Why do we have feet?

I love taking my car to the mechanic.

First of all, I finally found one that I can trust. This is no small feat for the average pedestrian, however, it's even harder for me in that my father had his own shop for 27 years. He just closed it, not to mention that he's 2000 miles away, and even in this world of telecommuting, this does me no good for it's hard to turn a wrench over the internet.

Secondly, I love being a pedestrian. I love to walk and it's not too often that I can find a legitimate excuse to do it, or come up with excuses not to do it.

I dropped my car off this morning. My husband gave me a ride there. They asked me if there was any particular time that I would need it, and I said that I really didn't know when my husband was getting off work. I may not be able to pick up the car today, but if they really needed me to, I could always walk. It happened that a neighbor of mine was also there. She gasped and said "That would be a pretty far walk". I told her that it was six miles, and that really it was no problem, because I had done it before.

I had already been through a similar conversation earlier that day with my husband who asked how I was planning to get our daughter home from school. Of course, I would walk.

"WALK?"

I've had that word spoken in disbelief to me four times today (one via email, and another in Spanish). I responded simply yes "that's why we have feet". Simple.

So, I set out about a half hour earlier than I would if I was putting the peddle to the metal, 8 month old in stroller, Bjorn packed underneath for the way home (thinking the stroller would be occupied with my oldest on the way back). The stroller had a bit of a flat, so it was a little bit harder to push, so I stayed on the pavement on the way there.

The trip there was about a half hour, which gave me quite a bit of time to form my rebuttal to the endless debate of "WALK?". The best thing that I could come up with though was, "why not?"

Why is there such a diversion to walking in our culture? People are not as opposed to skiing as they are to walking. When you say you are going skiing, people say "Oh Skiing! Have fun!" whether they ski or not. I think it's about the gear. It doesn't take any special gear to walk, and thus it's not worthy of us because it literally costs no money to do. However if you are so inclined you CAN buy special walking shoes. I prefer not to because then there is the monetary guilt factor of "wow, I spent money on these shoes, I SHOULD be walking". "Should" is a word that I don't want to impart on my walks. I prefer to just walk in my boots, or whatever I have on.

I also think that people actually have a fear of walking. Not so much walking for exercise, but walking to actually get somewhere. When you are walking, it is just you and what you can carry. We have a fear of leaving our possessions behind, so we take our two ton little rolling casitas filled with crap with us wherever we go.

When I got to my oldest's school and walked through the door, bundled baby not in car-seat, but in hand. I started talking to a little boy. He was distracted by the next car that pulled up into the drive. "That's my mom! That's her car... she's got a black BMW". I almost asked him if she had feet too, but thought better of it.

I bundled up my oldest and explained to her that we were walking home. We've done this before, but it the past she's always ridden in the stroller. This time she was going to walk. I thought that she would raise a total fuss over this, but I was wrong, she happily trucked along beside me as we dodged car after car in the driveway, and made our way to the nifty little trail that runs next to the road.

She walked an entire mile. I can hear it now "Child ABUSE, Can you believe that woman actually made her four year old walk home from school?". Yes, maybe she should be riding in a black Beamer. Remember Linus from the Peanuts? "From the back of the bike to the shopping cart, to a stroller in the mall, to the back of the bike, sometimes it's an entire day and my feet don't touch the ground at all!". At least his mom was on a bike.

So after a mile, she got tired, and I switched the baby to the Bjorn and her to the stroller and we continued on our way. We saw crows dancing on telephone poles, and little birds, and got to see what thistles look like in winter.

The best thing about it is, when she lays her head down tonight, I know she won't have any trouble going to sleep. Nor will I. I can pick my car up tomorrow in the morning, but you know... I am considering leaving it there for a couple more days.