My Pedestrian Life

 49:  The number of times I have been in my car this year (that is, the year 2021).  

There are lots of advantages to living in a small city, especially one that can brag about being named among the "most walkable" in the nation.  I take advantage of the advantages, so to speak.   It's a delight to get to walk through the various neighborhoods: exploring the architecture, meeting up unexpectedly with other friends on foot, not having to scrape the ice off of windshields or stop at a gas station, but rather just put on my shoes (and sometimes, hook up the dog leash).  I love being out in the weather.  

2106:  The number of miles I've driven this year (including being in the car when my husband drives).  

We're still limping along with our very crumply 2001 Prius.  It's starting to get annoyingly loud, though; the mechanic says that it's safe but noisy (safe and sound?), but it's loud enough that I'm contemplating getting a new-to-us vehicle.  However, given how seldom I actually use the car, I have the luxury of having lots of time.  Long trips are the most annoying (so a-noise-ing!), and we fortunately don't have any long trips in our near future.   Eh, we'll manage.  I'm pretty sure it's not an exaggeration right now to say that our collection of bicycles are worth more than the car, and I think that's a funny enough comparison that it's worth hanging onto that for a while.

50%:  The fraction of my adult children without a driver's license.  

Two of my 'snoughlings have physical reasons why they're delaying (indefinitely?) their licenses, although I'm sure they'd both prefer the chance to get behind a wheel if they could.  A third is license-less by choice.  She remarks to me that she continues to find it odd that people offer to give her a lift while she's out walking.  My other three kids, though, are happily licentious.

I'm well aware that I'm a bit on the fringe for living my life this way, all the more so because I do it by choice.  I want to live this way; other people don't want to live this way; that's the way things go. 

This past few weeks, though, I've been bumping up against all sorts of reasons to be extra happy for designing my life in this way.   I live a low-car life by choice; others live a much-car life by choice; and then others . . . well, this past month I've been around a lot of people who are living low-car lives under duress.  And THAT is just not fun.

My dad and his wife, for example, can't drive after dark any more.  In my dad's case, this is a recent development.   He lives in a gorgeous place, but it's a place not friendly to car-less people:  hilly, no sidewalks, narrow roads which are either packed with neighbors' cars (in the immediate area) or are shoulder-less major thoroughfares with 50 mph traffic; he lives probably 4 miles from the nearest shopping center, and 40 or 50 miles from the nearest theater and performing center.  My dad loves getting exercise, but the neighborhood isn't a great place for an 80-plus-year-old person with balance problems to go for a stroll, so he has to drive (in the daytime) to a gym to walk on treadmills with handrails.   They love going to theater and to recitals, but since they can't drive in the evenings, their theater/recital opportunities are closing off to them.  For these reasons and others, the walls of my dad's life are closing in around him.  I'd say it sucks getting old, but I can't help but thinking that much of the suckiness would be less so if he'd chosen to live in a walkable neighborhood nearer the things he actually liked doing.  

Ditto for another family friend my sister and I visited:  limited mobility (in her case because of tremors); illness and disability that is made worse by a series of choices that have boxed her into sedentary activities.   

It's hard not to sound preachy here.  (Heck, it's hard not to BE preachy in my own head, so I'm sure that there's a bunch of look-at-me! leaking out here).  I'll just say, I'm TRYING not to be too judge-y [fail, fail, fail].  At the same time, I can't help but being grateful for my largely pedestrian life and for all the freedom it's given me.  Bop into the office to pick up something I forgot?  It's a 10-minute walk away.  Take the dog to the vet?  Half-a-block down the road.  Go to the theater with my kids?  15-minute walk downtown, and I can hold hands with my husband en route.  Fish for dinner?  Take the pyrex container to the fishmonger just up the road, just past the coffee house. It's almost like magic, it's so nice.