Taking a walk out of my world

This column has its roots in the mid-1990s, owing to my early explorations of Pittsburgh on foot. My editor at the time came up with the idea of calling my new column “Walkabout.”

What I was doing — taking ridiculously long walks to better learn the city — was hardly reminiscent of the walkabouts of original Australians, whose wanderings usually last for days, weeks, even months. But before coming to Pittsburgh in 1989, I had lived briefly in Australia, which is why, if I remember correctly, my editor made the connection.

We comfortably co-opted the term, and it has lived as my alter ego ever since, even when my columns are about anything and everything other than walking about the city.

One bright, cool morning last week, I set out on my daily walk very early, with the intent of truly exploring. I have my usual routes, but this time, I found myself walking toward Perry South, the neighborhood just north of mine.

Sometimes, it seems that I’m not the one making the choice of where to go. It’s like having an inner Siri. Sometimes, I don’t turn her off.

Halfway up Buena Vista Street, I paused. It is so steep. Did I want to take it all the way up to Perrysville Avenue? It was pretty far. I opted to continue.

Buena Vista is one of the city’s few streets left with a road surface

of Belgian blocks. Cars sound like they’re popping corn as they rattle down from Perrysville.

Just past Propel Northside, I passed a thicket of weeds. My head jerked left. Something rustled in there. My peripheral vision caught a fast flash of light brown. What had I flushed out? It was too fast to be a ground hog, too small to be a deer. A fox? A scared golden retriever puppy?

I stared into the weeds but saw nothing.

Continuing on, I came to the intersection of Rolla Street. A respite from the steep climb, I thought, before I saw the sign “No outlet.”

I kept going. Quickly, I felt as if I had left the city. Within a few minutes, I had another chance to flatten out my walk. Geranium Street. I turned left and walked past homes that looked lived in and a few that are being consumed by decades of abandonment.

Overlook Street turned me northward again. When it ended, I turned right on Ridgewood Street, uphill again. That road has recently been repaved, but there are no homes on one side, just a forest of knotweed that grew up to the curb on my left, a deep valley beyond it.

I saw something red in the weeds ahead. It was a rusty fire hydrant, a clue that this side of Ridgewood once was lined with houses.

No car had passed me since my pause on Buena Vista. Had the city been evacuated without me?

I had taken a foray from my densely populated neighborhood into a scene from nowheresville, a world of profound silence. I was reminded of the inexplicable transitions that are common in dream sequences.

When you walk the same route every day, the experience becomes etched. Emotionally, you move like a phonograph needle on the groove of an old record, hearing the same song.

When you wander off somewhere different, no matter how close to home you might be, you get a small emotional high, a triumphant feeling of finding your way from being lost.

Hardly an adventure, my trek that day was the equivalent of expanding my mind.

At the end of Ridgewood, I was immediately back in the world. Cars passed as I contemplated whether to follow Perrysville straight toward where it met up with Federal Street or right to where it would also eventually meet up with Federal.

This is one thing I loved about Pittsburgh when I was first discovering it and why I am still charmed by this city. Some of its quirky streets owe to its geography, but Perrysville Avenue has a different story.

If you take Federal Street up the hill from the Central North Side to Perry South, you are soon automatically on Perrysville Avenue.

But there’s an oddly shaped loop, an extra piece of Perrysville, that attaches itself to Federal.

I turned right, following the part of the Perrysville Avenue loop that rims the view of the city skyline. I stopped where a gap in the line of houses and apartments gave way to that spectacular view — not as dramatic as the one from Mount Washington but still thrilling.

Cars were passing me now, and as I approached the top of Federal Street, I decided instead to walk down the woodland of public steps that bottom out onto Arch Street. A few of the steps rocked underfoot and the railing was gone for a stretch, but the entire descent was clear of weeds and debris.

At the bottom, I had put both feet back in my neighborhood, back in the world of all my days.