Walking

 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.