“Especially over the last few weeks, I’ve started the day by going for a walk, clearing my mind and leaving the phone on,” he says. “Sometimes I get a little woo woo and I touch the plants.”
Mendes says walking about 25 minutes a day serves not only as a meditation practice, but as a way to “let the noise fall from my ears,” so it’s more present around the people you love. When I remember the pressures of being in the studio, a photo appears on my Apple Watch of Mendes with a guitar.
The new episodes of Time to Walk, which launched on Monday, will appear in the Workout app every Monday through the end of April. (No times have been announced for future episodes after “this season”). For Apple Watch users who use a wheelchair, Time to Walk becomes Time to Push, which keeps track of “rolling” goals instead of steps.
It’s Apple’s latest step in adding exclusive content to attract new users to its fitness products and compete with companies like Peloton.
For me, walking has always been my favorite way to move around: low impact and free. Having a few familiar voices walking at the same time feels like a custom twist on a podcast (although Apple never uses the word p). I can even hear Mendes breathing deeply just like me.
At Parton sessions, I hear the background noise of birds as they talk about their Tennessee farm. “During that time, Covid and all that, I know a lot of you can’t go out and walk like you normally do, and I’m sure many of you feel confined,” Parton says. “But I know how important it is to be able to walk. So even though we can’t go out and walk all the places we’d like to do today and right now … walk down the lane of memory. Hopefully, walking together, we feel a little more freedom. “
He tells me that he writes a lot while walking and the story of his famous song “9 to 5”; I hear him intently touching his own acrylic nails, so it sounds like a typewriter for the rhythm in the background, something I didn’t know until now.
When NBA player Draymond Green remembers how the Golden State Warriors celebrated a championship win, it’s Drake’s “Big Rings” that brings him back to the locker room. It’s one of three songs she introduces and performs in her episode, which also includes a beautiful story about a walk she took after failing in class and arguing with her mother. He talks about the sounds of Malibu waves in the distance and cars on the nearby road.
While Time to Walk is not a substitute for a walk with a good friend, intimate storytelling is a welcome change to walking alone.