My Life of Walking

            If I were Groucho Marx or Yogi Berra, I would say that I have been walking ever since I learned how. What I really mean is I have been using walking as more than a means of locomotion since I learned how. Over my lifetime, I have walked to explore, to relieve boredom, and to relieve tension, as well as to get places.

            Until I was about ten years old, my paternal grandmother lived in Fernwood, Mississippi, a very rural settlement outside of McComb. My father worked shift work, and on his monthly long weekends, we would drive the two hours from Baton Rouge to visit Mama Prescott in Fernwood. My two siblings and I would explore the pasture and woods around the house on these visits. As young kids, we knew we had had a good day exploring when red clay obscured the drain in the bath tub at bath time.

            I particularly remember going back to the tree that blew down in one of the hurricanes—Hilda or Betsy. That place was a favorite of ours because we wee ones could crawl all over it. As many times as we walked back there, the experience was always new and exciting. On one rare cold morning, Daddy took us three young’uns out to crawl on the tree. Daddy sat and shivered while we swarmed all over the tree, as if we were wind-up toys. Later, I realized that Daddy faced the cold weather to get us three energetic kids out of the house so we could burn off some energy.

            After Mama Prescott moved from Fernwood to Lexie, a little less rural town, I began walking to ease boredom. We still had woods to explore, but I mainly walked down the different roads in the area, just for the fun of it. One day, I decided to gather litter and armed myself with a paper bag. There was much more litter than I expected and I quickly filled the bag. I stopped at a house to see if I could leave the full bag and maybe get an empty one. The people were so impressed with my project that they fed me cake.

            Once I reached adolescence, I found walking in general as a means of dealing with life. I remember walking in the rain in my pepster poncho to sort out girlfriend problems or boyfriend problems or simply to contemplate the meaning of life. Our neighborhood was very walkable with long streets and sidewalks. Rarely did I see anything new or scandalous as I walked and thought.

            When I was in graduate school in Southern Illinois, I walked the fifteen minutes to campus rather than hassle with a parking sticker and parking problems. In the time it took to drive to campus, park, and walk to my classroom building, I could have walked, anyway. Those were enjoyable walks. I had a variety of routes to keep the walk interesting, with a lot of people watching and dog watching and traffic watching to do on the way. Unlike South Louisiana, Southern Illinois has four seasons, quite a revelation to me at the time. One fall, as I walked and watched the leaves change color and drift from the branches, I composed a poem: Nude to scrutiny/ Tattered remnants cling/ To cracked limbs. The poem has a good beat and is walkable.

            As an adult, I walked to explore and to ease boredom, but I also began walking when I was upset. To this day, when dealing with distressing news or situations, I pace. People know when I pace to stay out of my path. One day, after watching me pace during a particularly distressing phone call, my husband hid like a scolded puppy.

            One summer, I realized that I needed to lose some weight or buy bigger clothes. Instead of buying bigger clothes, I decided to buy a pair of walking shoes—an inexpensive and fun solution to that problem.

            For much of my adult life, I lived with basset hounds. Those of you who live with dogs know the walking routine. One of my bassets was so glad to go out for his walk that when we left the yard, we looked like cartoon characters with me flying from his leash behind him. The neighbors were amused. During one annual physical, my physician asked what I did for exercise. I replied that I walked my dogs. The physician was satisfied with that response.

            In South Carolina, I live on Folly Beach. Folly Beach is so small that to go to the post office or library or a restaurant in town, it is shorter to walk than to try to drive and park. In Upstate New York, our home is in a very isolated, rural area. The roads are narrow, hilly, curvy, and in bad repair, not particularly safe for walking. Plus, bears have been spotted in our area, and I am pretty sure that they are not the tame bears of the tale of Goldilocks. To take a walk, we have to get in the car and drive somewhere, which takes some planning. Spontaneous walks almost never happen. In the summer when I am in New York, I miss the ability to walk freely whenever the spirit moves me.

            I thought a deity of walking might exist whom I could invoke to facilitate my walks in Upstate New York. A Google search of “god of walking” yielded references to Bible verses about walking. A Google search of “deity of walking” produced references to deities of travel. The Norse pagan god, Meili, a.k.a. “the lovely one,” is portrayed wearing a traveler’s coat and carrying a walking stick. When I want to take a walk in Upstate New York, I will have to be content entreating Meili for happy walking.

LAGNIAPPE: See “Be-Worded” for musings, “Taking a Walk.”

Me after a walk--really a hike, but it is a good picture for this blog post. Maybe the difference between a walk and a hike is fodder for another blog!