Article Contributed on: 8/28/2008 6:11:05 PM
Picture a salt-of-the earth man with dark skin, big eyes, a mustache, and slicked down hair sitting on a stool in a bar with plank floors and chipped walls. He's wearing a pressed white shirt and a bow tie. The inward curve of a steel guitar rests on his leg. The fingers of his right hand strum up and down the instrument's strings while his left hand slides a broken bottleneck up the frets to make a weeping sound. His body jerks, as if possessed, with every stroke. You see he's missing most of his teeth because he opens his mouth wide to sing sad notes. His skin is hard and cracked. By his face, you can tell he's filled with heartache. He moans, "Got up this morning/Feeling around for my shoes/You know I must've had the walking blues." This is my favorite blues man Son House. For years, musicians like him have been my teachers.
Many classic writers and musicians have had the walking blues. Just about every one of Son House's contemporaries had a song about it too. They've all known the secret powers of a good constitutional.
Any kind of exercise helps you ruminate on things you ordinarily wouldn't have time for. The blues goes naturally with walking because both activities allow you to reflect on life and sort your feelings out. This purely American music, however, isn't just about being depressed. Though all blues songs contain sad tones and lyrics, each verse has a turnaround, in which listeners can release or laugh at their own struggles. They can find solace in the ubiquity of suffering and learn to let go of it.
Walking, running, and hiking all have their turnarounds too. When you get to the top of a mountain and look out at all the toy houses and cars dwarfed by the vast landscape below, or when you get to the point where you've been going so long that your mind empties and you forget everything except the pavement moving underneath your feet, you will find peace. Let blues men and women be your teachers too.