Hear/Say

There is something so peacefully romantic about walking.

Already this sounds like some emo post about some emo kid who doesn’t have a car and instead becomes one with nature to ‘stick it to the man’, or some loaded connotation like that. No, it actually might just be a boring blog post on walking.

One of my favorite professors taught Anthropology. She had a huge smile, a bigger, friendly voice– from Texas– and you could tell she was in love with what she does. Her dissertation, or area of study, was walking patterns– and this, she excitedly related– was intimately correlated with how our bodies were shaped to bear or not bear babies. The carrying angle, she explained, was that convex angle of our calves slanting away from our femurs– our thighs– the focal point being the knee. This angle has also to do with the wideness of our hips– the wider, the better for baby-bearing– and thus, the carrying angle for these baby-bearing hips must be enough to support the extra consequences Getting Knocked Up.

She also told us with just as much excitement, that she often spent hours sitting and people watching in Red Square, recording footsteps and the gait of individuals going to and fro across campus. Sometimes, she giggled, there were the kids with great big platforms of shoes– and she would stare because it would change the rhythm and style of their walk– but sometimes be misinterpreted as offensive leering.

I think of this lesson many times.

Perhaps it stuck with me because she loved it so, and it showed. But now I see the unique variations of people’s walks– and it shows a curious fingerprint of their personality. The ones who walk with their feet flapping open, like a skier trying to skip uphill, or those who throw down their heels carelessly. The ones who have made a careful habit of high heels, and their sensuous sway of the hips in turn for an erect, still upper torso, or child-like stomps or marches. The Monty Python crew had it right when they created the Ministry of Walks: once you pay attention, you notice curious walking behaviors everywhere.

The shuffle of shoes; the point of the toe facing inward, outward, or straight– even the particular placement and distance of the right in front of the left or vice versa; how careful a person walks, or in what context to they change their manner of walk? How they adapt to change speed– tossing their legs out during a casual, slow stroll, or twisting their waists to aid momentum to go faster. Even how they swing their arms, clutching a backpack strap, lumbering about lopsided because of a hefty messenger bag… how little or much they swing their arms (remember that Seinfeld episode?).

In any case, once you’re once again conscious about each mechanism of a walk, there’s a certain pleasure in deriving a beautiful peace in perfecting your form: how you stretch your muscles out for a fuller stride, how the tiny limbs of toes help launch yourself into the next step as the balls and arches of your feet flex and unflex, bending themselves with a personal rhythm as they carry you off where ever you wish. I don’t like running/jogging because– and this is laughable– I find it too violent. The pounding of cement is too much for me. It jars my brain, and Allah knows I don’t need to lose more brain cells.