Browsed by
Category: walking

The Great Pause

The Great Pause

Comments 0 Comment

It’s almost December, trees are bare. Paths that seemed endless in summer green are exposed when winter comes. The community forest is not the leading edge of a wilderness; it is a parcel of land that didn’t perk.

But that’s not all. It is also is a landscape stripped to its essence. I take out my earphones and listen. I can almost hear the silence. The great pause. A momentary intake of breath before the hard exhale.

The fields are
empty; the nights are long. Early winter is peaceful, muted. It asks nothing
of us now.

Rhythm of the Amble

Rhythm of the Amble

Comments 0 Comment

Lately I’ve been running as much as walking. This may be good for my physical well-being but I’m missing the measured thought that comes with slower foot fall.

I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth more rumination. My theory has been that running requires enough effort that there is little left for anything else.

But the other day, on an especially soothing woods walk, another possibility presented itself: It’s the rhythm of the amble — left, right, left, right — allowing each step its own percussive moment. It’s trance-inducing after a while. And very conducive to cogitation.

Then again, it may have been the autumn color and the deepening dusk that worked its magic.

Walkable City

Walkable City

Comments 0 Comment

“Walking is a simple and a useful thing, and such a pleasure,
too. It is what brings planeloads of Americans to Europe on holiday, including even some of the traffic engineers who make our own cities so inhospitable.”  — Jeff Speck, Walkable City
 It would take far more than a single post to describe all the ideas in this book, thoughts about walkability from one of the nation’s foremost experts on it, the city planner Jeff Speck. For now here are Speck’s “Ten Steps of Walkability”:
 Put cars in their place
Mix uses
Get parking right
Let transit work
Protect the pedestrian
Welcome bikes
Shape the spaces
Plant trees
Make friendly and unique spaces
Pick your winners
Speck mentions European cities throughout the book. Here are places where pedestrians rule, where public transit safely transports people to and from their destinations, where bikes are welcome and buildings create human-scaled places.
What all these features combine to create is a walkable environment, one people want to stroll through and be part of.  We need to value “moving under one’s own power at a relaxed pace through a public sphere that
continually rewards the senses,” Speck says. “We need a new normal in America, one that
rewards walking.”

Running and Walking

Running and Walking

Comments 0 Comment

I can’t really explain it, did not set out to do it, but lately I’ve been running more than I’ve been walking.  My knees seem up to the task, and there is the mood-elevating aspect of the endeavor, the “runner’s high,” which encourages the habit.

I can’t help but compare the two, though. Running is about the pace, the accomplishment. At least at this point of my re-entry into the activity, I find myself thinking more “hey, I’m running!” than anything else.

Walking, on the other hand, frees the mind for wandering. The pace is natural, conducive to wool-gathering along the way.

All of which is to say: the ideal day would include time to run and walk. Ah, if only I didn’t have to earn a living!

Beating the Clock

Beating the Clock

Comments 0 Comment

I don’t know when cross-walks that flash “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” turned into cross-walks that give pedestrians a countdown of the seconds they have left for crossing, but I was thinking yesterday how this development has changed my walking style.

Before, I would find my cadence and stride confidently from block to block. My feet were on auto-pilot while my mind was free to wander. I stopped and started when needed.

Now if I spot a flashing “20” halfway down the block, I play beat the clock. The natural gait is gone. Instead, I race to the corner and dash across the street.The flow of thoughts is replaced by strategy. If I keep up the pace another block I can beat that light, too.

Do I get where I’m going any faster?

I doubt it.

Run, Don’t Walk

Run, Don’t Walk

Comments 1 comment

Sometimes it’s harder to walk fast than it is to run slow. So more often than not these days I find myself running. Not like these college girls, fleet of foot, majorly in shape.

No. I’m talking about a middle-aged version of running. Plodding, for sure.

The fast walk must balance speed with dexterity. The roll of the foot, still earthbound. Keeping the pace when gravity argues against it.

Whereas the run, after a while, becomes habit. There is a rhythm there that moves you forward. Kind of like living.

The Return

The Return

Comments 0 Comment

Walking an unfamiliar route can mean a longer jaunt than expected. Landmarks beckon: Just one more block. The temptation is to run too far down the beach or path. And then …. you have to walk home.

Yesterday I ran out and lost steam. The landmarks that flew by the first time passed more slowly on the return. On the other hand, it was on the return that I savored the sights I had sped by earlier.

I’ve always wondered about the different ways we perceive time on a journey. It often seems faster on the way home, perhaps because the sights are more familiar. But when you run one way and walk the other, the reverse is true. The return takes longer — but gives more.

Door, Wall and Flower

Door, Wall and Flower

Comments 0 Comment

Art imitates life imitates art. The door bedecked with flowers, a variety of hydrangea, I think, larger and more open-petaled than the usual. The wall decorated with wisteria — and a bicycle, in case you get tired of walking.

To walk in an old city is to stop often to photograph buildings. It makes for a halting step but a full camera (phone?) upon return.

It’s more than worth the trip.

The Places In Between

The Places In Between

Comments 0 Comment

In the winter of 2002, Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan. He arrived six weeks after the Taliban fell, and he dodged landmines, snow storms and rogue tribal chiefs along the way.

Stewart’s walk through Afghanistan was part of a larger trek that included 16 months of walking 20 to 25 miles a day across Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal.

All of which makes him an expert on walking. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a passage from The Places In Between:

I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us from the apes. It freed our hands for tools and carried us on the long marches out of Africa. As a species, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted a walking pace….

And Stewart thought these thoughts — of course — while walking!

Tweaking the Commute

Tweaking the Commute

Comments 0 Comment

The general idea is to shorten the commute, find the cut-through, the shortcut, the (quicker) road not taken.

Lately, I’ve done the opposite, adding a longer walk in the afternoon and sometimes (today, for instance) in the morning, too; strolling to a Metro stop farther from my office, savoring the time I spend in the places in between.

En route I think of my great commutes in New York City, walking to and from midtown Manhattan from the Upper West Side and, later on, the Village.

The goal is to exercise, decompress, let the day begin (or end) on a vigorous, active, mind-toggling note. The reality is even better.