On Stubbornness and Self-Deception

I like walking.  When I lived in Washington DC, I considered myself to be a Walker.  I walked 35 minutes to and from work each day.  An hour and a half- long walk to a museum or a pub on the weekend didn’t faze me.  I imagined I could walk foreeeeever.

                When I moved to PNG, I thought not being able to walk outside would be a difficult change for me.  When I say you can’t walk in PNG (or in Haiti), I don’t mean this in the way that some might say that “you really need a car to get around in the suburbs.”  I mean it generally is not advisable to step out of your car unless you are parking in a compound with armed guards.  I can count on one hand the number of times I walked outside from one place to another during my time in PNG.  And I didn’t miss it, which is strange.  I suppose if Port Moresby had wide sidewalks, shops, shaded walkways, or anything inviting to investigate by foot, I might have wished to have been able to walk.  I remember a field visit to a nearby province known for the moderate temperament of the locals and the relatively low crime.  I was allowed to walk down a hill from my guest house to the police commissariat, where we were having a training.  It was exhilarating!  I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face for the full 10 minute walk.  Of course, the very first day, two armed men robbed the bank across the street from our training site with several shots fired.  And that was the end of that in terms of walking.

                A couple of weeks ago, I returned to DC for the first time in a couple of years.  I have lived there on and off for four years and was eager to walk.  Two things became apparent rather quickly:  In the years since I lived there, I haven’t magically grown up and acquired the ability to wear heels all day  - I’ve just been wearing heels in places where the farthest I walk is to and from my car.  Oh – and rain coats and umbrellas?  Foreign objects.  I’m never under the open sky!

                But undeterred, I set about walking through DC as I did when I lived there.  One day, I walked to a coffee shop and then to another coffee shop.  Sidewalks, blue skies, trees….so exhilarating!  I walked to the National Gallery of Art (East) and then (West) and then to Penn Quarter for lunch and then through Chinatown to look at shops and then…

…my feet hurt.  My legs ached.  I wanted to sit down.  I wanted to sit for a loooong while.  And yet I had planned to walk across town to Dupont Circle – another 50 minutes or so.  But the thought of that was shockingly unappealing.  Where’s the metro?  By the end of the day, when I got back to Maggie and Jason’s house, I all but collapsed into their arm chair by the front door.

“I was just about to walk Fossil around the block,” Jason said, putting on Fossil’s leash.  “Want to come?”  I took a deep breath and hauled myself out of the sofa.   “Sure,” I said, trying not to wince as I put my shoes back on.  Because I love walking, right?  I’m a Walker.