What I Talk About When I Talk About Walking
Subject Notes #2
For those of you who didn’t notice, the title of this essay is a small play at the title of one of my favourite books, Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I’d read it for the first time around the age of 19, having bought my copy at Camden Lock Books in Old Street Station and sat in Hoxton Square to read it. I oddly remember what I was wearing, blue denim shorts from American Apparel and a thin grey Pennies hoodie, I’d taken to wearing this as my weekend uniform during my first summer in London with whatever crop top I had on hand. It was the first time I’d worn shorts without tights and I nervously crossed my pale legs on a bench. The square was on the way back from the station to my dorms, a walk that I remember fondly, a sense of nostalgia for those early days.
I’d taken to walking around the city with a new friend, who as of writing has been one of my closest friends for the last 12 years. Our relationship started with walking. We’d take a bus into town and walk along the Thames or down some random road just to see what was there. We were young and feverish for this new world and we wanted to see every corner of it. So we walked and walked until eventually we moved in together and another friend in South East London, to a house in Nunhead sat on the border of the cemetery, where all you could do was walk. Living in South East London, one quickly learns it is easier to walk than to take the bus or train, especially if you are travelling across rather than up. Often walking the 45 minutes to Brixton rather bothering with double buses, observing while moving the way the roads sway. I don’t particularly remember what we said on these walks, closer to the end of my friend living in the city we wound up in silence, simply moving through the world without needing to talk over it.
After my friend who was my usual walking partner graduated and left London, I moved up to Hackney where once again I went to walking. I’d take the train to university and read then walk 20 minutes from the station to the studio, blasting whatever Spotify playlist I was currently obsessed with. On weekends I would walk up Kingsland Rd, then looped around towards London Fields, down Broadway Market and head down the hectic Regents Canal, full of runners and far too many cyclists. My cousin became my new walking partner and often we’d go past Victoria Park and up to Hackney Marshes, cutting through the football pitch that seemed to stretch on forever. We’d pass by Here East, an odd spot that seemed to out of the way for anything it offered, random restaurants, a bar, a gym, some food trucks, pitched up in a dark grey building by the canal, across from warehouses turned into hipster beer gardens. It was already a very different London than the one I’d visited when I was 14, which seemed to still have the grime it still brags about. Walking down Brick Lane lost its charm very quickly and only the food trucks kept me coming back. I was finding my corners and back ways to navigate this city where for the first time I felt at home.
It wasn’t until the first lock down in 2020 that I stopped walking and with that the threads that held me together started to weather. My aunt would remind me that I was allowed go for a walk, but I brushed it off, unless I was going to the corner shop for beer. Instead of walking I got more into drinking and smoking, walking demanded some level of presentness and I wanted nothing to do with that. I didn’t want to look at anything, all I wanted was to fade away while asserting to everyone that I’m actually handling the whole world in lockdown thing rather well. My lack of walking got so bad, I had started taking taxis to work, a mere 20 minute walk away. One day I walked half way to work and got stuck in the middle of Middleton Rd (coincidentally), I was terrified that something was wrong and I couldn’t move. I was too far from home or work and wanted to cry, I wanted to call an ambulance just for someone to tell me that I was okay. Walking had transformed from a place of refuge to a place of terror.
I didn’t walk much after that. I left the city and moved in with my parents and kept to myself. I wasn’t walking, I continued to spiral, there was no direction. In an attempt to help me I went to live with my sister in New York, which if you suffer from agoraphobia, maybe isn’t the best place to do exposure therapy (one could argue it’s actually perfect because if you can handle New York you can handle anywhere). During my first week there I walked around the block of our apartment building, it was the first walk I’d been on in months and took less than 5 minutes. In our Greenpoint flat I began walking to the local coffee shop alone then cutting through the park. Sometimes I’d go to the grocery shop alone too, I was trying to enjoy walking again but it mostly was a dreadful affair full of anxiety. The tightness in my throat making me think I’m going to be sick while exchanging flirtations with the barista, life is strange that way. You could feel like death and about to faint and someone will still think you’re hot. I will be honest, I am primarily motivated by crushes, if I think you’re fit I get out of the house more just to say hello and make zero moves. Bless my friends for having to hear about random hot bartenders or booksellers or baristas for all these years, who I’d go out of my way and walk to, perhaps mentally skipping along. Popping into the pub and talking to a crush after a long walk was always so satisfying, looking red faced and sweaty as to conceal my blushing. Sometimes I would sit outside with a cold pint and the crush would come out for a smoke and ask me what I saw on my walk and I would tell them of all the funny things I saw, a man yelling at a pigeon, a dog with two legs, a child so high up in a tree I thought the fire brigade would have to be called. The carnival is getting set up in Peckham Rye Common, I’ve never been, have you? There’s a gig over at the Ivy House, I looked at the flyer, but I’ve always found it too pretentious.
