The Art of Walking by Caroline Langella

I firmly believe that a good walk can change your life – it’s happened to me before. 

On a solo vacation to London, I was feeling completely frustrated by the fact that I hated my current producer job and hated myself more. So, I went to this beautifully massive park called Hampstead Heath and walked, and walked – for a solid four or five hours. 

For a long while, I let my mind run wild with its tornado of anxious, existential thoughts: What am I doing? Why am I here? Why didn’t I wear shoes that fare better in mud? The usual. But once I hit hour three and half, I had somewhat of an epiphany. Everything started to straighten out – It’s like my brain got too tired of thinking at ten thousand miles per hour, and in its surrender, decided to settle on some decisions.

Feeling a weird sense of peace, I sat down on a bench and started to type out a simple one year plan on my phone (I could never plan for longer, due to a deep-set fear and respect for fate). I paused, looked at the muddy grass in the empty field around me, and reminded myself that all I’ve ever wanted to do was write. So: I was going to quit my job to “write.” I would stay in LA, and for a whole year, I would give it my best shot, even if that meant completely depleting my savings account. I was finally going to go for it. And it was going to be okay.

Despite this epiphany, I’ve found it difficult to bring the “art” of walking home to Los Angeles. Though there are walkable neighborhoods, when you consider the most “walkable cities,” it just doesn’t make the list. How can I walk in a city that makes me wander under a freeway just to get to Trader Joes?  I daydream about moving someplace else, a place where maybe I wouldn’t be able to afford a backyard, but at least I could go to a bar without having to order a Lyft. 

But the past few months have been different. The world is different – we’re collectively fighting off a virus! I’ve lost my job, my social life, and my sanity.  My weekly schedule is wide open – like wiiiiiiiiide open. And I can only vacuum my apartment so many times. 

So, just about every day, I’ve been walking. Walking to absolutely nowhere (after all, there isn’t anywhere to go). Sometimes I follow a specific route. Sometimes I weave aimlessly through my neighborhood, hoping that the time would pass by faster. On a good day, I cruise through audiobooks of the romance/beach read genre, and on harder days, I listen to the Dixie Chicks and pray that my neighbors can’t see the welling tears through my sunglasses. 

Walking isn’t very romantic when you’re not on vacation. It’s starting to feel more like a chore – similar to virtual yoga, it’s just another way to ensure that I won’t have to purchase a new size of jeans whenever we have to wear jeans again. I’ve memorized the homes in my neighborhood, and I hate them all. 

But then I take a few days off, and I’m reminded of how much I rely on it. I start to crave it again. I need the escape – a scheduled time to breathe air that hasn’t been circulating inside my apartment. A time to let my mind run: Who am I? When will I start to feel normal again? Will there ever be a normal again? Why didn’t I put on sunscreen before exiting the house? 

Slowly, but surely, the spaghetti-like blob that is my brain starts to unravel. And I become more aware that I am a living, breathing person rather than just a bunch of feelings inside a head. I don’t type out a plan, because it’s hard to plan for anything these days. But I do thank the walking gods for letting me feel at ease, even if only for an hour or so. I am here, forcing myself to keep moving. And it is going to be okay.

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