How I Learned to Stop Hurrying and Love the… Walk
Day 1 in Italy
5 scariest words in the English language (2019 edition): “Wanna go for a walk?”
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the time with my wife; it was just that walking was so inefficient. I would go, but it was a to-do, something to get to-done as quickly as possible. During walks, I found myself casually mentioning what we were not getting done during this time, or making the point that I was going to need to exercise later in the day.
The pandemic changed most of that. Then a long walk in Italy blew up my whole notion of walking.
The pandemic made me busier than ever at work – first trying to reimagine our organization doing work virtually; then trying to help employees find the sweet spot between fear for their safety or jobs and getting projects done; then trying to fill the holes of our programming with new content. For a year, I was the only one in my office; workdays were profoundly productive and painfully peopleless.
The walks my wife and I took at the end of every day were suddenly pande-manna – time to connect with a real person, to whine about and unwind from the day, to imagine the future. We’d walk a couple of miles, mask up and buy a beer at a brewery, sit outside and drink it, then walk a couple of miles home.
So I was set up for a bipedal conversion. But it took a pilgrimage to Italy, an 18-day, 270-mile walk through rural Tuscany, for me to finally “get” walking.
My hike with a friend took us down the west side of Italy, from Lucca to Rome, the final pizza slice of the much longer Via Francigena, a millennium-old pilgrimage trail that starts in Canterbury, England. Doing 10-20 miles a day is walking on steroids: you can’t make it without changing your attitude toward hiking and adjusting the way you consume the world.
Every morning as we left our sleep spot (convents, monasteries, hostels, a couple of B&B’s) for the day’s walk, we passed through the central piazza and by the men and women of the piazza (always seated separately). We watched them. They watched us.
(Half) the people of the piazza
On the way out of town I had time to actually see things I normally would zoom past – ornately-carved ledges, stone street patterns, unusual arrangements in flower pots, strung lines of drying laundry, streetsweeps taking time to wash the cobblestones and clean up any mess from the previous day.
Outside of town we watched in slow motion as ripe grape vineyards, or furrowed fields waiting for the next planting, or rows of olive trees or groves of hazelnuts watched us march by. At the pace we were going, we could see storms coming from 10 miles away and prepare for them as they approached — or just watch them as they passed us by. We could witness an entire day of sunlight evolving, changing shadows on the rolling hills. We didn’t fly over or drive past other walkers on a path; we could slow down and visit. Most mornings we could find on the horizon the town that was our day’s destination, be intimidated by how far it was, and then appreciate it as we inched closer.
For the first few days, I started out relentless, intent on efficiency, accomplishing the project of getting to the next place. Over time, I “recalculated” like some kind of analog GIS app. I learned to relish the serendipity of meeting a new person, of discovering I was walking on a 14’ wide road made of hewn stone by Romans 2000 years ago, of wading through creeks or elbowing through flocks of sheep, of finding fresh water, of stumbling into a gorgeous, evolving vista, or of encountering ancient or recent pieces of art or architecture.
It took time to downshift perspective and learn to be comfortable with this new way of seeing the world – through the lens of the megawalk. That was a shock to me, but not really news to anyone who’s hiked before. In Backpacking with the Saints, Belden C. Lane describes the job of a walker this way:
“It demands my keeping an eye on the trail, attending to variations in the terrain and weather patterns, noticing changes in my body as weariness rises or blisters start to form. It necessitates a reading of the entire landscape, learning to dance and flow with the interconnectedness of its details.”
Tim Egan suggests in A Pilgrimage to Eternity, his account of walking this path, that we need to “take the time and care to let the Via Francigena reveal itself. Respect the pace and have one ear attuned to the elements, another to the groans of your body.”[1] All that requires sacrificing efficiency for attentiveness, and letting life happen in a new way.
When I was able to do that, I could appreciate the natural wonders I usually screen out -- clouds and sunbeams and shadows, pebbles, ponds, rivers and streams -- and be open to chance encounters I would never have had at highway speed.
On the road to Viterbo, Italy
What happens at less than highway speed?
Day 8: We stopped at a nondescript house to ask for advice about food. As we waited for someone to come to the door, we noticed an inscription on the side – Galileo used to live there.
· Day 16: A man taking his cats (yes, cats) for a leashed walk stopped to draw in the sand for us an elaborate shortcut, and invited us to have grapes from the field on the side of the road (easy for him to say -- turned out the grapes weren’t his – but the shortcut was good).
· Day 12: At the top of a hill after a long climb into town, we turned on to a narrow street decked out with a rainbow of umbrellas strung from laundry lines. No explanation: just a joyful exclamation by the people on the block.
· Day 5: We were desperately seeking water when we found a bar that was closed. A woman outside, Manuela, turned out to be the owner, and when we asked for water, she agreed to open early for us. We asked her for some fruit. She said the bar didn’t have any, then went upstairs to her house, returning with grapes and apples and peaches from her personal refrigerator. Then she brought us homemade wine from the vat in her garage. Then she brought us homemade olive oil and focaccia. The stop delayed us by an hour – and was one of the highlights of the trip.
We wouldn’t have seen Galileo’s house or found the shortcut or relished the umbrellas or met Manuela or spent time in her home if our goal was arriving; we had to be open to the journey…and moving slow enough to see it.
Now I’m back; not fully a walking zealot, but at least a walking convert. The question is whether I can chew on the grist from pandemic walks and digest it for post-pandemic fuel; whether I can translate what I learned in Tuscany to something I can use in the Triangle.
The easiest thing to do when you return from any time truly “away” is to compartmentalize that time as “other” --an anomaly. The internal and external lobbyists for productivity are super-skilled; they use megaphones, not whispers. When you return home, the work you ignored while you were gone screams; busyness beckons; efficiency demands homage. Walking toward the last ten minutes of a sunset or through the final flush of a tree’s autumn offerings will never show up in an accountant’s log as “getting the job done.” But if you can find a way to redefine “the job” of life, there’s a special still, small voice you can hear if you listen and take delight in the inefficiency of a stroll.
You can see a lot more of life at 2-3 mph.
5 most-rehabilitated words in the English language (2023 back home edition): “Wanna go for a walk?!”
-Leslie
How has hiking (or knitting, or yoga, or prayer, or something else) taught you to slow down, and what has it helped you to see?
References:
Via Francigena: https://www.viefrancigene.org/en/
Backpacking with the Saints: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/backpacking-with-the-saints-belden-c-lane/1119219335
A Pilgrimage to Eternity: https://www.amazon.com/Pilgrimage-Eternity-Canterbury-Search-Faith/dp/0735225230