When there’s nowhere to go, this is how you get there
If you have dogs, you walk. And until recently, the only people you saw while you were out walking were other people with dogs.
That has changed. Restaurants and gyms and movie theaters and bars and museums and stores have closed. So now, in just about every neighborhood, at all times of the day, you’re seeing neighbors. Walking.
It reminds me of what it was like when I was a boy.
We lived in a steel mill town north of Pittsburgh, Pa, in a neighborhood of company-built duplex houses squeezed together into tight rows along narrow streets. It was the 1960s. There were no computers or cellphones or cable TV. In our hilly community we managed in our house to get reception to only one of the three major networks. Part of the time. I don’t recall the set ever being switched on during the daytime.
My father worked alternating shifts. During the weeks that his schedule had him at the mill from midnight to 8 a.m. he would sleep during the day. To keep things quiet around the house my moth
er often would suggest that the two of us take a walk.
Invariably, it was the same walk we’d taken the day before. And the day before that.
My mother’s sister and her family lived five or six blocks away, along with their Italian immigrant parents, my grandparents. I didn’t mind being pulled away from my neighborhood pals for a walk because I knew I could expect my Nona Collella to slip me a dime or a nickel while we were visiting.
To get there we’d stroll slowly up Third Avenue, our block, then turn onto Jefferson Street. There was never a time we didn’t see neighbors out and about, though I would tuck my chin into my chest when we passed the house of the woman we called “Grandma Sunday,” who was said once to have put the maloccio – evil eye – on me, for which I was made to wear around my neck a tiny gold cornetto on a thin chain.
My mother would stop and talk with neighbors as we walked. Our route took us by Nazia’s little convenience store, where there were Good Humor ice cream cones (the ones with chocolate and nuts) in the freezer.
We’d walk by the Italian-American club. Past Freddie’s garage. Past Testa’s market, often stopping to get some cheese or salami to bring with us to my aunt’s.
Our visits never lasted that long, perhaps because it wasn’t the destination that mattered, but the walk.
My mother loved it, a worn path filled with familiarities that somehow, to her, always seemed new.
I received a note from a reader recently that began, “I don’t know about you but the only time I feel normal these days is when I go for a walk.”
He mentioned how other people who are out walking, neighbors, smile at him and wave. As do people in passing cars. I’ve experienced the same things. It may seem like we are going nowhere on these walks, because there is nowhere to go. Actually, we’re all headed to the same destination. We’re taking the long way back to our better selves.
The guy who wrote to me said he didn’t know if he’ll take many walks after the crisis passes, businesses reopen and there are plenty of other things to do. He wondered if I could suggest a way that he’d be motivated to keep at it.
Sure, I said, get a dog.