LIfestyle

The Art of Walking

Part One

9 min read

April 2024
By Alyssa Petit

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I realized I could see the mountain range from the bridge on the Steese which leads into downtown. I’ve taken that path every businessday – trodding the mile from home to work – for the last year now, and it wasn’t until I chose to look up in just the exact moment, when the skies weren’t slated in clouds or still dark before nine in the morning, that I was able to witness the pink to orange glow of the Alaska range at sunrise. Needless to say, I was late to work that day. I stood on the bridge, my feet going numb and my eyelashes freezing over, and I watched in awe as the clouds pinkened around the glowing mountains. That particular day was during the week of the second deep freeze in which everyone was disappointed, but not surprised, by false spring.

To the astonishment of my peers, I have a car. I use my little Subaru Forester to get to the grocery store or coffee shops. When I chose to begin walking to work over a year ago, it was when the sun rose and set as one. The air was warm, the river was beautiful, and the seagulls hilariously (and annoyingly) dive bombed any threatening passersby. I started walking so I could enjoy soaking up as much of the sun as I could before the September rain. Then I kept walking in September to breathe in the wet, refreshing air before the October snow. Then I kept walking throughout the winter because I previously didn’t realize just how beautiful the blanket of winter can be, and I was fascinated to witness the lapse of the sun hang lower and lower each passing week. Eventually, I chose to walk in the forty below weather because though it was cold and dark, I was doing something not many people get to do in this world.

As I kept my routine of walking to work, I developed newfound appreciations for my strolls. On days I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I could reset my mind with the fresh air and easy movement. I’ve smiled at and shared pleasantries with strangers I would’ve never otherwise passed. I’ve seen Pam, the beaver who lives off the Chena, countless times and I’ve been witness to a fender bender. I’ve enjoyed the sporadically written expletives and lovers’ initials carved into the snow. I’ve almost been hit countless times. I’ve gotten to talk to friends who slowed down and shared their concern for me, thinking that perhaps my car broke down or I got a DUI, having no choice but to walk. I’ve been flipped off, honked at, and catcalled. I was able to figure out the downtown bus system, watch a handful of new businesses pop up, and found a pair of gloves that I still use to this day. And now, I’ve seen the greatness of the mountain range without leaving my daily routine. I’ve done all of these things because I walked to work.

One of the first things we ever do on our own is walk. In our early years, walking was how we became independent and interacted with the new, curious world around us. Once we got the mechanics down, we walked not with an objective, but with a spongy mind. Then as we grew older, we began experiencing the world in other ways. We learned to read, write, and watch TV. We learned to ride our bikes, then drive our cars. Now we have smartphones, with the ability to search anything we need to know the moment it comes to mind.

All the while, the world started coming at us faster. Thirty-minute episodes were exchanged with reels, books with tweets, and county roads with speedways. Our expeditious and saturated world cleverly disguised itself as highly productive and efficient. As the world spins faster, we do our best to assimilate, desperately trying to experience everything thrown our way all at once. At the gym, we lift our weights while wearing headphones and tracking our progress on smartwatches. On our computers, we have multiple tabs open at once, switching between social media and calendars and email as soon as an update is to be made. We eat dinner in front of our phones, we text and drive, and we check the time as we converse.

I think we all can relate to the fatigue caused by the never ending cat-and-mouse game of needing more without the capacity to take hold. We’ve even gone so far as to try to manually slow the world down. We put our phones face down, we go to bookstores, and venture on off-the-grid road trips. We allow ourselves the space to not know everything, asking those who actually might know instead of doing a quick search. But even these efforts, though mighty, can be sporadic and ever failing attempts. So, how can we get our autonomy back? How can we experience the world without it hurling information at us from every direction? How can we prioritize quality over quantity yet again? It starts with going back to how we first experienced the world around us; one step at a time.

The concept of going on a walk seems rudimentary – perhaps even trivial – at its surface. Where does the hour go when you choose to walk without a purpose, without a destination? It feels like so much could’ve been done in that time. You could run to the grocery store or take a yoga class or finish that assignment due tomorrow. There is and will always be something greater; something more pressing to do than aimlessly walk. This belief, which the world we created has written as truth, is where our fault lies.

What I’m proposing is not a new concept, especially to those all the way up in the forty-ninth state. People come here, chasing after the same sovereignty we each had as we took our first steps. This is a place where people don’t take the outdoors for granted. This is where we compare our size to the bears and then to the mountains and most places are out of cell-service. But still, in concurrence with the rest of the world, we built towns and road systems and cell towers. We decided that we, too, can be comfortably warm in our homes and build our bathrooms inside. What we have gained in our development, we have lost in our ability to simply be.

Remember the majesty – the feeling of standing at the foot of Denali or looking up at the endless sky? Remember the awe of seeing the mountain range from the bridge downtown? We can tap into this in our daily lives simply by choosing to go outside and be and move exactly as we are. To walk without a purpose – to receive the world on a human scale and at a human pace. It is to take things in as they come to us. It is to feel what it means to be a part of our shared humanity once again.

There will always be something that you just absolutely have to do, there will always be days in which it’s dark and negative forty out, and there will always be a numbing and contentful alternative.

For these reasons, I ask: What is more important than the moment that is happening right now? Is there anything truer than the present? Is any experience more important to you than your own?

Going on a walk is to experience right now as it happens; it is to experience your feelings, your thoughts, the ground beneath your feet, the signs and billboards just ahead of you, the woman walking past you, the smells of the pizza place and sounds from the auto shop, the fastness of the car whizzing by, the tallness of the buildings, the colors of the trees or the snow or the litter at our feet. In that moment, now that you are no longer dizzy from the world doing laps around you, maybe you can notice something new, something you didn’t search for or even know about.

Maybe you have the space to notice a leaf the moment it falls from a tree, the neighbors kiss goodbye, the carefully tended garden, the morning dew clinging to the miniature cucumbers. To walk is to experience the world anew, a daily rebirth of human experience.

This is my challenge to you. Take a walk everyday, be it five minutes or five miles. Let yourself be. Let the world be. Try a new trail or walk downtown. Walk to work one day and see just how long it takes while noticing the things you hadn’t while driving. Go with a friend and revel in a conversation that doesn’t rely on your surroundings. Go when it’s negative forty out and your eyelashes freeze over. Go when the midnight sun still hangs high in the late evening. Go when it’s the last thing you want to do. Go when your task list overwhelms you.

Alyssa Petit

Hey there! My name is Alyssa, and just a month after receiving my diploma at the University of Kansas with a degree in visual communications, I traded the flatlands for a life in the Last Frontier with my husband (no, there were no ruby slippers involved nor is my husband made of tin). As a Fairbanks transplant, I quickly embraced and became part of this extraordinary community. I’ve found the people here are a unique blend of resilience, inspiration, creativity, quirkiness, and above all, passion.

My life's passion is to create on purpose. I believe that language, in both its spoken and visual forms, intricately shapes human consciousness. My mission is to contribute to the crafting of a world where everyone feels safe, heard, and empowered. And where better to embark on this journey than in the state of beautiful extremes! Here's to creating a world for us all. Cheers!

P.S. I enjoy painting, I have caught some really cool fish, and I make perfect soft-yet-chewy bagels.

Alyssa Petit

P.S. I enjoy painting, I have caught some really cool fish, and I make perfect soft-yet-chewy bagels.