WALKING

What could possibly be on a hand-held screen to demand your attention while walking down a narrow sidewalk? Think about it. 

I am an intentional pedestrian. Always have been. Daily walks have benefited my life since I was a kid. I began my love of daily walking in grammar school. I attended a Catholic school just half mile from my house on the other side of a densely populated hill. 

I walked to school alone or with a couple of schoolmates from a neighboring street. One of them, Diane, was born the same day as I was in the same hospital at almost the same time. Our mothers were lifelong friends. Diane died of spinal meningitis in seventh grade. I was the altar boy at her funeral. I spoke to her when walking alone to and from school after she died. Kept her up to date on things.

My walks alone in those early years were an escape from the stress and occasional outright lunacy of my home. Walking home alone from school allowed me to decompress from the performance anxiety I experienced constantly under the tyranny of the nuns. This had been established from the beginning since I am both dyslexic and nearsighted. These hindrances went ignored at home until a forceful nun in the sixth grade sent home a note commanding that I be given an eye exam. Eyeglasses were my salvation.

My experience of walking and observing my environment came naturally. I was a friendly kid and often had small chats with adults along the way. The housewife sweeping her stairs. The old man painting his porch. The elderly woman doing her gardening. I guess I was somewhat precocious in this way, because I would ask questions about their activity and engage in conversation. The response of the adults I met was always kind and peppered with bemused chuckles. 

I look back at those walks now and wonder what has happened to our lives in America. 

My home city was no elite paradise. My parents had struggled to build a house themselves in the outskirts of the grimy industrial vortex of that city of one square mile. Once I was chased and stalked on my walk home from school. My pursuer was a knife-wielding Cuban immigrant from the other side of town. He was later convicted of child rape. On another occasion, I was offered a ride by a pedophile. I got in stupidly. But before we went far, I divulged that my father was a cop. I was immediately deposited at the curb. Saved by being a chatterbox. 

But I still would not have traded all the joy of those simple walks to and from school in sun, rain or snow for the protected lives of children today. 

Walking through the world is a free education, if you allow yourself to look around, feel the air on your skin and feel the gravity under your feet. If you walk through your neighborhood regularly, whether in Manhattan or a suburb or small town, you will see your neighbors. You may even meet a few. The simple knowledge of who is living around you diffuses alienation and reduces anxiety. It also provides you with useful information.

Walking through your world isn't all about physical fitness. It is about community and human connectedness. The simple regular exchange of eye contact with strangers increases your ability to engage and converse, to learn different perspectives, whether you agree with them or not. 

From my perspective, smartphones have poisoned our public spaces, like a pernicious virus. They have attached themselves to their human hosts to exploit them for their attention and money. They propagate the infection themselves through advertising which urges tech conformity. They cause people to walk into each other without a heartfelt apology, as though the injured party is simply an inanimate thing. Let's not even talk about what they have done to driving. 

There is a cure. If you are walking, leave your phone in your pocket. Better still, leave it at home if you are doing local errands on foot. This simple habit could change your life for the better. Try it.