I’ve spent too many years huffing and puffing up small flights of stairs. I wouldn’t know my way around a gym, so to spare myself some embarrassment and get in shape, I’ve decided to start taking long walks instead.
My favorite walk is from where I live in Mount Vernon to the park on top of Federal Hill. On my way there, I pass construction sites and a cereal bar, walk over manholes that leak a foul-smelling steam and find myself some thirty minutes later (fifteen if I’m fast) at the Inner Harbor. I cross a busy street and pass all the boats before crossing another busy street and climbing some poorly built stairs to get to the park with a view of the whole harbor. Sometimes I listen to music to help keep my pace lively. Other times I listen to bird calls, oncoming traffic and the people around me. With my headphones off I am approached more, and sometimes the conversation that ensues is pleasantly surprising. I once talked for thirty minutes with an old man at the Harbor about seagulls and the unnecessarily divided nature of religion in America today.
My second favorite walk is from Scotts Bates Commons to Remington. I like to go around Wyman Park and down 29th Street towards R House. At the time that I’m writing this, the trees are still bare, and the grass is just beginning to turn green. Everyone I pass is in a hurry to be somewhere, even the people who push baby carriages through the park. Unlike at the Harbor, any eye contact feels a little awkward and any conversation overheard is immediately forgotten.
My third favorite walk is just around Mount Vernon. It used to be a grand, imposing place where very wealthy people lived. Though there’s cigarette butts and trash on every sidewalk and the roofs look a little worse for wear, you can see in the beautiful facades and large windows what a place it must have been. Its residents now certainly aren’t the early American elite they used to be, but if anything that makes it feel more American. Once rich places can become cute and artsy and two hundred students who want to study music can live on the same block as George Peabody himself.
These walks have become more than exercise. Since I’ve started them, I’ve stopped trying to work beyond my attention span and inspiration level. Instead of wasting time trying to go beyond my limits, I find myself the time to reset by getting fresh air and sun. Nothing jogs the mind like remembering that you’re more than a student. For the time that we live here, this is our city as much as wherever we call home. To remember that I’m just another Baltimorean is comforting when the world gets small. There are so many unique pockets of culture just a few feet away and this helps remind me of how multifaceted we all are. And who knows, if I keep this up, I may be able to gather up the mental and physical strength to hit the gym too.
Amelia Taylor is a sophomore from Potomac, Md. studying Writing Seminars and Voice Performance. In her column, she draws insights from seemingly random experiences that present themselves in the course of ordinary life.
