The Art of Walking
Nobody walks in L.A.
I know because while growing up in the SoCal sprawl, my mom drove me to school, which was about three blocks from our house — even when I was 17 and it was 75 degrees outside and she would have rather stayed in her pajamas.
Nobody walks in Sedona, either. After dinner on a balmy evening in July, just after a monsoon storm has rolled through and the air smells of wet sage, all I wanted to do was wander somewhere — anywhere. Let me window shop or find a new neighborhood where spicy cooking smells waft out of open windows. Let me stumble upon some desolate park where I can swing on the swings without judgement. Instead, we would go home and doze in front of a rerun on Netflix.
Don’t get me wrong. People walk in the West, but it’s with purpose. We walk the dog. We hike. Hell, we invented the power walk. But we don’t wander. “Not all who wander are lost” is a clever meme. But in places like Paris, wandering is an art. (Ah, but every aspect of life is an art form in Paris.) The French have a word for it: un flâneur. It roughly translates to someone who walks with no real destination, no agenda. A loafer, by our over-achieving standards. In Paris, they walk for the sake of walking. For the open-endedness of it. For the possibilities. The adventure. The surrender. The romance. I spent time in Paris, perfecting the art of flaneurie. Because I strolled, I have a set of amber earrings that I purchased in broken French. I waltzed into a mid-day dance party in one of the most exclusive boutiques in town and pretended like I belonged. I found hidden alcoves of the Louvre, and I stood outside of a tea shop where the aroma was so strong I can still conjure it if I close my eyes and concentrate. You learn a lot about yourself, your neighborhood and your neighbors when you ditch the agenda and just put one foot in front of the other.
So I moved to Boston to walk.
I sold my car, my Cherry Bomb, in order to jump on the T and emerge in an unknown neighborhood where people don’t pronounce their r’s and where Irish pubs exist next door to doggie daycare centers. Where mounds of snow slowly begin to melt weeks after the temperatures have reached the 80s in Arizona. The snowmelt reveals these odd, dark patches of soggy potato-chip bags, disintegrating napkins, Dunkin Donuts coffee cups and crushed packets of Marlboro Lites along the sidewalks. The ugly little ranch house we loved so dearly is gone so that I can meet Daniel downtown on a Saturday night, and we can hold gloved hands and meander down Public Alleyway 101 simply because the name reminds us of a Depeche Mode album. We read plaques placed on statues of dead white guys who we vaguely remember learning about in high school, and we peer into windows where hipsters wearing the wrong shoes for the barely-above-freezing temperatures drink Cosmopolitans not because they like them but because it’s ironic.
The backyard filled with fruit trees and grapevines and irises is now owned by a retired couple from the Bronx while we live in an apartment and wonder about the constant barrage of footsteps above us (a toddler? pack of puppies? bowling alley???). Last night, I swear I heard my neighbor doing her laundry. In the Italian language, there’s no word for “privacy.” That made sense when we went for a walk late at night in Rome and listened to couples argue and spied granny panties hanging from clotheslines. It makes sense again living in a city.
So I walk to distract and escape. I walk early in the morning when the Mexican moms are shepherding their kids to school and the Colombian abuelas are heading to the market with fabric bags on wheels. I watch Middle Eastern men share a smoke outside their market entrances and intense millennials rush to meet the train, earbuds firmly in place, eyes fixed on their smartphones. Look up!, I want to shout. Remove your earbuds and listen to the thrumming, humming rhythm of the city, the melody of underground traffic tunnels, subway trains, planes taking flight from the nearby international airport and barges in the harbor. The sound of traffic sirens, car horns and construction. The heartbeat of Boston. Your heartbeat.
I walk when the cold wind makes mascara run into my eyes and when sudden humidity brings an oh-so-attractive sheen to my upper lip. I walk because I’m still uncomfortable driving in the city (and because it’s absurdly expensive to park). I walk because I want the exercise. I walk for inspiration for this blog. I walk because I can.
I walk because that’s what I came here to do.
