The Endgame

Newsletter #71 - Walking

Toronto, June 23, 2024

Walking

One recent spring evening I was sitting on a restaurant patio on College Street enjoying a martini and idly surveying people as they walked by.

It struck me, as I sipped my martini: The act of walking is remarkable. It’s hard to fathom exactly how it happens. Wikipedia tells us that walking is “defined by an ‘inverted pendulum’ gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step... An inverted pendulum is a pendulum that has its center of mass above its pivot point... A person standing upright acts as an inverted pendulum with their feet as the pivot, and without constant small muscular adjustments would fall over.”

inverted pendulum

Writers are often prodigious walkers. Charles Dickens walked twenty miles a day. In The Uncommercial Traveller, he wrote: “My walking is of two kinds: one, straight on end to a definite goal at a round pace; one, objectless, loitering, and purely vagabond. In the latter state, no gipsy on earth is a greater vagabond than myself...”

The British poet Laurie Lee was a major walker. In his memoir As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, he describes how in 1934, when he was nineteen, he decided to leave the Cotswold village that was his home and go to London to seek his fortune. He walked there. Walking like this was not unusual for poor people, who couldn’t afford the train and didn’t have a horse, let alone a car. “I walked steadily, effortlessly, hour after hour in a kind of swinging, weightless realm. I was at that age which feels neither strain nor friction, when the body burns magic fuels, so that it seems to glide in warm air, about a foot off the ground, smoothly obeying its intuitions.” Six months later Laurie Lee walked from London to Spain.

In 2007 the British novelist Will Self came to Toronto from London for a book event. He walked downtown from Pearson airport. The Globe and Mail reported: “British novelist Will Self is en route and on foot, walking from Pearson Airport with no luggage, and pretty much only a map and the clothes on his back, heading to his hotel downtown. It's a trifle, Self reckons, at only around 26 kilometres and 5½ hours of serious walking... For Self, who is 46, an ideal day's hike, often from his door in South London, can take as much as 18-plus hours...”

Myself, I’m a flâneur. I like to stroll through urban streets in a leisurely fashion, savouring the city. You, you may be a pilgrim, who vigorously walks, e.g., the 825 kilometres Camino de Santiago. Or perhaps you are a hiker of trails—the Bruce Trail or the Khyber Pass or through the Cotswolds. Or a 10,000 steps-a-day fanatic who will do anything to hit your daily target—walking around the block in the middle of the night, or repeatedly walking up and down a corridor in your house, checking your step count on your smart phone as you go.

Or you may be a mindful walker (I took a course in this once): “Mindful walking simply means walking while being aware of each step and of our breath...To begin, take your eyes to a point that is in front of where you place your feet. Start by walking slower than usual. Notice the sensation of your foot as it touches the ground; how it feels when your left foot touches the ground, then how it feels when you lift your right foot and swing it forward to begin the next step.”

mindful

Most people walk effortlessly and instinctively. But it’s a different matter for the disabled, the ill, or the old. For them walking can be hard and full of danger. For them, the struggle to perambulate is never-ending. They can only dream about walking as Laurie Lee once walked, gliding in warm air, a foot off the ground.

Note: I’m travelling soon (not on foot), and there won’t be an Endgame for the next two weeks.

A handful of reader comments on Endgame #70 (“Feeling seedy”):

The irrepressible David Wolinsky wrote: “As a devout hypochondriac I share your pain.”

A regular reader wrote: “Well, I first had to look up 'feeling seedy.' Such a useful expression...”

A reader who describes himself as “Your faithful and esteemed correspondent,” who shall not be named but might be Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, says: “‘Seedy’ is my favourite Graham Greene word.”