Walk With Me

I love going on walks around my neighborhood. It gives me time to reflect, to imagine impossible scenarios, to remember who walked these streets with me. It's nostalgic and bittersweet, cathartic in a way. I think about all of the people in my life that have never walked my neighborhood with me. I picture what it would be like. There's nothing impressive about my hometown and yet there is something about it that provides such solace.

It's winter in this memory of mine. I slipped on some ice in front of the Indian shop where my sister, our mum, and I would go to buy samosas. I laughed it off with whoever I was with, but I'm sure it hurt to have fallen. I can no longer remember if it was just with her or if someone else had been there. That hardly matters now though.

Sometimes, if I close my eyes for a moment as I walk down Main Street from the park, I can imagine him riding his bike alongside me in the most unsafe manner. I valued his company back in high school. He understood something that none of my friends could because it was the one thing we had in common. Was it springtime, I wonder?

Summer now and I walk with my sister. I forget why we got into the habit of walking for a few days. Up and down Main Street in this town we grew up in. We stop at what practically passes for the Star Trek insignia and I take her picture. We are happy. I point out a Vietnamese place across the street next to a place that I once knew to be called 'La Priscilla.' It must have gone out of business because I don't see it anymore.

Summer again and an evening walk with my cousins and their parents. I think I took a picture of my aunt and uncle holding hands as they walked. I thought it was sweet, something worthwhile to reassure myself that love exists in this world. Dimly lit lights showed us the way back. It was dark by the time we all made it inside.

What did they call that ridiculous snowstorm of 2010? Snowmaggeddon, I think it was. My dad was outside doing his best to shovel a narrow path in our driveway, but the snow was at least a foot high. The end of the driveway always accumulates the most snow, which is the worst. Snow plows would come by and move a portion of the snow from the road into the driveways. I went out walking with the twins that day. The sun was shining, I didn't wear a coat. The snowy wonderland produced some beautiful photographs that day.

I'm on the phone with my best friend of 12 years. I'm crying and mourning a friendship that I've lost. I explain the situation to my best friend. She finds it ridiculous and unfounded. But I blame myself anyway and continue to do so for the next few months, and even on occasion blame myself today. I tell her that I'm biased so of course she would side with me. She doesn't blame me and I feel a tiny bit of relief, but still carry a small bit of guilty. If only. This is a walk I go on by myself, but I am not alone.

This one is happier. I walk around the neighborhood with a friend on a mission to discover where our biochemistry professor lives. We eventually find a car with an SU sticker and our curiosity is satisfied. But I have long since forgotten and won't go looking again. On another walk, or perhaps it is the same one, we meet an eccentric woman who offers us popsicles. Her dog is named Rufus. I have forgotten this too. It is a strange day.

My father walks ridiculously fast, I think maybe he always has. Walks with my father have revealed hidden surprises in this town I claim to know so well. We discover fruit that has fallen from the trees by the park. On another day, he points out a shortcut that I should have discovered on my own. As a result, I try to be more observant when I can be. But sometimes I'm too absorbed in my own thoughts and the music.

I can't recall the many other walks I've been on at the moment, but each and every walk is as significant and insignificant as the one before and the one to follow. Sometimes I walk just to remember.

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If you lead, I will not follow you. If I lead, I will not wait for you. Walk with me, beside me, hand in hand until the end.