I had a revelation that I’d like to share with you. It wasn’t recent, in fact it’s something I’ve discussed with those gracious enough to humor me on several occasions. Nothing proceeding will shatter the earth or enlighten the endimmed, nonetheless, I have you, and I intend to keep you.
When’s the last time you really looked at someone’s walk?
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. This may be the case, but I’ve found that windows aren’t always the most efficient way to observe. Looking through windows and into the eyes of those around you, even if the observation has the purest sociological intention, can often garner one a dubious reputation. If only there was a less intrusive and less indictable way to see the nature beneath the presentation.
Humans are at their best when their defenses are down, when they’re honest and they don’t know it.
The soul doesn’t have to be something hidden behind a window only some Curious Tom would peep through. In actual fact it is the walk that carries you that offers the key to that which you lock away. This fact eureka’d me in highly Newtonian apple-to-the-head fashion, tinted slightly by a mind far more focused on girls than science. After all, the male of the species often finds his brilliance when in pursuit of the better of the species.
It was a sunny day back in university. I was sitting on the steps of the regally-designed main administration building of The University of Ottawa preparing a solid itinerary of procrastination in the face of impending final exams, when across the courtyard a siren-song at a dog-whistle pitch swung my attention to an as yet faceless vixen walking out my life, before she’d had the chance to walk in and out of my life. Suddenly in a crowd of bustling students she, and more importantly her walk, was all I saw. Without a conscious thought I was on my feet and in pursuit.
The walk she used to prowl and parade across that courtyard spoke to me in one hundred languages. It was sultry and sophisticated. It was everything my youthful hormonally-driven motivation needed, and said volumes in high-heeled, striding sentences. I had to follow her.
It wasn’t her looks that snared me; though I could sense her attractiveness, I had yet to see her face. It wasn’t her features or curves exactly either, though she did have long slender frame, long legs with flawless lines that connected her knee-length skirt to her high-heeled shoes, and a sway to her hips that was like a gold watch swinging in front of my eyes.
Her body was her instrument and the walk was her music. I stayed far behind enough to prey and close enough to stalk. The last thing I wanted to do was upset this harmony that we shared. The second to last thing was be mistaken for the type of pursuer that made a habit of this kind of observation.
I know very little of the nature of love, I would venture to say that I know a great deal less than the average male love-bozo, but I believe a major facet of love goes to the effect of how well you know your partner or objet de desire. Love is knowledge of another person, you know them inside and out, you know what they’re going to say before they say it, what they need before they ask it. It’s knowledge born of a connection deeper than learning and observation. I can say with doubtless certainty, clouded only somewhat by that cloudy male angst, that I knew this girl I was following. I was smitten by this girl whose face I had yet to see, falling off my feet for what she did with hers.
The walk told me things about how our life together would unfold. I planned what I would say when our eyes finally met, I structured a list of the first five things I would compliment about her, and thought of how she would react to the truth of why I began pursuit. I pre-reminisced about impressing her parents and cuddling together in front of a rented video. I thought of things I very rarely consider when in prowling mode. All of this was from her walk, from something in her sway that attracted me and convinced me we were compatible.
Like any worthwhile prey, she was cunning. Her stride was long and quick, and eventually I fell behind. I lost her in a crowd soon after in front of a mall and she quickly exited my life. She was gone faster than she came. With only her walk she commanded me and seduced me. She demonstrated a part of her soul that I felt a brief but pressing need to investigate. I remember the experience vividly to this day and I never saw her face. To this day I remember that walk.
I found a park bench soon after her desertion and sank into a wash of my pedestrianic epiphany. I began to watch the people hustling, moseying, walking, strutting, prancing, stomping, trotting, moping, strolling, sauntering, and ambling all around on that busy section of campus and got to know all of them a little bit through that looking glass to the soul that none of us think to hide. I swear that in those moments of clarity I could have guessed the name, occupation, self-image, and present punctuality of everyone I observed. Had I been walking myself it would have been on air.
With a walk one presents oneself in an often unconscious, and therefore honest way. We think about other things when we’re on our way across a parking lot, following our dogs, or approaching an interview. We walk fast when we’re anxious and tall when we’re proud. A person’s version of these walks is as unique as the pedestrians themself, but the themes are always consistent. You can always tell when a strut is deliberate and within that whether it is manifested by insecurity or egotism. You can always tell if someone’s nervous amble is triggered by something behind or something upcoming. The walk says it all; it’s a presentation we seem to rarely know we’re giving.
To the folks who don’t subscribe to the standard two-footed march, you’re included as well. Don’t think just because you use a wheelchair, prosthetics, crutches or canes, you don’t present something as you make your way down the street. Both a defeated mope and a bulletproof strut are displays that occur largely from the shoulders up. Anyone or anything capable of locomotion under their own power forgets they’re doing it at some point. They think of a point made at point A or what they’ll be when they reach point B. There is no loco-poker-face.
The next time you get a chance, watch the people around you at the mall or in the park. Do they float or bounce or drag? Are they at this location for the first time? Are they late for an appointment? Have they just made a purchase they are uncertain about? Are they mulling over a retort they wished they’d said, or intend to say? Are they walking honest? Are those new shoes? Is that guy staring at me? Does he like my walk? Should I hide or amble or do my fastest walk? See what you can learn. And try not to get into trouble.
Also feel free to test your own march, how are you pointed in travel between points? The secret to observing yourself is to allow yourself to forget to watch. Set the hourly alarm on your watch. That should give you the time to forget and will hopefully catch you in mid-strut and allow you to reflect on the moves that you convey during conveyance. Are you wheeling like Tony Monero or Hunch Quasimodo? And what exactly are you doing with that right arm?
In closing I would like to make a plea to all walks of life: Don’t let this truth I’ve unleashed affect the moving life-size signature you display, there are so very few things remaining that keep us individual. Treasure your saunter; strut like a peacock, prance like a deer, prowl like a lion, and glide like a cloud. There is always beauty in uniqueness.
As for the girl, the walk of my dreams: I didn’t like seeing you go, but I loved watching you walk away. I hope the life you eventually walked into had the good fortune of approaching you from the front.
Walk tall, all.
Patrick Hughes
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