Palmtree Contemplations

252, 330! As of ten minutes ago, this is my total step count for the Step Into Their Shoes Campaign. This has been a long month of walking and realizations. Here's a break down of my experience of the charity walk week to week. Week 1 Yippee! Rise and shine and walk! Seriously, this is how I felt every day of that first week when I woke up early to get a long walk in before breakfast. When I came home from work in the evening, I finished up however many steps I had left with a long walk around my neighborhood. Here's the thing: I took all of my walks alone. ALONE. Come to think of it, I've made a habit of walking alone since childhood. We weren't supposed to go out in the jungle by ourselves, but I did all the time...with my dog and my machete. (Quite the lethal trio) Most of the time, though, I've been alone on my walks since. After college, I used to walk around my university town alone late at night, and I did the same thing when I lived in Seoul. In many p

Here is the story, as simple as I can tell it. For years now, I have been made more and more aware of how prevalent sex trafficking is in our country. I live very close to what is a hub of this industry: Milwaukee. Crazy, right? If you walk along the Lakefront, it's difficult to believe that such a beautiful place is the home of such a destructive thing, but it is. Here's a link if you want more information. http://www.wisn.com/article/local-woman-tries-to-stop-milwaukee-s-spiraling-sex-trade/9642735 I've wanted to do something about this for a long time, and have felt unable to because of Lyme disease. In the past couple of months, though, I have been amazed by a renewed sense of energy. For a few weeks now, I have woken up often before the sun, something that has not happened for a long time. I finally have the strength to do something, however small, about this problem. For the entire month of October, I will be walking 50, 000 steps a week to raise money for women