This week’s Walk It Off takes place at night. My guest and I started in the evening and walked the streets of New York until 4:30am. The quiet of the city reminded me of hikes I used to go on in the woods when I was a teenager. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, guided by moonlight through the trees. I remember hiking to a deep, dark lake and looking up at the star-filled sky. Walking at night, in the right circumstances, can be a beautiful thing. It is also completely different than walking in the day. Do you have a favorite walk to go on at night?
Perhaps my favourite walk of my life was an epic 7-hour affair across the whole of Berlin, back in 2012. I was attending a travel conference in the city and got invited to a meet-up of travel writers in a bar in the far east of the city. My hotel was in the far west, so I grabbed the U-bahn eastwards, nice and easy. Only problem, when I emerged from the bar after the meetup, all the overground and underground railways had stopped running. Thinking I had no option (not knowing there were night buses), I fished out my paper map the hotel gave me, eyeballed the route back, and started walking west....
It was an eerie, misty night, the kind TV shows try to fake with dry ice & never come close. And then it was also incredibly damp, when it started chucking it down with rain. My map quickly came to pieces in my hands, and I couldn't see any taxis, so I just kept walking - and drifted into a weird, tracelike state: the walking keeping me warm, my senses alert to anything that might steer me the right way & tally with anything on my memory of the map.
I also had a powerful awareness of where I was. To get back, I had to cross where the Berlin Wall used to be - which is now a strange, only-half-rebuilt landscape with lots of wide open space. Only a few decades ago, attempting this route would have got me fixed by searchlights and riddled with German bullets. Now it was just a long, long walk through patches of streetlight and darkness...
I got into my hotel just past 5am, as the sky was getting light. I'd walked all night - but it'd recharged me somehow. And I've never been more aware of my surroundings when out walking (maybe also something to do with what happens to sound at night?). I felt invigorated. So I went in, grabbed a shower and a bite to eat, knocked back about 5 pints of water, and went back out. My only experience in life of not sleeping for more than 24 hours and not feeling I needed to.
That's the standard I now measure my night walks against. It's a high one.
When I've walked at night or just before dawn, I never fail to be surprised at how naked the lives of my neighbors seems to be. Their windows glow with giant tv screens or there are lamps with people reading alone downstairs. Sometimes I hear music playing or people having a desperate argument. These, even more than yard signs, offer revealing insights to what we share and what separates us.
Working at commercial bakery in Emeryville, CA in the 90s.I was in the midst of a divorce and being tempted with an affair with a supervisor. Everything felt chaotic. Worked from 6pm til all sorts of wee hours. I'm basically a scaredy kat who doesn't take a lot of risks. For some reason, at that time, all my fears dissipated and I was doing things I normally wouldn't. The bakery was right next to the railroad tracks. On breaks, I'd walk out the door and walk down the railroad tracks towards North Oakland/Berkeley. I wasn't afraid of the trains or the homeless encampments or the late night drug deals under the overpass. I'd just put one foot in front of the other, headphones on, with my Sublime CD in the Walkman. I think back and there were some beautiful summer night walks in my memory bank. I like the fact that nothing scared me then. Wish I could say that now.
Used to walk in the dark across the farm to the Airstream trailer in the woods which was my dwelling place for that summer. I had to cross an electric fence and pass through a pasture full of cows. At first I'd use a flashlight but eventually trained myself not to need it, even on the darkest night. I'd walk right up to electric fence until I could catch a glimpse of the silver wire in the moonlight and step over it. The cows would kind of notice me go by but they got used to it after a while and didn't get up or move. Often I would have smoked a bit of marijuana. One night, I might have been kind of stoned, I thought I saw a ghost train in the woods.
In New York, walking home from the Met on ice-cold nights, head stuffed with music. Always take mass transit to the opera and always walk home, following different routes for different operas. (Same applies for opera houses in other cities.) Country, woods, or trail walking at night is a whole nother beautiful experience.
Not that original, but walking through the neighborhood. You see different people and hear different sounds. The sky is different. There's a different rhythm to the entire walk - a different kind of peace.
The one that comes to mind was a last-minute assignment years ago about things to do on Labor Day weekend: I did a food crawl up Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Mostly tacos and the famous Arepa Lady. Did not pace myself and got about 4 trucks in and called it a night. :) Still, Roosevelt Ave really comes to life at night -- almost like an Asian-style hawker market -- which was energizing.
I grew up in Brighton, so I was on the #57 bus from Kenmore square a LOT back in the day. I have a vivid memory of coming home one winter night from some after-school thing (likely play practice) and even though it wasn't terribly late, it was dark. It was also snowing like crazy, so it felt quieter and friendlier than usual. I had Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel on my sports walkman as I made my way home and it felt like 20 minutes of peace and presence.
My favorite nighttime walk is cliche but cliches exist for a reason. After seeing a broadway play or a performance at Lincoln Center, I would wander down Broadway to Union Sq 14th, so as to absorb the performance I'd just seen better. NYC feels as emotionally expansive as the skyscrapers are high, then. Charged with possibility, like Broadway could make awkward triangle intersections forever. Usually I'm dressed up a bit because why not, and the clack of my dress shoes makes me feel way fancier than I actually am—satisfying to strut and necessitating aspirin the next morning, but worth it.
