Hawthorn Hill

May 15, 2008 12:50 pm

— By RICHARD J. deROSA

Walking

It is not necessary to travel to faraway places to get away. A walk will do just fine. I am not opposed to trips. I will be arriving back from one the day this column appears. But what I do question is the oft stated purpose as that of finding oneself, of traipsing off to remote regions of the globe in search of something that remains essentially the same no matter where one might be. I am not sure about a lot of things. My core principles aside, I hope it stays that way. But I do know for sure that no matter how far I am from home, whatever I am will forever be.

One of travel’s greatest gifts is its capacity for comparative thinking. The cultural differences one encounters offer enlightening ways of seeing ourselves more clearly, more perceptively. A long time ago, after spending close to three years in Southeast Asia, I took an extra year off to work my way to Paris. It was a memorable trip, not because I was able to hook up with my elusive real self (like it or not, always close at hand), but because I met a lot of very interesting people, saw some spectacularly beautiful countryside (a fair share of poverty as well), and had some illuminating inter-cultural experiences. When I ended up in Paris in February of 1971 before heading home several weeks later, I had quite a few experiences packed away to chew on for the rest of my life. Aside from being older, perhaps a bit wiser, I boarded the jet for New York with that core, unchanging me still by my side.

A friend who counseled me in my late teens reminded me that we are who we are. No escaping it. We can reshape and reconfigure ourselves, but that is about as far as it goes. Quirks and all, I have never despaired over my existential lot in life.

Travel is a sort of self-imposed cultural displacement. It is good to get out of one’s culture from time to time. Much as I always look forward to road trips and foreign travel, the best part of it all is being back home. It is one of the few places, at least these days, where the center holds.

Walking is an exercise in going nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I especially like the price. I walk for the pure joy of walking. It is an excellent form of exercise that does not at all feel like exercise, at least the type of artificial stuff that so many of us subject ourselves to in the name of feeling good while being alive.

I have never been successful at meditation. Walking enables me to, as essayist Amy Blackmarr puts it, “get beyond intellect.” It is a comforting place to be. A photographer I studied with many years ago told us one night that once he stopped being intellectual he felt a hell of a lot smarter. I understood what he meant then, but vaguely. Thirty-eight years later, what he said makes a lot of sense.

The longer the walk the better, since it takes a while to find the right stride. It also takes a while for the senses to shed their everyday inhibitions. Every once in a while I start out by trying an experiment. I make a conscious effort to think about something that is bothering me. I wish I could write that those times are infrequent! My intention is to see how long it takes me to forget what I started out thinking about. Most of the time I have walked a far piece before I remember that there was something on my mind at the start. By that time, I can toss it away easily. It is akin to driving a particular route to clock the mileage, something I do when I have walked a new route. I set the odometer to zero, drive the route, get home, shut the car off, go about my business and then remember a few days later that I had forgotten to note the mileage. Motion does work in mysterious way!

Young people are the ones who most often go off in search of themselves. There are lots of stories about these prospecting adventures. We have several in our family. I assume every family does. The trips vary in distance and duration. If they put the gadgets away for a few hours a day and walked, perhaps they would find what they are looking for much more quickly here at home.

We wish them well, knowing it is a journey they must take and there is no way we can convince them otherwise. We also know what they do not know.

Each of them is already the self searched for. I try to walk every day. It does not always work out that way.

But I try. The sights and sounds are wonderful. The end result is a cleared mind, a well exercised body, and a soul that feels lifted, unburdened. The best part is the world of thought that one visits. A favorite poet of mine wrote this line: “The world is the pleasure of thought.” That is what a walk is.