Leaving the car behind

Inked by Sarah (Ein­se­len) at 1:58 p.m.

The church I’ve started attend­ing since mov­ing into my apart­ment is near enough that I can walk there if I want. Granted, I went to a res­i­den­tial cam­pus col­lege and rather enjoy the slower modes of trans­porta­tion to start with. What I think of as “close enough to walk” may vary from every­body else’s idea of it, but this dis­tance, I think, would gen­er­ally be con­sid­ered a decent walk­ing distance.

So, I do walk to church, about 95 per­cent of the time. (Once it was rain­ing, and another time I was leav­ing straight for the next town over after church, so I drove in those cases.) And nearly every day after church, I am asked, “do you need a ride?”

What kind folks! I thank them gra­ciously but briefly explain that, really, I like to walk, and besides it’s a nice day out.

Even November’s week­end weather hasn’t been bad!

I’ve been rather obsti­nate on this issue any­way, walk­ing even in the chilly weather and after dark. The cold will even­tu­ally get to me—I’d rather be in Costa Rica—but the dark, that isn’t a problem.

In fact, it casts a whole dif­fer­ent glow to the walk. Instead of the green trees, I am met by antique-looking street lights, which one by one greet me with a hazy shine as I pass. The stop­lights shine much more overtly in the dark, of course, and the very sounds change.

If I cut through Heise Park on the way, I cross the Olen­tangy, whose gen­tle, pud­dling sounds catch the ear much more read­ily in the dark. They always remind me of stargaz­ing excur­sions with my best col­lege bud­dies. And in the gleam of the old street lights, the flow­ing bit of water looks very like a sparkling mesh of starlight, filmed and replayed rapidly.

The com­bi­na­tion of sight and sound there com­pels me to stop, gaze and attend to the mys­te­ri­ous mes­sage it car­ries, every time I pass there on my way home from evening ser­vices. Then I look up from the faux starlight to the real, only partly obscured by street light­ing but clar­i­fied by the chill wind that dusk brings. And I ask the wind how any­one can choose to drive to all des­ti­na­tions when sights and sounds such as abound in this town are to be had.

Yes folks, I own a car and use it reg­u­larly. (How else am I sup­posed to get to Wal-Mart?) But if I can, I make the time to walk. It saves me, per­haps, from suc­cumb­ing to the ever-increasing pace of mod­ern life—you know what I mean.

I know it’s cliché, but it’s true.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Nov 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.