In Any Real City, You Walk

I've always enjoyed walking and, living in a city, I do a lot of it. So when my friend suggested I read the book The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson, I was immediately intrigued.

"Walking had certainly always been a pleasure, but it was more than that. For me walking has to do with exploration, a way of accommodating myself, of feeling at home. When I find myself in a new place I explore it on foot. It's the way I get to know that place. Maybe it's a way of marking territory. Setting foot on a street makes it yours in a way that driving down it never does."

I've never understood the aversion some people have towards walking. To me, walking has always been a calming activity and a way to really orient myself within an environment. The first thing I do whenever I move to a new city is walk.

I walk to get places, I walk to get lost and discover new places, and I walk to understand a place.

I walk to feel a part of something. I walk to forget things. I walk to feel good physically and I walk when I'm feeling bad.

I've spent hours walking the streets of London, Boston and New York. Given the opportunity to take public transportation or walking, I will chose walking every time - well, unless it's raining in the city..I hate that. I've discovered unexpected things and encountered some interesting characters in these walks.

But the thing I enjoy the most about walking in a city is the feeling of being a part of it.

Yesterday I was taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of the city when I became acutely aware of all the people walking with me down Broadway. There were people everywhere. Passing me in all directions, each of us lost in our own little world, yet we all choose to be a part of the same city.

Sometimes this annoys me.

"During the busiest part of the day, I wasn't so much looking at people, as looking out for them, trying to avoid being bumped into, knocked aside, trampled underfoot."

But yesterday, it exhilarated me. I felt so alive among the crowd of people and didn't mind having to sidestep others along the way. The diversity surrounding me was striking. We are all a part of the same city and even though we all experience it in very different ways, we all just want to feel those ties - to the city and to each other.

Walking gives me a very real connection to the present. It allows me to develop a different type of relationship with my surroundings and, in a weird way, it allows me to feel less lonely in a city of millions where I know so few.

Pardon the Interruption

The series of entries I was working on will continue right where I left off, but I need to write about something that I've spent quite a bit of my week thinking about.

I don't do well with idleness. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I am constantly on the go. I was the girl who running around like crazy trying to do everything and living life as if there were never enough hours in the day. I often drove from one side of the state to the other in the same day visiting friends when I lived at home...I would attend one function only to leave and attend another.

I spent as much time as possible in the company of others.

It was the same in Boston..there was rarely a week that went by where I didn't hang out with people at least three nights during the week. I never got much sleep, but it was totally worth it. I was happy.

But here in New York that all changed. I don't have that circle of friends here, nor do I have the funds for all that and it's been a rough transition at times. I'm having a really hard time without that support network and busyness.

Don't get me wrong, I have learned to slow down a bit more, which is great and I still crave alone time every once in awhile, but lately less interaction and more alone time seems to be more of the norm than the exception and it's starting to make really wonder if this is the kind of life I want.


I was trying to voice some of my frustrations to a friend last night and she told me that I should accept the fact that no one is ever really doing what they love. She said I should realize that and just focus on other things. But I don't want to do that. I miss having things to be excited about and look forward to...I miss being happy. I don't want to live a life that lacks these qualities and that is what has made me really start questioning my decision to live in NYC lately.

I'm starting to get impatient with NYC but instead of moving on, maybe I need to remember I'm here for a reason...and if the reason isn't for me, maybe it's for someone else...and by helping others, maybe I will help myself.

It's amazing

how lonely I feel in the busiest place I've ever lived.

In NYC,I'm constantly surrounded by millions of people. I see more people riding the Subway in one day than live in the entire town I grew up in, but somehow I feel very alone here most of the time.




Maybe it's the busy-ness that exaggerates the feeling. It seems everyone always has somewhere to go or something to do and friends or family to do it with. Sometimes it makes me sad to look in on it and remember that I once had that.

Yes, it's great to live in a city with a million things to do, but it's not that great when you have to do them all by yourself.

I know it takes time. This isn't the first time I've started over. Every time I leave a place I get sad because I realize I am always leaving behind these great lives. Lives that I created in a situation where I once felt this same loneliness.

So I know I need to be patient and maybe I will even surprise myself and find myself crying when I leave this city.