Gesina ter Borch: Walking Skeleton (c. 1656)

"Better for me to maintain about the speed of a walking horse …"

Exile encouraged The Muse and I to engage in Walking. I believe it's true that urbanites walk more than their suburban or rural counterparts. The suburbs seem predicated upon automobile travel. One must hop in the car to go anywhere there. Even more so, our rural relatives, for everything there lies further than a short walk away. Our Takoma Park place was almost a mile from the Metro station, a comfortable twenty-minute walk. We soon considered it nothing to take that hike. Likewise, we could walk to the food co-op, the farmer's market, the local library and the video store, and even supper. Before we realized it, we had changed our lifestyle. Walking became an integral part of our Exiled days. The house was also within two blocks from about five different bus lines. It became more convenient to hop on the bus and walk than to find and pay for a place to park on the other side, so we walked. We became walkers.

In this respect, if few others, our lives in Exile were vastly improved over how they'd been before. Once we lost our hometown's shaded sidewalks, we ached for them. Maryland's sidewalks were many degrees hotter and vastly more humid, but there were places to go by sidewalk that didn't exist back home. Our entertainment also included much more Walking when we were in Exile. The Smithsonian Museums were free and easily accessible, essentially walking tours. We'd think nothing of hiking from Capitol Hill down to the Lincoln Memorial and back, a decent trudge. We'd stroll Capitol Hill streets to see what was there and soak up some local culture. Friday nights, weather permitting, I'd sometimes meet The Muse in the Smithsonian Castle garden, where we'd stroll through the garden before walking home, a distance of some seven miles. We'd stop for a drink and supper along the way, seeing sights and losing whatever stresses the week had left behind.

City folk have a cadence to their Walking. When we'd visit Manhattan, that cadence could seem relatively manic compared to how people walked around Capitol Hill. We'd find ourselves quickly matching whatever the local cadence. Nobody in smaller towns ever seems to walk with anything like the same resolve, similar force, for city Walking is more than just a means of traveling. It's a statement of independence. Walking becomes something different, more burden than expression when a crowd impedes that cadence. It becomes a form of oppression. Being small in stature, The Muse was better than most at slipping through encumbering crowds. When a Metro station was suffocating with a crowd after a Nat's game, she'd manage to get closest to where a door would open on the next train, thereby ensuring she'd get home without delay. It was a genuine challenge for me to match her moves because I'd be more deferent in crowds. She became like a hot knife through butter then.

During our third year in Exile, The Muse had a car accident that totaled her car. We decided to take that opportunity to try going without a car for a change. It was Summer, so we didn't have that much inclement weather to dread. Between busses and the Metro, with a few ZipCar® rentals when we shopped for essentials, we spent a few weeks mainly relying on our hooves. Our beneficent neighbor Clair volunteered to take me on a couple of beer runs, but other than those, we managed just fine under the lifestyle no car imposed. Yes, it was an imposition, but no more than any other lifestyle change might encourage. I suspect we might have been healthier under that regime. I grew even more accustomed to hiking the steep hill up from Maple, even when carrying a couple of shopping bags brought over from Silver Spring, a frequent shopping destination on a prominent bus line.

When we finally tumbled and bought a replacement car, I felt as though I'd compromised something. I had been all in on that lifestyle change, even if it was an imposition and even if we would have been the only people in the neighborhood without a car. As The Muse can attest, I can't hardly bear to be a car passenger, and I'd grown to despise driving around DC. I never did get the cadence drivers there employed. I was forever going too slow, seemingly annoying the impolite line of vehicles behind me, insistent upon driving faster than the posted speed limit. Better for me to maintain about the speed of a walking horse, on the sidewalk hiking along in my Barefoot® shoes. I could usually get there fast enough by employing only my own two feet.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz