Spiral Walking

When spring rolls around, I start to remember how small New York really is. All of a sudden the distance between Union Square and work seems like a travesty to travel by subway, meeting up in an obscure location isn't a problem, and I actually look forward to the prospect of a long walk somewhere. This time in New York is more coveted by locals than any other time; it’s the most rare and the most pleasurable.

I’m worried that, like last year, this spring will only linger a few weeks before being catapulted into 85-degree days and the subsequent misery that is New York in the heat. Then it’s back to planning out the quickest travel route, stirring change around to see if an air-conditioned taxi is worth the money, and generally picking back up the gripe that you carried around through a cold winter.

Yesterday, being the Platonic ideal of a spring day, was perfect for such a walk. Krista, J, and I met up with Crazy Legs and some of his friends to celebrate him winning the first hot dog qualifier and running the marathon, and ended up taking the most meandering, pleasant walk across the city.

We started at Corner Bistro, which—known for their tasty burgers and mugs of McSorley’s—turned out to be the worst possible place in existence for a non-drinking vegetarian (sorry, J!). We ordered some French fries, but I only needed a bite to realize they’d been fried in some hot hot bacon fat. Which I’m sure is making most of you salivate right now, but was fairly disappointing for a French fry-needing Liz at the time. But all was okay, as it turned out one of our travel buddies was an Expert on Where To Get Pizza and led us there on our way to the East Village.

We didn’t end up staying long once we got to the other bar, but I really think the walk was the best part. There’s something really comforting about strolling leisurely through a city, with a stop here and there for pizza or Italian cookies, and talking about anything that pops up.

At my hippie high school, we had this class called Spiral Walking. We’d meet on the running track and the instructor would ask us to pick a topic, any topic, and he’d start a mini-lecture on whatever we chose. We walked around the track as he talked, the idea being that the physical activity of walking stimulated both your body and mind, allowing you to absorb the words more effectively. The lecture would lead into a discussion, and as the class wore on, groups of kids would break off and talk about their own things or, y’know, go smoke a cigarette or something. But even though this was probably the hippiest of the hippy classes I took in high school (or was that Archaic Tools…), I look back on it fondly. That somewhere in the curriculum development, this teacher saw the value in people walking and talking and thought that having kids developing an affinity for it was valuable, kinda amazes me now.