These days, it is my nighttime stomp through my neighborhood. My ineligible to be vaxxed kids are back in mask optional school and we received three exposure notices last week. There's no quarantine for exposure so we just live with it if we want to be in school? The planets, dusty monsoon storms in the distance, and the owls are indifferent to me or my children or the pandemic. On the stomp, I get to be part of their world for a bit.
Perhaps my favourite walk of my life was an epic 7-hour affair across the whole of Berlin, back in 2012. I was attending a travel conference in the city and got invited to a meet-up of travel writers in a bar in the far east of the city. My hotel was in the far west, so I grabbed the U-bahn eastwards, nice and easy. Only problem, when I emerged from the bar after the meetup, all the overground and underground railways had stopped running. Thinking I had no option (not knowing there were night buses), I fished out my paper map the hotel gave me, eyeballed the route back, and started walking west....
It was an eerie, misty night, the kind TV shows try to fake with dry ice & never come close. And then it was also incredibly damp, when it started chucking it down with rain. My map quickly came to pieces in my hands, and I couldn't see any taxis, so I just kept walking - and drifted into a weird, tracelike state: the walking keeping me warm, my senses alert to anything that might steer me the right way & tally with anything on my memory of the map.
I also had a powerful awareness of where I was. To get back, I had to cross where the Berlin Wall used to be - which is now a strange, only-half-rebuilt landscape with lots of wide open space. Only a few decades ago, attempting this route would have got me fixed by searchlights and riddled with German bullets. Now it was just a long, long walk through patches of streetlight and darkness...
I got into my hotel just past 5am, as the sky was getting light. I'd walked all night - but it'd recharged me somehow. And I've never been more aware of my surroundings when out walking (maybe also something to do with what happens to sound at night?). I felt invigorated. So I went in, grabbed a shower and a bite to eat, knocked back about 5 pints of water, and went back out. My only experience in life of not sleeping for more than 24 hours and not feeling I needed to.
That's the standard I now measure my night walks against. It's a high one.
When I've walked at night or just before dawn, I never fail to be surprised at how naked the lives of my neighbors seems to be. Their windows glow with giant tv screens or there are lamps with people reading alone downstairs. Sometimes I hear music playing or people having a desperate argument. These, even more than yard signs, offer revealing insights to what we share and what separates us.
Working at commercial bakery in Emeryville, CA in the 90s.I was in the midst of a divorce and being tempted with an affair with a supervisor. Everything felt chaotic. Worked from 6pm til all sorts of wee hours. I'm basically a scaredy kat who doesn't take a lot of risks. For some reason, at that time, all my fears dissipated and I was doing things I normally wouldn't. The bakery was right next to the railroad tracks. On breaks, I'd walk out the door and walk down the railroad tracks towards North Oakland/Berkeley. I wasn't afraid of the trains or the homeless encampments or the late night drug deals under the overpass. I'd just put one foot in front of the other, headphones on, with my Sublime CD in the Walkman. I think back and there were some beautiful summer night walks in my memory bank. I like the fact that nothing scared me then. Wish I could say that now.
Used to walk in the dark across the farm to the Airstream trailer in the woods which was my dwelling place for that summer. I had to cross an electric fence and pass through a pasture full of cows. At first I'd use a flashlight but eventually trained myself not to need it, even on the darkest night. I'd walk right up to electric fence until I could catch a glimpse of the silver wire in the moonlight and step over it. The cows would kind of notice me go by but they got used to it after a while and didn't get up or move. Often I would have smoked a bit of marijuana. One night, I might have been kind of stoned, I thought I saw a ghost train in the woods.
In New York, walking home from the Met on ice-cold nights, head stuffed with music. Always take mass transit to the opera and always walk home, following different routes for different operas. (Same applies for opera houses in other cities.) Country, woods, or trail walking at night is a whole nother beautiful experience.
Not that original, but walking through the neighborhood. You see different people and hear different sounds. The sky is different. There's a different rhythm to the entire walk - a different kind of peace.
The one that comes to mind was a last-minute assignment years ago about things to do on Labor Day weekend: I did a food crawl up Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Mostly tacos and the famous Arepa Lady. Did not pace myself and got about 4 trucks in and called it a night. :) Still, Roosevelt Ave really comes to life at night -- almost like an Asian-style hawker market -- which was energizing.
I grew up in Brighton, so I was on the #57 bus from Kenmore square a LOT back in the day. I have a vivid memory of coming home one winter night from some after-school thing (likely play practice) and even though it wasn't terribly late, it was dark. It was also snowing like crazy, so it felt quieter and friendlier than usual. I had Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel on my sports walkman as I made my way home and it felt like 20 minutes of peace and presence.
My favorite nighttime walk is cliche but cliches exist for a reason. After seeing a broadway play or a performance at Lincoln Center, I would wander down Broadway to Union Sq 14th, so as to absorb the performance I'd just seen better. NYC feels as emotionally expansive as the skyscrapers are high, then. Charged with possibility, like Broadway could make awkward triangle intersections forever. Usually I'm dressed up a bit because why not, and the clack of my dress shoes makes me feel way fancier than I actually am—satisfying to strut and necessitating aspirin the next morning, but worth it.
These days, it is my nighttime stomp through my neighborhood. My ineligible to be vaxxed kids are back in mask optional school and we received three exposure notices last week. There's no quarantine for exposure so we just live with it if we want to be in school? The planets, dusty monsoon storms in the distance, and the owls are indifferent to me or my children or the pandemic. On the stomp, I get to be part of their world for a bit.