CHICAGO « In Which We Stroll Into The Voided Place »
Friday, March 30, 2012 at 11:29AM 
On Foot
by KARA VANDERBIJL
In this part of California, it is too hot to walk. My mother pulls us in a red Flyer wagon to Target over shimmering pavement. If somebody remarks that their house is twenty minutes away, they mean that there are several hills, valleys, and sinuous freeways between us. I cannot read for more than ten minutes in the car without getting sick. Since the heat has kept us from opening a car or house window for five years, I remain convinced that the entire state of California smells like a Budweiser factory, the only odor strong enough to penetrate glass.
Before, our small blue house was the destination, raspberry fields and dairy farms dotting the countryside along the way. Odors of cow manure and freshly cut lawns crept across the northernmost part of Washington State. We sang “Home, Home on the Range” every time our old Honda passed a collapsing barn. I was always in the backseat, pulled along by a series of small, stable explosions.
More than to any one person, my childhood memories cling to nooks and crannies of the world: the high, diesel-smelling inside of a moving truck carrying all of our belongings from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles; the smoggy freeways, the blur of a water reservoir on the right, the diamond window panes of an old house; a library, concealed in the basement of a church; a crosswalk in Burbank, and my mother holding our hands with both of hers; the Redwoods and the Canadian border, deep in the night.
These places are now, as they were then, only accessible by car.
I wish to speak a word for distance, for absolute inconvenience and dependence, as contrasted with what is expected, saved up for in childhood piggy banks or on the backs of greasy hard-earned high school paychecks, – to see People fueled by the strength of spirit and limb, rather than by horsepower. I wish to make an extreme statement, for there are enough champions of driving – if you don’t believe me, you haven’t been spending enough time at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
I have met but a few people in my life who remember how to walk, much less appreciate it; for a sad number among these, the greatest pleasure in walking is the pleasure in arriving at their destination, normally a place in which to buy food or beverages, the consumption of which they justify by recalling the “great” distance that they have walked. As for those who not only remember how to walk, but also treasure the activity in itself rather than viewing it as a simple means, I have only heard rumors of their existence. I believe that the entire race died out at the birth of the internal combustion engine.
Although born bipeds, we’re convinced from the cradle that the best way to travel is on the backs of four or more wheels, preferably endowed with slaughtered animal seats, a decent sound system, and air-conditioning. (Never mind that one of our greatest infant accomplishments is a series of uninterrupted steps.) We have forgotten the usefulness of distance, the necessary separation between two points, and the blissful ignorance of both that immediately follows a stroll. We should go forth on a two-block jaunt, only to forget ourselves and walk past the places public transportation will take us. If you are ready to leave behind perfect pedicures, impractical shoes, wireless hotspots and many faint hearted companions, then you are ready for a walk.
In this, I like to think of myself as a proselyte of an old faith, one that has sadly not escaped cynicism. This creed isn’t bound by left or right, nor is it defined by an environmental frenzy or a cosmetic narcissism that takes stock of post-weekend belly fat and runs, half-wheezing, around the block. In this religion, the faithful err; in their deepest devotion, they stray off the beaten path. But they are few – my fellow walkers and I think of ourselves as the last converts, frequently bypassed, gawked at, honked at, catcalled and almost run over by the skeptics surrounding us.
Were there not a half-mile stretch between my home and the El, and then between the El and my place of employ, my existence would take a dishearteningly pedestrian turn. I gladly sacrifice the extra hour of sleep many of my colleagues enjoy in order to make my way up stairs and over curb, through rain and snow and freezing wind. That a person could spend – without committing suicide – but a cumulative five minutes outside every day, spanning only the space between one seat and the next, seems incomprehensible. Why such complacency? Complete immobility, which once only attracted the people whose lives of combat or extreme curiosity had spent their legs, now enthralls some of the youngest members of our society.
I am determined not to be one of them.
