Yes, it’s me. I confess.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go ask your parents. Anyone who lives between Bella Vista Elementary School and Safeway has seen me: that girl, always on a path somewhere, with a fanny pack and a single AirPod in one of her ears. Walking, for the sake of personal enjoyment.
My other AirPod broke, okay? I’m not going to wear it around if it doesn’t work. Plus, according to my mother, I need to hear approaching cars. “I have a cool fanny pack,” I tried to tell her. “The cars will move out of my way on their own!” She disagreed, for some reason.
She also makes me carry a personal alarm. It goes in the fanny pack. A lot of stuff goes in that bag, in fact; it’s incredibly useful! Many thanks to the ‘80s, or whatever decade they invented replacement pockets for women who never received them inside their clothing. I wear it crossbody, in a desperate attempt to salvage my failing coolness.
So armed with these items–tissues and occasionally a bottle of hand sanitizer–I depart the house. On blazing summer days, I sport a baseball cap. In the depths of a California winter, I don a light sweatshirt that I will immediately remove. Yes, it is possible to take off a jacket, while wearing a hat, without losing your one remaining AirPod or disturbing the hat. I’ll leave you to figure out how.
I trek the neighborhood streets, circle the parks and summit the hills. Sometimes I’ll listen to music or podcasts, and sometimes I will just appreciate nature. Also, said one AirPod has about thirty minutes of charge, so appreciating nature is often forced on me.
This is my routine: five miles a day on the weekends, two miles on a weekday if I have time. I keep a steady pace of three miles per hour. I go on runs from time to time, but I see Dougherty kids running in their free time. I don’t see them walking.
“The point of walking is to get somewhere,” you may say. That’s true, sometimes. Lots of us walk to school or to Safeway. But walking without a destination is valuable for its own sake.
Henry David Thoreau agreed with me. He wrote a famous essay, conveniently titled “Walking”, about the value he found in this seemingly mundane pursuit. This being the 19th century, he threw in more than a few problematic takes as well, but his essential point was that traveling on foot reconnects us to nature. This was true in Thoreau’s Industrial Revolution New England, and it is equally true in the digital age.
Charles Darwin was also famous for walking. Like many of us can probably relate to, he kicked rocks to help think through problems as he went: the more, the better. We pace instinctively when we’re stressed, so rather than wearing through your carpet, why not get out of your room and get your 10,000 steps in?
Of course, we must not understate the dangers of the outdoors in San Ramon. I have forded raging rivers–or more accurately, particularly large mud puddles. I have fended off wildlife. The fearsome coyotes of the Tri-Valley were no scourge upon my heart! I have battled the vicious cattle above Rancho Park (a cow took a single step in my direction one time, which I am choosing to interpret as aggression), and you too need not fear these incredibly dangerous animals.
Yet what about the real danger of looking like a dork? If you’re ever by yourself in public for any reason, won’t other high schoolers automatically assume you have no social life and only talk to squirrels?
I never said you couldn’t bring your friends. But yes, I do talk to squirrels.
