography of bodies working together toward modest shared goals. Different muscles, different satisfactions.

The Historical Archive

Maggie’s interview this afternoon, recorder between us like a permission slip. She started gently – when I arrived, what drew me to New Corinth, the evolution of my practice. Standard oral history questions that let me settle into the familiar role of narrator.

Then, carefully: “Tell me about walking. Tom mentioned you’ve walked the harbour every morning for thirty years. That’s part of the neighbourhood’s texture now – Dr. Bennett on her dawn rounds. What does that movement mean to you?”

And instead of my practiced answer about exercise and mental health and the harbour’s particular October beauty, I found myself saying:

“I think I’ve been walking away from stillness. From having to be here, fully here, without the protective momentum of moving through. Tim noticed this morning – Father Walsh, I should say – that I use these walks as the hour when I don’t have to be anyone in particular. But that’s still a form of performance, isn’t it? Just quieter.”

Maggie waited, recorder running, giving me space to continue.

“My favourite form of exercise has been whatever keeps me in motion. But I’m beginning to wonder whether that’s health or sophisticated avoidance. Whether real courage might look like learning to stand still more often. To be available to interruption, to let walking be something I do with people rather than something I do instead of people.”

The words surprised me as they arrived – true before I knew they were true.

The Evening Accounting

Supper alone, risotto reheated from Thursday, each forkful carrying sense memory of David’s low laugh and the Bartók still settling in my bones. The flat feels different now – not empty, exactly, but provisionally occupied. A space that might accommodate more than just me and my careful solitudes.

Tim’s potential departure has clarified something. These harbour walks I’ve protected so fiercely, treated as sacrosanct, used as evidence of my commitment to self-care… they’ve also been my daily escape hatch. The hour when I don’t have to risk anything, when I can be in New Corinth without being meaningfully of it.

But what if I invited David to walk with me sometime? Or Jenny, or Maggie, or any of the people I’ve kept at arm’s length whilst congratulating myself on my community involvement?

What if my favourite form of exercise became whatever movement brings me into contact with others rather than whatever movement keeps me safely elsewhere?

That’s terrifying. Also possibly the whole point.

What Tim’s Secret Revealed

Here’s what I didn’t expect: that Tim’s confession would reframe seven years of companionable silence. All this time, I thought I was walking with someone. Turns out we’ve been walking past each other – two people using the same hour for the same sophisticated avoidance, politely not mentioning that we both recognise the architecture because we’re standing in identical buildings.

He might leave. That possibility sits heavy, a loss I’m only beginning to calculate. But his honesty this morning – his willingness to name what we’ve both been doing, to ask whether Wilmington is advancement or escape – has given me something more valuable than another year of dawn circuits.

He’s shown me what it looks like when someone stops optimising their life and starts actually living it. When they ask the uncomfortable questions about whether their admirable choices are serving genuine values or just protecting against risk.

If Tim stays, he says, he needs to attempt real friendship – not just walking companionship but the messy, demanding work of letting someone see him beyond the role. And if he goes, at least he’ll go having asked whether he’s running toward something or just from the vulnerability of being fully present somewhere.

Either way, he’s demonstrated courage I’ve been avoiding. The courage to stop moving long enough to ask: is this actually what I want? Or have I just become extraordinarily skilled at virtuous forms of hiding?

Tomorrow’s Exercise

The harbour is dark now, October’s early dusk turning water to ink. Tomorrow I’ll walk again – because movement does matter, because the body requires tending, because there’s genuine pleasure in being physical after spending so many hours in the consulting room’s stillness.

But I might walk differently. More slowly, perhaps. Available to interruption. Open to the possibility that exercise needn’t be something I do in protective solitude but could be something I do in company – running into Elena opening her shop and stopping for actual conversation, walking with David if he’s willing, even breaking my sacred circuit to help Tom if his hip needs assistance and his dignity will permit it.

My favourite form of exercise has been whatever keeps me in therapeutic motion. But I’m learning – slowly, terrestrially, without dramatic gesture – that perhaps the bravest exercise of all is the willingness to sometimes stand absolutely still. To be findable, interruptible, genuinely present rather than perpetually in transit.

Tim might be leaving. That changes the landscape of my mornings, the reliable rhythm I’ve built thirty years of days around. But his honesty about why he might stay – about needing to stop using our walks as the only hour he’s genuinely present – has already changed me.

The question wasn’t really about exercise at all. It was about whether I’m willing to stop moving long enough to be caught. To risk the ordinary intimacy that doesn’t come with professional boundaries or the protective momentum of always being en route to somewhere else.

I signed up for watercolours. I invited David to Bartók. I’m learning, millimetre by millimetre, to be seen.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll walk more slowly. Perhaps I’ll even stop.

Catherine

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Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.