I had many crushes scattered throughout London and I would walk to see them, like a pinball jumping from place to place, I will add that I was not stood at the window staring in, more often I’d just say hello and browse, because a crush is never really about the person themselves, it can be of course, but I often realise too late that my crushes are just people I want to emulate. And on my walks I would listen to the music they’d recommend, or a song that reminded me how sad I was that we’d never be together (fully aware it was because I made myself unavailable, I am more for yearning than satisfaction). My walks would turn to music videos, imaginary scenarios when the roads would become more special, more significant, because I was having a moment. The way the sun shone through the leaves thus became like God coming down and blessing my lovesick heart with a moment of beauty, a second of comfort away from my loneliness. I never felt too lonely on walks, I prefer to walk alone generally because I find most peoples presences unsettling. Rarely do I find comfort in silence with those I do not feel safe with, so I rambling on as to avoid the silence. If we’ve ever taken a walk together in total silence it means I’m very fond you.
Since returning to my parents house in Spain, after my two year stint in New York being neither a success nor a failure, just a continuation, I have been walking yes, but I have no crushes, so the motivation is somewhat lessened. Instead of popping from shop to shop, I have been joining my da on the dog walks in the morning. If I do not walk I sit in the car and read, but I’ve been walking more often than when I first got here, a person completely disinterested in engaging with anything. Now I’m more likely to want to get out of the house, away from the suburb that does not offer very good wanders. We drive along some old highways next to the new one and end up at one of our three options. They all have trees, vineyards and hills, but there’s still some variety between them. I put on my headphones and press play on my pink shuffle clipped to my shorts, then stomp away.
Sometimes I try to observe things on these walks in an attempt to inspire painting, but I always find that loathsome. I want to observe and appreciate things because they’re there, not because they can benefit me in some way. When I try to look at the world as inspiration I am less inspired than ever. When I snap out of it I continue walking, partially spaced out, and let the calm wash over me. I am somewhat returning to how I used to walk, as a vehicle to explore, to relax, to just have a look.
Today I wanted to keep walking, I was sweating with the sun beating down. The thought of the walk ending and going home to sit around irked me in a way I have not felt in years. Perhaps it has something to do with eating better and more consistently along with more regular exercise, but I am desperate to get out of the house. I feel confined, trapped, wishing I had a crush to wander over to or at least a nice path out of the suburb. I am tired of art and music and cinema and literature all I want is to walk a few miles, feeling the sweat running down me looking a hot mess before sitting down somewhere finally catching my breath, only then can I love art again.
Growing up, I did not have the luxury of a walkable city. Even when one got off the Light Rail in San Jose, it always dropped you off between things rather than next to them. The only good stop was the one the was right outside the cinema and a Thai restaurant, every other stop seemed pointless. I did not do much walking when living in the city suburb, more so as any teenager does, I did a whole lot of loitering. I would walk 15 minutes down the road to an abandoned lot and on occasion smash empty glass bottles on the pavement. Once a year someone would be sent in to cut all the grass that had taken over but a couple weeks later it’d all have grown back. I would walk up and down this lot, kicking the back of my feet until the boredom got to be too much and I’d walk home again. Sometimes I’d go around the corner to 7-11, brave the creepy guy at the register and buy a Diet Coke and a bag of chips. That was about the extent of my casual walking.
I have always been prone to a solid wander though, a child who’d constantly run away, distracted by this that or the other, to the point where my mother would let me and the shops speakers would eventually blare out “Enya, your mom is waiting for you by the register”. On hikes that I never enjoyed growing up, I would wander into a thick gathering of trees, somewhere to be alone. It is similar to how I am in museums and galleries, always looking for the one empty room to embrace, no matter the quality of the art.
The easiest museum to do this in is the V&A in London, because most people stick to the first two floors. I recall very dearly a walk through a tapestry gallery alone, the lights were not on, I wasn’t even sure I was allowed be in there. The only sound was two employees talking in a more noticeable off-limits area. It was summer but there was air-con in the room. Walking, wandering, is my attempt at finding balance, a way to be alone while with people. After a visit to the V&A, I usually walked down the road, cutting through some narrow streets, and eventually would reach Hyde Park, which I only ever visited for novelty, it being generally an okay park, but no one’s favourite. A walk through the park, easily defining the tourists from the more local, heading down Oxford Street, this is were walking becomes a game, weaving fast through the crowds of people, the solo walkers recognise each other, a shared solidarity and eye roll over all these slow pokes blocking the way.
Even during my years as a teen with little daily walking, my friends would beg me to stop going so fast. During our weekends spent as mallrats they would try to train me to walk more slowly, but eventually they gave up. I am only now trying to learn to slow down, to not speed along to the beat of my anxiety and instead pace myself, enjoying the moment.
