“TRAVEL IN LOCAL SPACES”
“Hiking The Neighborhood”

by Jessica Kuzmier

     One of my recent local trips entailed walking down to the local gas station for a bite to eat. Classifying a trip to the local convenience store as an excursion may seem like a cop out to anyone who lives in a city or suburban neighborhood. But to those out in the rural woods, it can be an adventure in itself, especially when there is still snow and ice out on the roads, and the convenience store is inconveniently five miles away.

     Strangely enough, I’ve lived here for several years, and this was the first time that I ever attempted a hike like this. In my more urbanized days, I was constantly walking to stores and delis, leaving the car at home. Concerned neighbors would drive by me slowly; they would ask in worried tones if I needed a ride. I always would say no, but they would always ask again, in that same befuddled manner. It was like they saw me and thought, why is she walking?, like it was some great mystery to break up suburban monotony. Is she on some kind of diet? Are there problems at home? Has she forgotten that we’re no longer in Brooklyn and can show off how rich we are by driving two blocks down the road? It was funny how much attention a walk to the local diner a quarter a mile away could bring.

     But here, though I loved walking in the fields and woods and other forms of nature, I hadn’t taken the sojourn the get a bagel and coffee that was common fare for me in my younger days. I had it in the back of my mind; I kept putting it off. On some level it was just plain fear of the unknown; the idea of walking past all those isolated houses on silent roads, leading to state roads where the anonymity was cemented into the concrete that paved it seemed to bring back all those urban legends that turn into horror flicks: She Walked Down the Road ALLLOONNEE..., and Look What Happens to Young Girls Who Do That.... But one day I decided I had to overcome all that silliness and just go for a walk. The grade B fare never pointed out that you were just as likely to be assaulted in your suburban workplace as anywhere else. Why let some fictional nonsense that blows reality out of proportion stop me from doing what I really wanted to do. So, I went for a walk.

     Sometimes a hike in your own neighborhood feels just as much as a vacation as going on a longer trip. In fact, a lot of the trips I’ve been on felt more like work than a fun time. Getting all the stuff together, making sure you have enough shirts, wondering what to do with the pet, wondering if the car will decide to conk out halfway to your destination, rushing to get to the airport only to find out there is a five hour delay. Whereas with a hike, especially a local one that doesn’t require a car, you can just pick up and go. Hassle free. Great for the environment, too, as a bonus. It’s a way to slow down the world you live in while still moving in it.

     The benefit of walking solo is freedom, and silence. Sometimes a long walk is good just for the idea that it takes you out of so-called “real life”, and puts it on a plane that is removed from everyday concerns. Bringing another person into the fray puts you into more of an entertainment mode. You have to worry about what the other person wants and needs, just like in the normal world. It sort of defeats the purpose. Granted, there is safety in numbers, but solo travel does wonders for your senses. You can’t afford not to pay attention. You rely on your own instincts and intuition. The great benefit of this is that you notice more of what’s around you.

     There’s a few ways that you can get to the gas station from where I live. One way is by back roads, and the other ways entail various twists and turns that lead to county highways and byways. With the snow banks making the shoulders nearly nonexistent on the roads, I figured the road least traveled would make for the easiest traveling. Bad enough that I would have to dodge ice patches and potholes buried under snow. Who needed 4X4 trucks running me off the road because they didn’t know where the shoulder was? So, I took my travels down the back way.

     Traveling this way on roads that haven’t been encroached on by nearby suburbia just yet is a strange experience. I felt like I was visiting a ghost town, or a town where some strange biological contaminant ran through and took out all humans but left a bunch of cows. It wasn’t long before even the cows were gone, and I was just left with myself.

     I think the fears of solo travel have tend to get projected onto external things that have little to do with the real reason why any fear exists. There are certainly legitimate concerns about what you should do in case of injury or assault. It is a logical argument that travel with another person or a group lessens the chances or softens the blows in these calamities. But people live alone, drive to work alone, or shop alone every day with these same elevated risks and there is no collective fear that they should be done with other people. Why I really think the idea of solo travel is so feared is that you are left with yourself, with your own thoughts. There is no diversion such as another person to talk with about the Lakers to escape yourself. I’ve heard people say that it’s great to be busy so you don’t think, like that would be the scariest thing that they could imagine. Maybe this fear of hearing your own thoughts and not being able to run from them is the real fear behind solo travel.

