April 29 Word of the Day: Walking
Image: Fence graffiti along The Secret Way near Stevenson
Street in Kew, Melbourne.
At dinner we talk amusedly about walking in the
early morning towards the station or, as it were, work. Of the different kinds
of stranger, several of whom we recognise from years of walking past them early
in the morning. As if they are not strangers, in fact, given their familiar face
and dress and gait and attention, though we don’t know their names. We speak of
them as though we know them relatively well and well maybe we do, vulnerable as
they are at that hour of the day, waking up.
Of
those who never make eye contact, walking headlong or headstrong or something all-head
as if we were not there passing them early in the morning along the footpath and
they have nothing to say or are lost in thoughts (to be charitable) or just don’t
say hello as a rule, or on principle whatever that principle may be, gone without
a murmur past the shoulder into the past tense. Of those, contrariwise, who do
say hello and always will even before daylight has filtered through enough for
them to see who they say hello to and always will, just as we say hello briefly
by way of reciprocal recognition of their existence and the existence of
existence in general, for example birds starting to chirp and a vehicle
careering along the street.
Of
those who jog, which is a step up from walking only that could twist an ankle,
they are usually appreciative if we step onto the nature strip or gutter or
available driveway and say thanks, not hello, as they lunge forward in a
desperate bid at improved health when they could still be resting in bed, or
just walking like us, rather than engaging in an excuse for running that demands
people get out of their way. Of joggers and the like who do not say thanks, we
speak over dinner, their fevered brows and wobbly knees, as they wonder if
their personal best is worth this wordless, nay breathless almost, exertion,
clearly with no time to think or even have a moment to notice us as they
fantasize marathons.
Of
dogs, of course, some off course, and their owners dragged along behind, where
the method for brief friendly encounter is to smile not at the owner but the dog,
thereby eliciting a friendly smile and noise from the owners, in the
well-founded belief that anyone who is friendly towards their dog must be
friendly, by definition; the dog, or dogs sometimes twisting leads and nosing
in the grass, being the connection that brings out the best in walkers, walking
both ways down a quiet street early in the morning.
