Slow Walkers
FEB 22 - Not my reflections on baking school this week, but instead on a single line of thoughts that were standing out to me throughout the week. Thanks for reading along!
For whatever reason, in the last week, there’s been a consistent thing I’ve been seeing in Paris that’s been really rolling around in my mind. One of those things that you see once, then you see it again and again, and your brain can’t quite figure out why it’s standing out to you, so you allow it to keep noodling around. So this little essay, or post, or stream of consciousness (call it what you will), is not about bread or school. Hopefully that’s okay :) I still hope to write out my thoughts about last week soon, for my own good habit of taking mental notes and memories as time is already flying by.
The thought of the week, as I’ve been calling it in my mind, is “slow walkers.” A man, maybe on his way to the doctor. A woman heading out for a single errand. Stooped, and step, step, stepping along one shuffling foot at a time, sometimes with the help of a cane.
I saw an old man on the sidewalk opposite from me. I was on my way home from school, and hustling to get Anya from the dog sitter. For whatever reason, this man caught my eye. I couldn’t help but notice the people around him whizzing past, adjusting their path without seeming to look up from their phones. I wondered if he ever felt invisible as he moved along the sidewalk. It seemed as if he were hardly different than a wobbly light pole to the zoomers, the way they bustled by. But there he was, out to do whatever it was that he’d set out to do. I think I could see him for a few minutes, in which time I covered at least two blocks, and he was still working on getting to the end of one.
The next day, I had Anya with me, and I once again found myself in the middle of rush-hour witnessing the comings-and-goings of a slow walker. She was in front of us, wearing a fabulous pink wool coat, with stooped shoulders and classy little mary-jane slide-on shoes. I’m not sure that even at her tallest she would’ve come to my shoulders. Anya has days lately where she doesn’t like to move too fast, either, so with the slow walkers seemingly trying to tell me something, and now Anya joining them, I decided to slow down. I let Anya set the pace that day. And it turned out, at the pace Anya wanted, we stayed consistently about 20 feet behind this little slow-walker for a couple of blocks. I wondered as I watched the woman’s feet shuffle forward what she must be up to. Did she just need a baguette, and had accepted that what was once a five minute errand is now the consuming part of her day? Does she mind at all? If I had to guess, I think sometimes it must be frustrating to be so much slower than you must’ve once been. But that day, I couldn’t help but notice the wrought iron grates on the windows and balconies overhead. It was an unusually sunny day, and bright, white clouds passed quickly across the blue skies overhead. I saw the sun bounce off the door to a restaurant as people came and went. Anya and I became one of the moving fixtures of the sidewalk that everyone else needed to skirt around, but I didn’t mind. I took a closer look at the menus of bistros we passed. And, mind you, this is our usual walk back from her sitter, so I’ve already seen that street a dozen times. But on this day, I really saw it. I paused to admire the crackled breads in the shop windows, and check the price on a rosemary plant I’ve admired for a few days.
I think about the idea of being able-bodied now. And how quickly the slow-walkers around me must feel that life has zoomed by. Should I use my strong legs and healthy joints to keep zooming while I still can? To consume as much of the world as will and wallet will allow? Or is there something to be considered in the ability to move slowly, even if you’re physically capable of moving faster. What if the point of life isn’t to move through every phase, every accomplishment, every growth opportunity as fast as we can? Race from thing to thing, and vacation to vacation, birthday to birthday with the ground spinning out beneath us?
I hope this doesn’t come across as disrespectful to the elderly in any way at all. If anything, I think I really admire those folks’ will to keep themselves moving. I’ve had injuries that slowed me down before, and I know that I was frustrated by the feeling of being inhibited by my own body. From my current life point of view, it seems impossible to not become frustrated as your body evolves, and starts to fail or falter in different ways as we age. And yet, there are people around me moving slowly forward. I wonder if they know that they have the best view from where they walk now? That as the rest of us break a sweat with our noses in our phones, booking reservations at restaurants because we’ve all got Instragram-induced FOMO on apparently every single life experience, they walk slowly. They see the blue skies and the sunshine, and the small spring flowers budding and the animals waking up in the springtime.
I think I partly admire them because I was once a slow walker. Always dawdling behind my bigger and older siblings, getting lost in my own little world as I admired small things in the sand, or stopped at every Target display so I could touch soft fabrics and see what they felt like. But somewhere in the last ten years or so, life started moving so fast that I’d get anxious if I was with someone and they were walking too slowly. I’d wonder why they would want to waste so much time, and feel relief come over me when I was around a different friend who was willing to sprint-walk the sidewalks with me. So there went Seattle, Japan, France, and London, and all sorts of other places in the US, whizzing on by. The pavement just a blur beneath me, the little things around me passing by.
This is my year of returning to slow walking, slow eating, and slow speaking. Thinking a little more before I speak up, and taking time for gratitude or compassion before skipping ahead to anger or suspicion. I’m so grateful for the ways that Anya slows me down sometimes. I hope I find other tools or keep myself open to reminders to pause a little more, rush a little less, and build peace into my life one small step at a time.
Anyways, thanks for joining me on my existential thought journey. I hope you find a moment to walk slowly this week, or eat slowly, or do something slowly that speaks to you.
Wishes as warm as fresh bread,
Jesii & Anya
