Saturday morning, a light breeze brushes against the heavy foliage on the steep hill. The low morning sun barely gleams over the twenty-foot flood wall designed to protect the town of Williamson from the Tug Fork River. An asphalt path winds along the mile-long wall.
The stresses of life seem to melt away as I walk down this path. The looming semester project that I have yet to start, the 50-question test on Monday, and the Calculus packet no longer give me anxiety. My responsibilities do not leave my mind, but rather, they stop stressing me. The walk clears the fog of anxiety in my head allowing me to think. After walking for a quarter mile, my mind starts to manage my responsibilities. It is almost like magic. I can easily finish the semester project by going to the library for thirty minutes after school for the next five days. I can review the content for my test later in the evening and take online practice tests Sunday morning. I can do five problems on my Calculus packet every two hours and easily be finished by Sunday night. Even though my mind has the ability to plan out responsibilities in a manageable fashion at any time, the walk is necessary to catalyze the planning process. The walk eliminates all the distracting factors.
For my mind to clearly think, there must be sufficient time. My pace is brisk enough to reasonably count the walk as exercise but not too fast to shorten the experience. Each session takes around thirty-five minutes, and I have likely spent hundreds of hours at the flood wall throughout my life. I first came here with my family when I was four. The scale of the place fascinated me; the wall shrouded the west half of the sky, and the walkway appeared to never end. Time felt like it stopped. Every time I have visited the wall, it has never changed. To this day, the benches, pavement, and even the chalk graffiti have remained constant. This place has somehow escaped the ever-changing world. I feel a strong sense of nostalgia every time I visit the wall.
One thing does change, though. The people I see every time I go to the flood wall are different, but they all have one thing in common—friendliness. I have never had an unfriendly encounter at the flood wall. People come to the flood wall for different reasons. Some walk down to the riverbanks to spend their Sunday evenings fishing. Athletes are constantly running back and forth for the next 5K. People who are trying to adapt to a healthier life style walk together in droves. Despite the different purposes, I have discovered through casual conversation that everyone experiences the same soothing effect of the wall. The environment is so tranquil that any sort of transgression is unimaginable.
The flood wall derives its physical beauty from the natural scenery, but its true appeal lies within the amiable attitudes of the people who visit it. The atmosphere created by this juxtaposition provides the ideal environment for thinking without stress. I, as many other people, experience anxiety and stress whenever I feel overburdened. The flood wall is my outlet to discharge those feelings. Now as I approach the end of my senior year, I find myself staring at the scenery at the end of each walk. As I move on with my life, I know that my time with the wall will soon be over, but my memories of it will stay permanent as the wall itself.
