There's nothing lonelier than walking the streets of Los Angeles.
He doesn't understand why I like to do it. Miles that could get eaten up in the span of minutes take hours on foot. Hours that could be occupied by doing laundry, getting groceries, reading a good book, Instagramming. It's a solitary pursuit, this hobby of mine. The sidewalks here are what I imagine the dunes of the Sahara must look like - ghostly and deserted save for the occasional lone traveler trudging along, carrying too much, and undoubtedly wishing for some Uber to pluck them away to the nearest oasis. Walking places is now regulated to one of those ancient diversions, a fanciful activity of the past like horse-drawn buggies.
I walk alone most times which is fine with me. Solace is few and far between these days but is slavishly treasured. The consistent rhythm and pace of it, the onward movement, the repetitiveness, gently rocks my mind away from the mental checking off of boxes and allows it to wander, mirroring the pace of my feet. It's so easy to forget to be present.
I slow down and notice things. Call it the stop and smell the roses effect. I smell the city - all the baked concrete, the lingering gaseous scent that tinges the air, and the occasional corner whose air is perfumed with the scene of roses that some green-thumbed Angeleno planted on their balcony. I see the passage of time - the vestiges of an older Los Angeles that hangs on the signs of some storefronts, a piece of the sixties and seventies hidden amongst the Subways, Starbucks, and Ralph's. I read between the lines of the construction of Los Angeles. We sneer at the New Yorkers for their cardboard box apartments, people piled on top of one another. But to me, the expansive stretching sidewalks separating one from the other, each Angeleno given the sovereign state of their space, overlap be damned, reeks of a people torn asunder. Wanting their own kingdom but wanting no one else to populate it.
Sensory and visual stimuli aside, walking reminds me to reconnect with the world. There's no public square anymore for rich and poor alike to gather and gawk and squabble. That's been calibrated to the internet and no the Grove doesn't count. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies:
Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?
