Let us walk you through it!

With leaf color at, or just past, peak, there are few things these days more enjoyable than cruising country roads. We've been taking lots of back roads as we've been getting errands done and have felt much the better for it. I can think of nothing in the evolutionary history of humans that might have conditioned us to the "joys(?)" of travel at 60 or 70 mph. Humans preferred walking speed is about 3 mph. Horses walk at about 4 mph. Admittedly, the only place you're likely to find me driving that slowly is the driveway. I, undoubtedly, should spend more time remembering Gandhi's observation that “There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.”

a township gravel road in October

Photo by J. Harrington

Since speed is measured by the distance traveled in a given time, there's a relationship between preferred human speed and "human scale." There's also a relationship between speed of travel and details observable. I've been pondering about these themes as I try to understand what relationship(s) exist between bioregional scale and place, especially home place, as experienced by humans.

This morning I spent some time dragging a harrow over  the pocket gopher and mole mounds in the back yard. Leveling such mounds saves wear and tear on the mower blades. Shorter grass seems less attractive to ticks. Ticks carry diseases we'd like to avoid. If we spent all our time in the back yard riding the tractor that we use to pull the harrow, we'd be less concerned about grass length and ticks, etc. But next year we hope to get out and practice our fly-casting in the back yard. That means more walking around in grass short enough to not tangle a fly line and leader. Something we meant to do this year but couldn't convince the wind to accommodate our schedule. Anyhow, I'm trying to move beyond a middle-class, property-value maintaining, keep the homeowners association happy mentality on yard upkeep, which has opened many more questions than I'd anticipated, but then I never anticipated coming across a book like In Praise of Walking by Shane O’Mara.

Walking on Tiptoe

By Ted Kooser

Long ago we quit lifting our heels

like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—

though we thrill to their speed

as they flee. Even the mouse

bearing the great weight of a nugget

of dog food is enviably graceful.

There is little spring to our walk,

we are so burdened with responsibility,

all of the disciplinary actions

that have fallen to us, the punishments,

the killings, and all with our feet

bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.

But sometimes, in the early hours,

we can feel what it must have been like

to be one of them, up on our toes,

stealing past doors where others are sleeping,

and suddenly able to see in the dark.

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