You need to do more formalised walking the doctor said.
Why not buy one of those formalised walking devices
that measures your tread? They’re good. I had one and
loved it until I felt it was judging me. Then I stamped on it.
I liked this doctor — Lebrun was his name. To some degree
he was nondescript but now and again he would flare up
with a blazing, fellow warmth. It made him hard to contradict.
Or skipping, he added, placing one hand on my shoulder —
if formalised walking gets you down, why not skip? Many
believe jumping daily, with or without a rope, staves off
melancholy. And keep a skipping journal but don’t write
down anything about how much you skip or how long it
took or how fast your heart was beating after. Scrap all that.
What it was I should write I asked next with a childish
tremor in my voice that I wished fervently to subdue.
I am not a scholarly man said Lebrun, but perhaps this —
and he handed me a calfskin notebook — the pages mostly
blank but for two at the centre, where over and over until
I was dizzy I read, in his looping hand: Motion is emotion
is motion is emotion is motion is emotion is motion.
