Wanderlust

The history of walking is an unwritten, secret history whose fragments can be
found in a thousand unemphatic passages in books, as well as in songs, streets,
and almost everyone's
adventures. -Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust

If I were to be completely honest, I'd have to admit that when Lauren first said that she wanted our cross-country trek to be of a bipedal nature, I thought she was crazy. I mean, we were talking about travelling America, for goodness sake. Did she have any idea how big it was? How long walking it would take? How hard that would really be?

Besides, no one walks anywhere anymore!

This fact has been brought up to me time and time again as I tell people about what we're planning to do, whether it's a quizzical eyebrow being raised or a question like, "You're not taking a car?" The other day a friend whom I had just told about our idea good-naturedly quipped, "You know they have cars, buses, and airplanes now, right?"

Even as school began this year I wasn't completely sold on the idea of walking. That was until I was browsing around a used book store on the Delmar Loop and I came across a book that had to have been set out just for me. It was by a woman named Rebecca Solnit and the book was called Wanderlust: A History of Walking. "You've got to be kidding me," I thought. "A history of walking?!" Obviously, I couldn't resist. You should have seen the faces on the people with me when I explained to them what I had just spent my money on.

The book itself reads like a leisurely walk, at different paces and different speeds, stopping to linger on one point for a while before casually strolling along to the next. I am quite enjoying taking my time with it. Who knew that walking, like anything else, could have its own unique and varied history, from being the very first skill that separated human from animal, to marches for civil rights, to the modern-day walk-a-thons that raise money for worthy causes.

But walking is such a basic, common and for most people boring way of getting around it seems that these days we will do anything to avoid it. But if you look around, you'll see that as a species we are fixated with travelling. We're always inventing new and faster ways to get from one point to the other, and anymore, the actual act of taking the journey is just a slight inconvenience. If you think about it, travel and walking metaphor pervades our speech as well:

"Steering straight, moving toward the goal, going for the distance, getting ahead. Things get in our way, set us back, help us find our way, give us a head start or the go-ahead as we approach milestones. We move up in the world, reach a fork in the road, hit our stride, take steps. A person in trouble is a lost soul, out of step, has lost her sense of direction, is facing an uphill struggle or going downhill, through a difficult phase, in circles, even nowhere." (Wanderlust, p.73).

Wanderlust is defined as having a strong desire to travel, to get out and see the world. Based on what I have observed by how we think, talk, and behave, we all have it, in one form or another. It might be stronger in some people than others; more noticeable, more aggressive-but I haven't yet met a person who has not wanted to go somewhere or be someplace new, whether it was a new country, a position in a workplace, or a state of maturity.

We are constantly on the move. Rarely is it on foot anymore. It's too slow and too inconvenient. I don't like to walk anywhere if I know that it could save me time and energy to simply drive. I'm beginning to wonder now if that's why wanderlust seems to never be satiated. I neglect little moments each day when I am travelling, only because I'm too focused on getting where I need to be: to work, to class, to dinner, to a friend's house.

Now, I'm looking forward to walking across the country. I'm looking forward to being able to take my time with things, to slow down and really relish being in motion rather than always rushing to the next stopping point.

Perhaps by walking, by taking part in the one form of travel that I was made for so intrinsically, my wanderlust may finally be quenched.