On Oxford St you’re going to want to turn right at Carnaby and head over to Sacred Coffee, there they have a beautiful chai latte that pairs well with more wandering. Avoid Piccadilly at all costs, wander over to China Town instead and eventually sit down and rest yourself at Prince Charles Cinema. Walk through Soho, watch all the gays gather in the last few bars that haven’t been taken over by developers until eventually reaching the bus stop. See that it is delayed and start walking the route home because yes it’s late but you and your walking partner always take the opportunity, despite complaining at first. Walking is overall a way to engage with the world most literally. No wind shield, no doors, just you and hopefully some decent shoes navigating the noise, which is what life is anyway.
In Hernan Diaz’s book In The Distance, the main character Håkan gets on the wrong boat and ends up in California rather than New York with his brother and decides he will walk across the country to find him. This naturally leads him through an array of misfortunes and detours, all amalgamating into him becoming a folk legend, a man exaggerated into something beyond human, and all he did was walk. He is similar in a way, to the real life Leatherman (X), a vagabond who would walk between the Connecticut River and the Hudson River from 1857 until his death in 1889. The Leatherman, his real identity still unknown, wore a handmade suit of leather rain or shine, making him into a kind of legend still talked about today, people wonder who he really way, why or how he made his iconic suit, and all he did was walk. The walking itself was not a means of self actualisation but a means to an end, the end for the Leatherman being a mystery, for Håkan it was an attempt to reach home, something recognisable.
In Old Joy (2006, dir. Kelly Reichardt) and Good One (2024, dir. India Donaldson), walking is a means of connection and often, disconnect too. Both films meander with the characters as they hike and talk and as we watch the rifts rise and fall. Human problems seem more stark and absurd in the backdrop of nature. Whilst in Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, nature is symbolic of what will be lost should Frodo and his friends fail to destroy the one ring. As the story progresses and they walk and walk and walk, nature loses its vibrancy, slowly turning sinister. Nature and walking tend to go hand in hand, perhaps it is because there is time to notice it or because one is more aware of their surroundings when walking.
On the other hand, a film like Stalker (1979, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky) considers walking in a place unfamiliar and not necessarily sinister, but beyond what nature permits. You walk and you walk, closer and closer to potential doom or enlightenment. Walking tends to open one up to either. Hikers lost on trails, a pedestrian not looking both ways before cross the road, a rogue piano falling from a great height. Walking does not promise safety, respite does leave one vulnerable. Which is what I mean when I say walking is a way to engage with the world most literally, there is nowhere to hide and one must be reliant on their own feet to get home. Have you ever wondered how much you trust your own feet?
In the most meandering film I’ve ever seen, Slacker (1990, dir. Richard Linkalter), walks with person to person in Austin, Texas, lacking in the solace of nature, following one as they bump into another then follows someone else as they walk down the road to the next. It is a film mainly of walking and conversation, a process many understand, to walk and talk is a way to not feel stuck which many of the characters do. They wander in hopes of finding something new, a way out of apathy or the same routine. Unlike how nature points out the absurdity of humanity in Stalker or Old Joy, in Slacker, there is an emptiness, streets with overgrown side walks, warehouses, there is no escape from ones own absurdness because one is surrounded by it.
I have never been a fan of the idea of walking as a means to find oneself, nor do I think it is a way to run away (or more so walk), it is a process, one that is not concerned with the results. I think culturally there is an obsession with results, everything is formed into numbers to signify ones worth. 10,000 steps a day is from an ad campaign, to round up ones abilities into neat formulas is nice in theory but practice, the idea of practice itself is something I think about time and time again, I do believe it is one of the, if not the most, important things we do in life. To practice, not to get better, not to reach a target, but to practice for the sake of practising. I have been walking a lot but I don’t know if I’ve gotten any better at it in the last 6 months, the walks haven’t gotten particularly longer, the hills still are the bane of my existence. It is still difficult. I could not tell you why exactly I find my meandering so important, why despite always complaining, I am glad to trudge through mud. The closest thing I can come to is that in walking I feel most myself, all my good and bad habits come out, I am near balanced. I’m not finding myself in these walks, I’m already here. Perhaps I enjoy the contrast of my own absurdity when brushing ticks off my legs. Maybe it is because my melancholy has space to breath, to not need to dangle from my shoulders. Maybe it’s not that deep, I still avoid going for walks every week, it’s not like I’m obsessed with the whole affair.
Ironically, as I write this essay on walking, I did not go on the morning walk today because I was busy finishing this. It is never perfect, you know. I still struggle to do the things I would like to do, I have terrible time management. But it has been long enough now, this going out and walking thing, that I know later today, probably around lunch time, I will be desperate to get out of the house and wishing I’d gone with the dogs.
Thank you for reading,
Enya x
P.S. please don’t be mad I didn’t include Paris, Texas (1984, dir. Wim Wenders) I’d completely forgotten about it until the day before this gets sent out.
What I Would Listen To When Walking In London:
Lovely Bebe