Going with the flow a state of mind away

When I amwriting I ama stranger to my body. Or rather, my body is a stranger to me.

My fingers may be pecking at the keyboard and neural circuitry may be whirring inside my skull, but any part of my body above the wrists and below the neck may as well not exist.

Eventually my body summons me from this fugue state with an urgent message, usually from a full bladder.

When I re-inhabit my abandoned carcass I often discover it is stiff and cold and that several hours have passed. This out-of-thebody experience is often so total that I need to consult a clock to find out how long I have been away.

Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this state ‘‘flow’’. He defined it as a state when ‘‘the ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. music – minus the Trapp Family Singers.

The dog, who has been cooped up with me runs on my behalf in ecstatic parabolas across the park.

The physical elation of being back out in the world fades gently away and is followed by a relaxed dawdling appreciation of being alive in one’s skin.

This is when I feel most at one with the dog – who of course is always at one with her animal nature. The dog and I become fellow adventurers at this stage of the walk, patient with each other’s peculiar interests: I wait while she investigates bushes, lamp posts, and rubbish bins; she waits for me if I stop to pick up wind-fall feijoas or to watch mist collect between the hills, or the drift of chimney smoke.

The world swallows you up, gravity relaxes its hold on you. Your heart beats steadily in your chest, your lungs deliver all the oxygen you require, your muscles grow sleek and warm.

Every footfall seems a miracle and you feel you could walk forever. At every fork in the path you choose the one that will make your walk longer.

Because your body is free, your mind blows where it listeth.