I took an unusual walk last week. After work I drove to the grocery store that’s closer to my job, parked the car, and walked out of the parking lot. It’s not a neighborhood I know, except for the road I take when I do my shopping. On the other side of the lot, the grocery store looks onto an even larger mall parking lot, and the mall itself faces a main drag lined with big box plazas, small businesses, and places to eat. Suburban, car-based shopping. Strip mall after strip mall, not a lot of pedestrians. People on the street in work shirts, waiting for the bus or walking home. On my side, though, is a quiet residential wedge that extends a few blocks until it hits the Walmart on a very similar commercial street, perpendicular to the other one, but with more restaurants.
I crossed the street and started walking down the first residential street I found. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I turned left and right as the mood suited me. It was one of those nice early fall days. Light breeze. Sunny, but cool.
Without any particular place in mind, I wandered and my attention was on the houses I saw. Small lots, fairly close to each other. The kinds of tracts that look stamped into the earth when you look down from a plane. My neighborhood is just as planned out, but it dates to the late 1890s, and the large Victorians, densely packed as well, are a totally different vibe. When Mark Twain lived in Buffalo, I think he referred to my part of town as some way out there new development. It’s a ten-minute drive to downtown.
As I walked, I saw many flags, closely divided between American ones and those for the Buffalo Bills. I love blue, and it was nice to have so many blue and red accents along the walk. I want to say I was walking through a post-war neighborhood based on the architectural style. Ranch-style homes, lots of aluminum siding, more lawn than garden. Could it be earlier? For sure. I’m just guessing and don’t know very much.
It was about four o’clock or so, and I hardly saw anyone. A couple folks working in their open garages, an elderly lady getting her mail. I only crossed paths with one person, a young woman walking from her house to her car. Because I didn’t know where the little streets led, I found myself much more alert and attentive to my surroundings than normal. It was really interesting how much of a difference it made to not know where I was. My mind was absorbed with the details of homes and street layouts. Although it had been a long day at work and I had lots on my mind, it was the world in front of and around me that I kept thinking about.
Eventually I ended up onto a third border for this neighborhood. It’s not a main thoroughfare like the others, certainly not very commercial, but clearly an edge street. Lots of traffic. I crossed over to a small park I’d never seen before. There was a small paved path surrounding a playground. I figured there wasn’t much to see, but I was surprised, as I followed the path, to hit upon a little stand of trees. The walk led into the stand, behind the trees, and I walked in. I’m always a little scared walking on my own. Not, like, a lot. But when I was about nineteen a couple guys held me up at knifepoint on my way home from work. They were short, thin, and in clothes that, when I was a kid, always threatened bad news. Jeans, baggy white t-shirts, and bald heads. They weren’t scary to look at they were so much smaller than me, but they did have that knife. I put down my groceries on which I’d spent most of my check, and gave them the few dollars I had. As long as I had that job I couldn’t walk through that stretch of street again. I ran. I guess the feeling lingers. I wonder if they remember that day at all.
This path wasn’t scary like that. For one, there were a few families not that far away on the playground, and it was broad daylight in the suburbs. So, anyway, a little of that always-fear, but I walked in. Very soon, the tall trees on either side blocked a lot of the sun. An unexpected and sudden change. A new mood. Having been walking alone through empty street after empty street, I found here another kind of stillness. On the other side of the path, on the other side of most of the trees, was a thinner clump of trees and a narrow, still stream. So much shadow and greenery hidden behind a busy, noisy street. The whole length of this path couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred feet, but the contrast was intense. Maybe I was still a little on edge. And by this point I was also really responding to all this sunlight. I felt almost dizzy. I passed a Catholic church that really didn’t look like a Catholic church. I would’ve bet it was some community center, or, once I saw the cross, a Protestant building.
I emerged back onto the park’s parking lot, and walked up to another main street. I knew this one would take me back to the grocery store, and decided to follow it. I crossed onto a gas station, then walked across the parking lots of little businesses. Medical practices, accounting-type services, things like that. I took one last side street back into this neighborhood, and found my original street. It was here I ran into the one person I encountered on my whole solitary walk.
Walking back onto the grocery store lot, I felt as if re-emerging into the world of people. Maybe it’s silly or dumb to call my not-knowingness “lost” but it certainly felt very different from walking from one place you know to some definite other place. It was a whole distinct kind of attention. Physically and mentally so unlike my walks in the park or my own neighborhood.
As I approached the doors to the store, the several people walking to and from it felt like a real crowd. The blast of air conditioning was strong, so much colder than the already cool air outside. I had returned to real life.


