On Walking...

Whenever I get down I always go for a walk. Sometimes they're really long walks. Sometimes they're at 1 in the morning. Sometimes they're both. Either way I need the walk, and I wonder why.

Theory 1: When I was 16 I was attending PA Governor's School for the Arts. I was down one night for whatever reason and so I left my dorm and just walked around campus. I ended up at a coffeeshop. While sitting by myself I met Skippy. I think his real name was Matthew something, but he was Skippy. He had very little residual effect on the rest my life, but while I was there, he was my friend. The point of the story is not Skippy. The point of the story is that when I was down, I *engaged with the world* by getting up and walking outside and that good things came from that. So I made a sort of vow that whenever I was down, I simply had to get up and go for a walk (or otherwise engage with the world).

Theory 2: I have an obsession with the idea of "leaving". If you know anything about my childhood, it's not difficult to see where I get this from. And going for a walk is pretty much the physical manifestation of walking away from your problems.

Theory 3: Endorphins. It's all pure chemistry. It feels damn good to tire yourself out on a long/difficult walk.

Theory 4: That it has nothing to do with walking at all. That it's entirely to do with *where* I walk to. This is difficult to put into words... I gravitate toward "real" places. I walk to the hospitals, I walk down to Fayette street, I walk to South Salina, I visit the walkways under train tracks and over-passes. I gravitate toward the run-down, hard-times districts. Do I gravitate toward other suffering? Do I do it to remind myself that my problems are nothing? Do I do it to remind myself that the frivolity of college doesn't extend into the rest of the world? Do I do it to remind myself that I have a greater goal to strive for? I don't know.

I realize that of course I go on walks for all those reasons, and some more that I haven't consciously thought about yet. Anywho...