Therapy walks, and cinnamon

I have been on another therapy walk. This has evolved into a monthly exercise, taking a whole day for myself, a weekday when kids are at school, colleagues are at work, friends are busy, and I have time to be with myself, by myself. I find I really, really need this time. I need it like never before. The emotional rollercoaster of the last six months since my sister died mean my brain can hit overdrive so fast it could implode without this precious time that I give to it, to let go, literally drain away the build up of tension and emotion. Every walk I have done so far has taken in beauty - art, architecture, history, nature. This one is a little different. It's beautiful all right - I am on the Kenwood estate, and plan to walk through it to Hampstead Heath. But although I enter Kenwood right by the little known Dairy (currently under construction but worth a visit even under scaffolding), a scene of enormous natural beauty, I am not there to look at stuff. This walk is about literally booting the thoughts out of my head with fresh air. There is plenty of it on Hampstead Heath, but this is not just fresh air. Firstly, it is absolutely bloody freezing. April, and it's all of 2 degrees at most, and there's a wind, so the chill factor makes it feel like Siberia. And secondly, the route I have chosen has miles of open space, and loads and loads of huge, old trees. In other words, I plan to overawe my brain with nature's majesty, and then freeze the emotion out of it. At the top of the knoll on which the Dairy sits, I breathe in the cold air, survey the rolling hills, and isolated runners (how, oh how, do runners do it??? In this weather??? Me, I am wrapped up to the nines so am relatively protected from this global warming fallout, but them?? A nano centimetre of lycra is all that stands between them and hypothermia...), and feel the effect of the air on my insides. It is as if the overdose of oxygen is making my blood run faster, relieving the tension that I can feel inside my head. It is almost like that scene in the Harry Potter movies where various wizards stick their wands to their heads, extract their thoughts in thin blue strands, and put them in test tubes for storage.  I walk down the knoll and on to a crunchy path, the wind whipping my ridiculously bushy Jewfro hair (no hat can contain it), and allow myself to experience the elements while I walk. Sounds like tosh? Yeah, it does a bit. So if you haven't tried this at home you'll have to take my word for it. A walk in a cold wind clears your head like no other walk. Part of it of course is about your body adapting itself to the change in environment and protecting itself  (from that hypothermia I mentioned earlier) all of which takes energy and a degree of concentration, relieving your thoughts and directing your attention elsewhere. Anything that directs my attention elsewhere these days is Good News. I walk further into the Heath, and make my way through huge trees. They are rocking a bit in the high wind. I climb up onto the lower branches of one of them and look up. It's a dizzying experience, feels just a little bit foolhardy, and gives me an adrenaline hit not a million miles away from my first rollercoaster ride. I climb back down. Head back. Get a bus home, chafing my hands. At home again, I bake cinnamon and oat cookies, make myself a cup of hot tea, take one of my cookies, just out of the oven, bite into it, take a gulp of tea, and sit back. Aaaaah. Cinnamon counteracts cold almost as effectively as sticking the central heating on. The kids come in from school, their noses following the scent. They head straight for the kitchen, school bags still on their backs, grab a cookie, sit down next to me, gloves still on their hands, and take a bite. Aaaah, they say. Goodwill spreads through each of us. A walk in cold high wind. And cinnamon. A truly healing combination.