• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Walks with Asha

Reflections, insights and observations inspired by walking with a dog named Asha

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Meet Asha and Marilyn
    • The story behind the blog
    • Acknowledgments and gratitude
  • STORIES
  • FIELD NOTES
    • Late Winter 2022/2023
    • Winter 2022/2023
    • Fall 2022
    • Late Summer 2022
    • Summer 2022
    • Spring 2022
    • Winter 2021/2022
    • Late Fall 2021
    • Fall 2021
    • Summer 2021
    • Spring 2021
    • Winter 2020/2021
    • Fall 2020
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • CONTACT

Meet Asha and Marilyn

Asha, a border collie mix, leans in as Marilyn Webster kneels to praise her during their walk.

I love Asha

When my partner and I adopted Asha, a Border Collie, Norwegian Elkhound mix, as a puppy, we had our eye on a puppy who looked like a yellow Labrador Retriever. But during the process, I kept returning to Asha’s photo.

It was her eyes that drew me in.

We named her Asha, a Hindi word that means hope, because we wanted more goodness in these troubled times.

She is full of love, curiosity and energy and eagerly says hello to anyone she meets. She naps on the window bench in the kitchen where she can also keep tabs on the world – cyclists, chipmunks, our mail carriers, anyone arriving for a visit. I was amused by what I decided was her environmental stewardship: she picked up beer cans and soda bottles from the side of the road.

Asha is usually ready for our morning walk before I finish my cup of tea and tells me it’s time with “let’s go” noises and dance. Most afternoons, even if she appears to be sound asleep, she finds me promptly at 4pm for our shorter afternoon walk.

And I love to walk

I’m a walker. I grew up walking in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s how we got from one place to another. I walked to school, to friends’ houses, to the bazaar, to church, to the hospital to see my sister when she broke her arm. I walked along the Zigzag path, along the Eyebrow, along Tehri Road, along the chakkar. And sometimes I went for walks (and an occasional hike).

Since then I’ve walked wherever I am – whether in a city, on the beach, on a rural road, on a mountain trail.

I love that the slow pace of walking allows me to take in my surroundings. Sometimes I walk to be with my thoughts, to move my body – to simultaneously think and get out of my head.

Life is a path with twists, turns and intersections. Mine has taken me to at least seventeen addresses in three countries and eight states. It has included working with teenagers in Berlin, earning a graduate degree in Germanic philology, teaching preschool, working for a handpainted yarn company, weaving textiles for cooking and dining, and writing about beauty in everyday life – in oh so many forms.

A walk with Asha often takes me to this beauty.

Get new stories delivered to your inbox.

You’ll receive the full story in your email along with links to listen or read online each time a new story is written and recorded. From time to time you’ll also receive selected Field Notes, short curated pieces from my journals.

 

You can read my privacy policy here.

 

Your voice helps me settle into storytime, which is one of the most loving, safe and calm places for me to be.

-Maggie Katz
West Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2023 Marilyn Webster | Contact | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | Acknowledgments