Perambulate

per . am. bu . late/verb/ to walk or travel around a place or area, especially for pleasure, in a leisurely way

We’re moving along quite nicely with our weekly vocabulary exercise. It may be that  you already knew most of the words  I have introduced, but my emphasis is not so much on vocabulary building as on the fact that certain words provide a good launching pad for a few thoughts that I hope prove provocative, instructive,  and useful to all who read the posts.

Since perambulate means “to walk,” I was curious about the etymology, that is, the origin, of the surname “Walker.” It had an interesting beginning. It is derived from German. A walker was a “fuller of cloth,” a fuller being one who walked on raw, damp cloth to thicken it, to make it fuller. That was quite an interesting occupation!

According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 501,307 persons in this country with the surname Walker, among them Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker (and included some of our friends, too). The name was the 28th most common surname in the U.S., at least, at that time.

Another bit of trivia connected with our word is that “pram,” the British word for baby carriage, baby buggy, or stroller, is the shortened form for perambulator,  one who walks.

As usual, I chose the word because  I already had a few thoughts I wanted to explore on the topic of walking. It is one that has more significance than we usually think. In some places here  in the U.S., walking isn’t prized and may not be even possible. In the suburbs, for instance,  the automobile rules. Some families have two or three vehicles, and sometimes when individuals who live in the suburbs  have an errand to run, and five minutes would get them to where they want to go, they choose to drive instead of walk. Suburbs without sidewalks condition people to doing that.

A few years ago, my cousin came from Jamaica to visit my mother, who was ill. She came from a culture where it was normal to walk to wherever you wanted to go, and so she wanted to walk to the grocery store and to the shopping center, but I told her she would be risking her life trying to cross a four-lane thoroughfare. No bus? Not around here, I told her. As we drove to the places she needed to go,  she played a little game–without really calling it that. It was her idea to try  to spot someone walking. It turned out to be both amusing  and eye-opening. “There’s one!” she would shout, as if identifying a new species of wildlife.  And we looked at the walker with pity.  Why, the poor thing  doesn’t have a car!  Of course, the pity was on us in the car. Walking is what feet were made for.

Today the health benefits of walking are well known. Walking is good for just about everything that ails us, as we learn from the abundance of health magazines and seminars. Among other things, walking improves balance,  increases muscle strength and endurance, lowers cholesterol, aids in weight loss, and helps to induce sleep. And it is the least expensive form of exercise.

However, walking has benefits beyond physical health. Researchers have noted that where we walk matters.  A study conducted by Marc Burman at the University of South Carolina found that students who walked through an arboretum improved their performance on a memory test more than did students who walked  in city streets.  And the results of a small group of studies suggest that “spending time in green spaces,” such as gardens, parks, and forests, can be mentally invigorating. All of these findings  should be incentive for those of us who need a little memory boost to find time to walk in the wonderful natural world.

A friend of mine is an enthusiastic walker. He tells me about the early morning three-mile jaunt with his walking buddies. What do they do on their walk? They talk. Indeed, communing with one another is emotionally beneficial, and walking in the neighborhood and watching the morning go from dim shadows to early light puts an aliveness in our steps. However,  an acknowledged value of walking is that it is conducive to thinking. While you walk, you don’t have to concentrate on the body’s movements. This leaves the mind free to roam, to unravel a puzzling problem, to gather the courage needed to make an important decision, or even to take flights of fancy. Walking time is also pondering time, time to meditate on the things that matter, to think about meaning and value in life, time to let the mind pursue a path to self-discovery. Artists have said that walking stimulates their imagination and activates their creative process. Walking is to the creative spirit what good medicine is to the body.

Walking time is a great time for writers. Like artists,  writers find that their creativity is stoked as they walk. It is a time when ideas come unbidden, or it can be a time when ruminating on what has already  been written can lead to fresh insights.  In his essay “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau tells about  a visitor to  the poet William Wordsworth’s home in the Lake Country in England. When the visitor asked to see Wordsworth’s study, the caretaker responded,  “His library is in here, but his study is out of doors.”  As a lover of nature, Wordsworth was a walker and found inspiration for his masterpieces while doing so. Thoreau himself was an inveterate walker who saw walking as spiritual exercise. It is true for many people today that walking is a spiritual practice that provides replenishment for the soul.

Walking causes us to  see things in a new light, as well we should because our imagination is stimulated by the sights and even the sounds that we encounter as we walk. Helen Keller loved to walk. She was a sightless but “seeing” individual, using all of her senses in the great outdoors. The sensation of moving her fingertips on the  bark of a tree or tracing the symmetry of a leaf inspired her and heightened her awareness of the world around her. Once when a friend came to visit her, she asked the woman where she had been and was told she had been walking in the woods. “And what did you see?” Helen asked. “Oh, not much,” the friend said. Helen was appalled at such a shallow answer. She could not understand how a person possessing eyesight could walk in the great outdoors and not see much. But that’s the way we are sometimes. Despite having the ability to see, as walkers, we really do not see.

When we walk, we have a chance not just to look at things. We have the ability to dip in and out of other people’s lives: the life experiences of the ones that we  pass on our walk or of  those that are behind closed doors in their sealed-off houses.  And we dip in and out of our own lives, connecting with the  life within us. Take a walk, long or short, and let your mind savor the experience.

Finally, beyond the inherent virtues of walking, it is the Bible that gives the act its greatest significance.   Walking, in the biblical sense,  is a lifestyle.  The Bible considers our daily experiences–how we live in the family, in the workplace, among friends–as our walk and counsels us to walk worthy of our calling, to walk in integrity.  It is the kind of lifestyle that brings us the peace,  contentment, and  happiness we seek in a stress-filled world.

Blessings,

Judith

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

–  St. Francis of  Assisi –