Take your time

I think I've mentioned before that I don't really like the term 'unwalkable'. It implies a binary, places are either walkable or unwalkable. What obviously exists instead is a gradient of walking conditions. Almost anywhere can be walked (walking is how we got there to begin with). Some place are more or less difficult, more or less pleasant, more or less dangerous, to walk than others.

Much like unhappy families, each sort of unwalkable is a different. A lack of sidewalks, crosswalks, and lights plus a preponderance of large vehicles, creates danger. A busy road creates noise and fumes. Expansiveness means both suburbs where you can't walk to anywhere useful, and it being functionally impossible to walk from town to town.

But there is something else, something at least as fundamental as our national expansiveness, that makes walking in America hard. Something no traffic calming or congestion charging, or sidewalk will solve.

Walking is slow. As a rule of thumb, 3 miles per hour is a good estimate for an average walking speed. Google Maps uses 5 kilometers per hour as the default speed. Thats 3.108 miles per hour to us Americans. Compared to other modes of transport this is, well, walking pace. A bike is three or four times faster, a car at highway speeds seven times faster than that. An airplane, not even worth thinking about.

Slowness is the point. Many of the benefits of walking, a time for reflection, the way it allows you to notice things, are hopelessly ensnared with slowness. Some walking advocates lean into this slowness, The British walking mapping organization Slow Ways, has a snail as its logo.

America though, has a hard time with slowness. We are a nation connected by high speed highways. We invented fast food. We scorn idleness, linking government benefits to work requirements. We move fast and break things.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least- and it is commonly more than that-sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutly free from all worldly engagements.

-Henry David Thoreau

For Henry David Thoreau, four hours of daily sauntering was the minimum. He’s probably right. Walking 10 miles a day, without purpose, outside, everyday, would do real wonders for our physical and mental health. Even in the 1800s this degree of time spent strolling required defending, and we haven’t gotten less busy since.

Probably, a good walking practice involves walking outside for at least an hour, dailyish. I don't manage this. On a typical week, I probably walk at least an hour outside maybe four days. The reason I'm not walking an hour a day is the same as everyone else's. I don't feel like I have the time.

Spending an hour a day ostensibly doing nothing may be hard to justify, especially to yourself. Not that there aren't justifications. Excercise, mental health, physical health, being outside, being in nature, even improved creativity. All good, all valid, all true.

and all vaguely missing the point.

Another way of saying "walking is slow" is to say that "walking takes time".

"Taking time" is curious phrase. (Who exactly am I taking this time from? how did they get it in the first place? what if they want it back?) I Imagine actually being able to take time. Grabbing it and gathering it up, maybe keeping it in the crisper drawer of the fridge. Time stays fresher if you keep it in the crisper drawer.

If walkability exists it requires time, as much as it requires changes in infrastructure or density.

Therefore we all need to hurry less, or be mindful more, or abolish capitalism, or give everybody shorter working weeks, or something else equally out of reach. If only we lived in a different world, then, we could walk. But this is the walkability trap. If only the world was more walkable, then we would walk.

This blog is not called How to Walk in the World That we Wished We Lived in, its called How to Walk in America, which is quite different. The whole point is how to walk, in the here and now. To walk in the sometimes unwalkable present.

Adjacent to "Taking time" is the similar phrase "take your time" which means to be careful and deliberate. To do something properly. To attend to it with the hope of doing it well. The main difference is who owns the time. In "take your time" the time is already yours. But of course it is, whose else would it be.

People sometimes ask me about what happens on my walks, but nothing happens. When I first started taking long walks on the weekend, I remember worrying I was wasting my time. I wasn't doing anything, I certainty wasn't traveling anywhere. I go out for a walk. nothing happens. I come home. I feel better then when I left. That's all it is.

This might be more of an achievement than it seems though. Its quite hard to do nothing. Harder to do it well. There is always something asking for attention, asking for your time. These are important things, work, friends family, errands. Sometimes it is important to walk away from important things. Even if just around the block.

The world outside your door isn't unwalkable. There might not be a sidewalk on the street, but most residential streets are quiet enough that doesn’t really matter. There might not be an obvious destination to walk to, but this was never about that anyway.

Its easy really. Put your shoes on and walk out your front door.

No need to hurry back though, take your time.