She walked the same road every day.

No matter the season, no matter the noises, no matter the weather, she made the same, long loop of road every day. Suit up in appropriate clothing, shorts, skirt, sunhat, winter coat, snow shoes, whatever was necessary to complete the day\’s road. It was automation, it was catharsis.

She walked the same road every day.

Like all great journeys, it started one day with a simple decision: to walk. And so she did. The air was crisp with the newness of fall and refreshed her lungs and trickled into her soul. She kept walking, even when she was tried, wandering into spaces she\’d seen a thousand times but never bothered to investigate. She found nothing. Next day, she did it again. Soon it was her daily bread. Something was being exorcised, though she could not say what it was. Whether it would end or not was unclear and immaterial; only the road mattered.