I Walk Because It Takes Longer

I Like Getting From One Place To Another

By Bianca Llerena

I walk because it takes longer.

Not because I’ve got nothing to do, or because the bus was late, but just because I can. Because I like the journey home, how the cold turns my cheeks red, and how, for just a few minutes, my only purpose is to get from one place to another.

Even when the wall of icy wind coiled around my winter jacket with a broken zipper, I couldn’t really bear catching the bus and making it home with time to spare. It just felt dumb. At the beginning of the year, when the straps of my backpack rubbed against my tank top and imprinted along my shoulders, I left the house thirty minutes before class and took my time.

I skipped breakfast and had a late dinner, but I couldn’t really care because I was doing something that, although not seemingly productive, had to be done. I had to make it home and no matter how long it took, there was no other way than through it.

And maybe the fact that it’s the perfect excuse to put in my headphones and turn the volume up all the way helps. I’ve walked the same sidewalk dozens of times so I don’t really have to worry about the route, I can just focus on the “now” (which, in my mind, is a rare occurrence).

Walking to a place feels kind of like when two tracks of an album sort of blend into each other and you realize that a space has been created. Like, the space wouldn’t really exist without the other songs but somehow stands on its own? I like to imagine this, and as the minutes keep going, I keep passing houses, bikers, naked trees, and I would consider that as time well spent.