I'm Strolling Home
Number Me Now Among the Slow Walkers
After seven years of living in Chicago, I’ve realized slow walkers are quite uncommon around here. Not that it takes that long to notice, but it takes time to become conscious of it, to slow down enough and realize that the people around you (and you yourself) are speeding on through life. It’s as if some hidden force compels the city’s inhabitants to move quickly all the time. (Is every big city like this?) Even I myself, the naturally easy-going and mellow South Floridian, have become a fast-paced urbanite over all these years in this grand city. Granted, I’ve yet to become the quickest one on these Chicago sidewalks — I’m still slow-paced by many urban standards — but my “slow” pace is, nonetheless, rather brisk.
My change of pace over time has been practical in many ways. With the passing of time an increasingly greater amount of responsibilities and obligations have presented themselves, and my life has thus become replete with innumerable things to do and places to be. I got married, had to finish out my college education, moved a handful of times, had two kids (and hopefully more to come if the Lord wills), changed jobs numerous times, and that’s just the major events. Add in the day-to-day obligations of a normal human life, and a pile of to-do’s begin to pile up a mile high, all of which necessitate immediate and speedy action.
Yet, all the while the duration of each day seems to have mysteriously remained unchanged. It’s like Nature and Providence refuse to bend the knee to the ingenuity and industriousness of urban life. As if they keep trying to teach urbanites like myself that we, instead, must bend the knee to the limitations they place on us — that is, if we desire to be truly human. Urban life, however, leaves little time to consider such things. Always on the move, the urban mind is caged into the rut of the city’s daily grind like a machine part moved along by the inertia of the greater whole. Before you know it, the busy day has come to an end, and the close of one thoughtless day bleeds into the next one.
Nevertheless, year after year, change after change, I’ve found myself with just enough time to question the change of pace: Has it been a good thing? I’ve always known the answer to be no, if not by conscious thought at least by a visceral intuition. The agony of my soul has never been a matter of debate. But when there’s bills to pay and mouths to feed, the goodness of a busy life (or the lack thereof) seems to matter far less than its utilitarian quality. Necessity matters more than goodness, survival more than beauty. I’ve been stuck in a state of hurry — an urbanite through and through.
I’ve tried to slow down, but the anxieties of life always spur me onward to greater and greater speeds like an ardent and burdensome taskmaster so that I might accomplish the necessary labors of each day, week, year with great haste. And the city just feeds into this enslaving speed of life. The irresistible desire to always be on the go — doing something, trying something, seeing something, buying something, accomplishing something, watching something, making money, making memories, making good use of time — is everywhere. Everything in the city seems to be lined with this poison, and it’s fed to me always under a guise, like I’m being tricked.
That dirty little pig (as my grandmother once referred to him), that father of lies. He’s bewitched us all.
I usually take public transit to work twice a week, but a couple of weeks ago my car had some issues, and I was forced to take public transit every day — for about three weeks.
My commute becomes significantly longer when I take public transit compared to when I drive, and until recently I made up for this “inconvenience” by, one, ensuring that I accomplished useful tasks on my commute, and two, ensuring the trip was as short as possible by hurrying up. (In my mind, if the commute was going to be long, it needed to be the shortest long-commute possible. Totally makes sense, right?) But how much time was I actually saving on my commute by hurrying? Ten minutes, maybe, if that? How much was I actually getting done in the short intervals of time during which I could work on my commute? Not much. There was an immense futility to my hurry and to my utilitarian use of time. I didn’t realize it, though, until I was suddenly forced to take public transit every day. My “longer” commute was now just my normal commute, and that minuscule shift made me capable of seeing the vanity of it all. So, I gave up.
On a random, inconsequential, forgettable weekday, I decided to just slow down. I strolled to the station in fifteen minutes instead of speed walking there in eight and strolled just as slowly to the school building from the bus stop. I made the conscious decision to notice the sights, smells, sounds, the weather, the animals — the people! — all around me on my commute. I decided to write poetry and scribble out other nuggets of creative writing. I began stopping to greet passing strangers and, get this, even converse meaningfully with my coworkers and friends throughout the day.
I have never felt more human.
Satan’s urban spell seems to be weakening with each slow strolling step I take, and every day my hibernating soul seems to be waking evermore from its spellbound slumber to behold for the first time a living and enchanted world which has always been all about me but never seen. The longer I inhabit and explore this new realm the more I detect a ghostly familiarity in it, as though I’m reliving a distant memory or long-abandoned boyhood daydream.
Spring is coming; and I’m on my way home.
Hiya! Loved your reflections on the hastiness of urban life and share the same sentiment. I have often reflected on this spell many times in Chicago and continue to do so. This helps me stay still before the Lord. I would consider myself a slow walker, even by rural standards, it's like almost at an elderly pace. When I catch myself at the brisk pace of an urbanite, I am doing so either because I am late or so as to not irritate those behind me.
Having lived in London for the past year, and I can tell you that it's the same here as it is in Chicago, if not much worse. Tube trains are normally once every five minutes during peak hours. Everyone rushes to get off/on the tube/trains only to wind up at the less than optimal urban pace when ascending or descending a flight of stairs or escalators out to the street or into the station; when waiting to scan the card to walk through the barriers between the stairs and the streets; and when entering interchanges which have people coming from all different directions. Same thing would happen in Chicago! It is so funny to watch this happen!