That one class about walking
LSP Walking Chicago, is a very straightforward title for a class. When I am asked the all too common question “what do you do in LSP Walking Chicago” my answer can take the simple form of stating the obvious “we walk in Chicago”. But this answer is mundane and wronging of the many complexities and multiplexes explored and discussed in LSP Walking Chicago. Walking can take on many different definitions. Walking paths can take on many definitions. Though we all “walk” we all face different reasons and challenges. Though in LSP Walking Chicago I did walk, walking was merely a catalyst of exploration.
Walking, according to Oxford Languages, is defined as “move at a regular pace by lifting and setting down each foot in turn, never having both feet off the ground at once.” Though lifting and setting down a pair of feet may be one definition, individuals like Sunaura Tay have a different designation for the term “walking”. As she shares with Judith Butler in their interview titled examined life, Tay cannot walk given her disability. Judith Butler tackles the idea of social norms on many fronts as an American theorist and philosopher Butler reviews Tay’s “walking” from a point of protest. For Tay walking is not lifting up her feet nor is it traveling by her own accord, to Tay “going for a walk is a social protest”. Walking takes on many forms. For some walking is a commute, for some walking is an exercise, for some walking is a job, and for some like Jay, walking is a protest. Walking is not always easy, roads like Division street are riddled with incomplete, untidy, and outright dangerous walkways. With cracks, potholes, and overgrown shrubbage pathways such as the sidewalk of Division Street are not accessible to all such as in cases of wheelchair use like in the story of Jay.
Walking paths are not always that of sanctioned walkways. A walker in a city faces many challenges. Challenges such as physical barriers, social barriers, and barriers regarding safety. Physical barriers can take on forms such as walls, or bodies of water, but as a walker barriers are only as strong as the travelers will. Paths of least resistance are a natural phenomenon and do not stop at humans. College campuses and cities are riddles with shortcuts, and unsanctioned pathways though they may not be paved, many walkers share the innate ability to create their own path and/or follow in others footsteps chasing the path of least resistance. Barriers for walkers do not stop at those taking on a physical form, for some walkers social barriers exist. “Walking While Black” by Gernette Cadogan explores the social barriers African Americans face while walking in the United States. For Cadogan, walking in America while black gave him paranoia and fear while walking in Jamaica he felt safe and comfortable. Social barriers can also appear in examples such as women facing fears of harassment while walking. Though social barriers do not appear like their physical barrier counterparts, both barriers block walkers but can be climbed over. Physical barriers and social barriers both challenge walkers and place them into the possibility of harm.
I come from a family of walkers. Whether it be for enjoyment or necessity my family does a lot of walking. My father would label himself as a walker, his favorite saying is his next car will be another pair of hiking boots. My father begins every single day with a walk to work, ending his work day at the United States Postal Service with a walk home. This three fourths of a mile walk between our home and our local post office has been completed by my father for the better part of the last four years. My mother would label herself a walker, from the late afternoon walks with the mothers of my neighborhood filled with conversations of all types to her late night walks with my dog, my mother can be found walking at nearly every hour of the day. My sister would label herself a commuter. Similar to my father, my sister walks to work. But unlike my father who walks in our suburban neighborhood of Minnesota, my sister’s walks take place in Midtown Manhattan New York to and from her apartment and place of work. As my father walks to work out of a sense of enjoyment, my sister walks to work out of necessity, with no car and the many driving restrictions she would face by living in New York City. My sister has to walk to work. My brother would label himself an adventurer from his early years of walking the woods of our cabin to the more recent years of hiking the Appalachian trail. My brother walks to explore nature. My sister and father walk with the purpose of getting from point a to point b, my mother walks with the purpose of socializing, and my brother walks to experience.
When a person is unable to be found or they are unable to recover his or her location they are lost. In “Paris, or Botanzing the Asphalt,” Rebecca Solnit quotes Walter Benjamin who writes, “But to lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for a quite a different schooling” (p. 255). “Losing oneself in a city” is an all familiar tale. Rebecca Solnit quotes Walter Benjamin when comparing the role of getting lost in a city to getting lost in a forest. I have spent much of my life in the two extremes of Walter Benjamin’s quote in which he compares a city to a forest, but just as Benjamin does, I recognize the two situations of being lost as both similar and very different. In my younger years of being lost in the hundreds of acres of forest and fields that surround my fathers childhood home, that resembles more of a barn than a house, I recollect a feeling of internalizing the chaotic calmness that is the forests of the east coast. When lost in a forest there is noise, the sound of leaves and settling earth, the quiet humming of the wind, and the sound of distant creatures leaving their imprint of noise. When lost in a forest the loudest noise is your own mind, when lost in a city however your own mens is easily lost. Horns, screeches, distinguishable and indistinguishable voices, smells, flashes of heat and cold, all working independently to make you lost and overwhelmed. Having been lost in both a forest and a city I can attest; being lost in a forest is a battle with one’s own psyche, while being lost in a city is a battle with every single cell of your surroundings. It is easy to be lost in both a city and a forest, but in a forest you can easily find yourself.
LSP Walking Chicago is not a course about walking. It is about the path that walkers take. It is about the reasons we walk. It is about the challenges, complexities, and nuances we face while walking. LSP Walking Chicago is a course centered around delving into what it means to walk. LSP Walking Chicago is a course centered around what it means to explore from the basis of our footsteps. LSP Walking Chicago is about looking forward to where we are walking. LSP Walking Chicago is about looking forward and asking ourselves why we are walking, and LSP Walking Chicago is about how we are walking.
