Browsed by
Category: walking

Walking in the City

Walking in the City

Comments 1 comment


A walker in the suburbs strolls the streets or ambles through the woods, but her destination is secondary. She walks for the walking and not for where it takes her.

Compare this to a walker in the city, pounding the concrete day after day. Here is walking with purpose, commuting on foot or by subway (which must also be walked to and from); walking to the corner for a newspaper, to the market for a quart of milk. Walking because it’s faster than taking a cab. Walking because, well, it’s just the way you get around. It is the air you breathe; it is the environment.

All this is to say, a walker in the suburbs forgets how much she walked when she lived in the big city. And when she goes back there her feet remind her. Her soul too. It soars.

New Neighborhood

New Neighborhood

Comments 3 comments


Yesterday, a walk in a new neighborhood: Strolling down a paved path that flanked a busy suburban byway, I crossed under the road through a pedestrian tunnel, automatically plugging my nose as I learned to do in New York, but unnecessarily, since the only whiff I got was of concrete.

The path wound along a creek, where gangs of loose-limbed kids sifted the water, looking for tadpoles. I could see the road I needed to be on, but took a chance that the path would bring me back where I’d begun.

I passed willows that gleamed with the first green of spring. And farther along there were more kids, careening down the path on too-big bikes or too-small scooters. A playground sign that said “For children ages 5-9” had been altered: “For children ages 5-59.” Young mothers threw back their heads and laughed. No one seemed to have a care.

I know that the homes along the path sheltered bankruptcies and infidelities, rebellious teenagers and addled grandparents. It was just that, in that early spring light, these didn’t seem to matter. It seemed like a new beginning, like an Eden.

Stepping Out

Stepping Out

Comments 1 comment


The rain had stopped, but the wind had not yet come up when Copper and I left for a walk. He was restless, pulling on his leash. I was content to trot along behind him. The sky was gray, but I wore sunglasses.

Water was pooled in low places, and the trees were darkly drenched. The air was warmer than it ought to be. No longer a false spring; now it is the real thing.

I thought about how good it is to step out of the house, how the air can coddle us, can wipe our minds clean.

By the end of our walk, the sun had broken through the clouds.

Sacred Walking

Sacred Walking

Comments 0 Comment


Because today is Ash Wednesday I’m thinking about sacred walking, the pilgrimage. Walking with purpose to a shrine or holy place.

Here the walk is for both the journey and the destination: the destination because it holds spiritual riches; the journey because it holds hardship and the opportunity for enlightenment.

To think of daily life as a pilgrimage, that is the challenge. To infuse the ordinary strolls with meaning.

Walking Meditation

Walking Meditation

Comments 0 Comment


Yesterday, for a few minutes, I practiced walking meditation. I took off my shoes and closed my eyes and moved slowly through space while breathing deeply and letting thoughts come and go.

I’ve been four times now to these Thursday lunchtime meditation sessions, and yesterday’s was revealing. I noticed that I had to place myself as I walked. Was I at the beach, in the mountains, on a woodland path? I finally settled on a cathedral, Chartres, maybe, or Saint John the Divine. Somewhere vast and cavernous and still.

It was only after I placed myself that I could stop thinking and empty my mind. Then I could feel the carpet pattern beneath my feet, could recognize the worries and let them go.

Run, Don’t Walk

Run, Don’t Walk

Comments 2 comments


Before I was a walker I was a runner, and there are times when I still think of myself as one. My knees won’t let me jog far, but when I’m cold or bored or running late, I still break into a trot.

I did this today on the way to the office. It’s not very dignified, but it provides a moment of release, similar to the feel of a horse as it moves from a trot to a canter. The motion then becomes silken and sleek, horizontal rather than vertical and, yes, more fun.

So while I told myself today that I should walk not run, I did just the opposite. I moved through space as quickly as I could. Sometimes it’s the only way.

Wind-Walking

Wind-Walking

Comments 0 Comment


It may come as no surprise that I take parenting advice with a grain of salt. But I do think about one bit of wisdom I once heard — that to raise children these days you have to walk against the wind. I’ve been doing a lot of wind-walking lately, both literally and metaphorically. Which is perhaps why it was strangely satisfying to pound the pavement this cold morning.

Yesterday the bitter cold took me by surprise. I was out early, had only one tissue in my pocket, and I sniffled and snuffled and tiptoed over icy patches all along my route. My hands were so cold I had to ball them up inside my thin gloves. I never hit my stride.

Today I was better prepared. More layers. Ears covered. Thicker gloves. Still only one tissue but hey, life isn’t perfect. It felt good to walk against the wind today. A shivering dose of reality. Always better when faced.

Dickens the Walker

Dickens the Walker

Comments 1 comment


Too busy writing about the anniversary here yesterday to mention Dickens’ 200th birthday. David Copperfield is one of my favorite books — in fact, it’s about time to re-read it — and I revere most of author’s classics. (I’ll admit, Bleak House was a bit tedious in parts.)

What I didn’t know until yesterday (or perhaps once heard but had forgotten) is that Dickens was a walker. The “Morning Edition” story I heard about him yesterday said he liked to walk “far and fast.”

“He did these great walks — he would walk every day for miles and miles, and sometimes I think he was sort of stoking up his imagination as he walked, and thinking of his characters,” said Claire Tomalin, author of the new biography Charles Dickens: A Life.

Imagine going for a stroll and coming back with Mr. Macawber. Or Bob Cratchit. Or any number of the other real, human, flawed, funny, rich and revealing characters that people Dickens’ novels.

Learning of the great man’s walking habits makes me appreciate my ambles all the more. A walk may not yield a masterpiece. But it almost always produces a thought or two that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t moved my legs and jiggled my old brain a bit.

Walk from One World

Walk from One World

Comments 1 comment


This winter’s mild weather means it’s not too cold for a walk before dawn. I’ve taken a few of these lately, mostly brisk strolls to the train.

To walk to Metro is to walk east, toward morning. So in all of these ambles I aim toward a slight strip of red along the horizon, the earliest sign of daylight. The only folks I see are just like me, dressed in black or gray, shouldering packs and briefcases and gym bags, purposefully striding to the ribbon of track that will whisk us from one world to another.

These last few months I have come to appreciate even more the benefit of such a separation. It is good to have a place that is not home, a cool, quiet, unemotional place in which to produce solid, if unimaginative, prose. So, I move fast on these morning walks to Metro not just because I’m scared to be stirring in the darkness, but also because I’m genuinely eager to leave the turbulent, heartfelt, almost full to bursting world for a leaner, calmer one.

I have no illusions, though. My best and deepest work always comes from acknowledging and confronting the turbulent world. I walk fast in the morning, but never fast enough to leave that world completely behind.

Connector

Connector

Comments 0 Comment


This morning I walked on a path called the Fairfax Connector. There are many of these trails in our area. “Connector” is the default name for a trail that leads from a neighborhood into a park, or that connects one path to another.

As I trudged through the cold, past dog walkers and tennis players and a couple of workmen mulching Nottoway Park, I thought about how the foot traveler has more opportunity to connect than the driver. Here in my neck of the woods there are precious few cut-through streets. We like our cul-de-sacs and circles, our cloistered neighborhoods away from the fray.

But walkers know that getting out of the houses, slipping on our shoes and walking from one neighborhood to another makes us feel more alive. It’s the connector. It’s the connection.