An Anticipatory Walk
Simone Kessler
For my walk this week I decided to use Randonautica. I knew of the app from TikTok, circa 2020, but had never used it before. In the app, I chose the Anomalies category and generated a Power. The app asked me to “manifest” and “visualize where you want to go”. I didn’t really know what to visualize, but I was hoping it would take me to a bakery or to some sort of treat. I put the destination into Maps and avoided looking at the destination. I turned right onto Clifton.
A few other students passed me on this street, but it wasn’t particularly busy. As I got further down the street, I started to see elementary students with their parents. It felt like an anticipatory time of day, I could feel the energy of the children getting let out of school. I felt like that earlier that day when I was let out of Industrial Design, but it’s not quite the same feeling in college. My school and home life are too intertwined now, I don’t think I can feel exactly like those elementary-age kids anymore. I turned left on Belden.
This is when I started to see remnants of my walk from last week. The same crooked fence piece, the same concrete footprints. But I saw new things as well. I walked past a nun and a few signs with bible quotes. There was one sign with various stains on it, placed in a tree that had a large chunk missing from it. It appeared like the piece of tree was removed just to hang this sign. It read, “TRUST IN THE LORD WIT HALL THINE HEART AND LEAN NOT UNTO THINE OWN UNDER-STANDING PROVERBS 3,5”. Religion seems to be integrated into Belden Ave.
I continue to see parents with children. The parents always look a little bit stressed, their eyes darting from the child to the street and sometimes to me. I pass by the park I wrote about last week, and the strange sign is still there. It’s less empty today as there is a man walking his two dogs around the benches. I pass by more concrete footsteps and see more dog walkers. They all have a different sort of walk. Some are led by the dog; others drag the dog along with them. Some are on the phone; some are wearing sunglasses and they remind me of a celebrity. On the corner of Belden and Southport, there is another school. I see more kids with their parents and feel their excited energy again. It’s weird how these kids live here and just happen to go to school here, but I moved here to go to school here. I turn left onto Southport.
I’m now surrounded by cars and start to feel out of place as a pedestrian. I see a pile of dirt under a tree that has been scattered across the sidewalk, with a few paw prints in the pile. I contribute to the mess as I walk across the spray of dirt. Shortly after I pass a “Dog Bed and Breakfast”, an interesting choice of words. Maybe the dirt criminal stayed there. I turn right onto Webster.
I was trying to not see where the map was taking me, but I was too close to not see it. Raundonautica took me to the movies! I crossed a weird set of crosswalks and ended up at the fence of a construction site. It was empty inside the construction fence; they must have been done working for the day. It looked abandoned almost. I found the temporary entrance to the theater and headed inside. I still hadn’t seen Oppenheimer, so I contemplated the showtime that was starting in 15 minutes. I went up an ominous set of escalators to get to the main lobby. There was only one other customer up there, he was buying popcorn. The tickets were $18 so unfortunately, I did not see a movie.
I was happy with my destination but still felt that tinge of anticipation. I don’t know what was causing it, maybe it was just that it was a Monday. I walked out of the theater and decided to head towards the river. I was just going to walk across the bridge, but I noticed a sidewalk leading down towards the water. It was a path outside of a fancy office building. The building was all glass so I could see inside. I only saw empty chairs. I was the only person on this path, even though it offered a stunning view of the city on the water. Everything here seems untouched; the concrete is white.
“Losing oneself in the city” is to feel completely immersed in your surroundings. Everything you see and everything that surrounds you is especially interesting. It feels like the place you are in is the only place you’ve ever been in. You start to feel separated from time, and you might lose track of time as well. To lose oneself might mean being lost geographically, but you start to not care about your location. Where someone who is lost in a city would be frantic and trying to decipher a map, someone who is losing oneself in the city is wandering without a destination in mind. To lose oneself you have to be calm and carefree. I do not know if I have ever felt this way in a city. I’ve had moments of it being in Chicago, where I felt like I was just exploring, but as Benjamin describes “to lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for a quite a different schooling”. I’m not sure if I have that “schooling” or feel like I have been able to lose myself in a city.
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