     I would say in my own case that the urge to travel is too imperative in me to concern myself with those fears. Lots of times I like chewing over things in my brain without interference, so the idea of being alone with my thoughts generally doesn’t bother me. Let’s put it this way; I’d rather pick up and go by myself rather than wait for someone else and not go. And solo travel is a way to truly leave whatever it is that is reality behind; traveling with a group you don’t know would be on the opposite end of the continuum, but in the same family. But solo travel is a lot more convenient to your time schedule, rather than some planned group activity.

     That’s what it was like when I embarked upon my walk. It was a luxury to choose the path I wanted, and go where I felt like. In choosing the back way, I had all the solitude I wanted. The roads were so infrequently traveled there that what was normally considered a shoulder was snow covered, and if someone wanted to, he or she could follow in my footsteps, for there was no other tracks in the snow. The most dangerous part I found about the situation was that I didn’t know for sure whether the snow covered blacktop or ice. I couldn’t afford to let myself get lost in thought, because every step I took had to be negotiated so I didn’t slip on some unseen surprise. Very few cars passed this way, and the distance between houses was pretty great, so if I slipped and hurt myself, I might be sitting there awhile before someone passed by to help me. Although this remote rural section was only several miles long, it seemed so barren that when I experienced it I felt as though I had transported into a world of oceanic silence, and that the world of busyness and noise was some weird vision I had during a meditative state.

     The world of rural suburbia snuck up gradually. In my world of definition the difference between rural suburbia and what generally passes for suburbia in places like Orange County, California or New York, is that there isn’t a mini-mall just down the corner that is considered walking distance to anyone who walks at all for recreation. Rural suburbia differs too from rural proper only in the sense that the houses are closer together; but they have the same country look that people in the city spend hours driving to see. The snow on the side of the road was dirtier here, the streets narrower from people snowplowing sidewalks, and there were more cars in the road. This was the symbol to me that I was fairly close to getting lunch, which I was starving for. I’d already eaten two nutrition bars, and with negotiating all the hills I was low on energy. I was looking forward to food.

     But first I had to walk a quarter of a mile on a state highway that had fingers instead of shoulders and cars driving past me in an angry mood back and forth. I wasn’t sure if I should risk the sidewalks, which were uneven with ice and snow, or take my chances on the road. I tried both and settled on the road. Ice was too bothersome to deal with. At least I could see the cars coming for me.

     Finally, after expert car dodging, I saw my destination looming like a mirage. It was strange walking into the place knowing that my car wasn’t conveniently outside waiting for me and that I’d have to do the whole thing in reverse. I ordered my usual breakfast of egg on a bagel even though it was lunchtime, but ate it there instead of rushing it home like I usually did. It was only a breakfast sandwich, but I was so starving it tasted like a gourmet meal. Truckers and other locals came in to buy sandwiches and chat with the clerks. I had a newspaper in front of me so I had something to focus on if the people-watching wasn’t so hot, but the constant changing over of customers held my interest.

     Eventually, it was time to go home. The journey home seemed to go more quickly, though it was more eventful. A guy I didn’t know driving a pickup truck offered me a lift, and a dog I passed on the way to the gas station had gotten loose decided I needed a good barking in the middle of the street. Eventually his owner coaxed him away from me. Other dogs, who had been silent before, must have slept off their dog-food hangovers. More of them barked at me now than when I first came down; letting me know they were there in case I ventured off the road towards their properties. Forget bogeymen and being stranded with a broken leg. It seemed the top hazard on this trip was dealing with Beware Of Dog.

     But in due time, I reached the area of silence, where I saw my footprints from the trip down, still the only set in the road. The air was still for a short time as I went from the civilization of the busy street towards home and real life, and in the transition was stillness. I could taste it and feel it, like it was time removed, and that it was the only reality that really mattered.