Like all pure things, the best walk is born out of necessity, not desire. It begins as a crossing and ends as an offering, a sacrifice of the mind to the body.
I first saw the ocean through the creaking boards of the Santa Monica pier. Paralyzed with fear, I couldn’t pay attention to the fragrance wafting from churro stands or to the chiming of arcade games. I watched the Pacific churn gray and green beneath my feet as my mother tugged on my hand, reassuring me that the boards wouldn’t fall to pieces, that the relentless pull of the tide would not – as my child mind had already imagined – drag the entire structure away from the shore as soon as I stepped onto it.
The act of walking generates a voided space which is no more a village than it is a forest, no more civilized than wild. Fully engaged, your senses will not allow you to get lost the labyrinths in your mind. In rhythm with your steps your thoughts will follow the paths that your body prescribes.
If I simply become a body, or if I indulge in thoughts best left undisturbed during my walk, I have done it an injustice. A walk is neither a form of exercise nor a moving meditation. It is both or nothing at all.
You will walk far before you know where you must go. Consider first the places that you must visit out of obligation to yourself or to others. Pick a long and roundabout way, including at least one place to rest and one place of magnificent natural beaty. Guarantee that your walk is a quarter to a half-mile longer than you expect you can manage, and extend it when it becomes too easy for you. Walk it as many times as it takes to know it by heart. Then choose a new one.
All roads tend towards parking lots, benches, retailers, public parks, large bodies of water, and sheer cliffs. For every route you choose to walk, there are a dozen places to stand and observe. If you reach the end of a road, stop for a moment and consider that there will never be enough sidewalk for the amount of walking you plan to do. Then turn around and walk to the other end.
Beware of roads that do not frighten you. Avoid any philosophy that makes the world seem smaller or larger than it appears to be from your place on the road. Allow yourself to have a favorite route, or perhaps more than one. Go back to them only when you have changed enough to forget why you loved them.
Along the coast in Marseille there is a path that we call la corniche, a generic French term for any road that curls along the edge of the city in tune with the shoreline. Alternately hugging limestone cliffs and jutting out bravely over the Mediterranean, it is a favorite among joggers, Sunday strollers, and fishermen. Beginning at the Old Port, you'll weave between impromptu stalls where freshly caught sardines and other fruits de mer wait to be sold; from the port’s left shoulder ferries leave, transporting sunburnt tourists to the Chateau d’If where, in spite of its foreboding exterior, they will listen to a very dry lecture about how the Count of Monte Cristo was not an actual historical figure.
You will continue down the port’s left arm, past small yachts and smaller fishing boats on the right, and on the left past various theatres and scuba diving schools and hotels and young men riding scooters far too quickly and restaurants where bouillabaisse is the specialty. Before heading up the hill past one of Napoleon’s many fortresses and an abbey from the thirteenth century, you turn around briefly to survey Marseille: whitewashed, salted, preserved in a sort of sun-dappled glory. This is the oldest city in France.
Across from the fortress is a palace, and many apartment buildings, some with laundry floating out kitchen windows. There is a bakery at the top of the hill where you might buy a particularly crusty croissant. Beyond a very small gas station, the road curves sharply; here is a beach, and here, at last, an open expanse of sea to marvel at. Young people, oiled, play volleyball in an enclosed court. Middle-aged women with skin like leather wring out their hair on the sand as they emerge from the waves.
Stand here for a moment, as I have done, convinced that all of France must smell as wonderful as the combination of salt water and the breeze from Morocco and the buttery remnants of pastry on your fingers. Then keep walking. I believe in bridges, and trying my luck under scaffolding, and purposefully wearing flats when I plan on going ten miles. I require small inconveniences in life, if only to remember my great fortune.
Kara VanderBijl is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Chicago. She last wrote in these pages about The Hunger Games. You can find an archive of her work on This Recording here. She tumbls here and twitters here.
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Reader Comments (2)
The latter half of this post is tenfolds better than the first half, which I found unnecessarily preachy.