Although I've always considered myself a pedestrian, it took the sour situation of the end of my last relationship to really propel me to explore the streets of Edmonton on foot. Although the majority of my transportation in the city had been on foot, rarely did I set out on walks just for the sake of walking. At least not by myself. I had always found walking to be a calming experience, and so in the thick of what was probably one of the more stressful periods of my life, I would escape from my apartment and just walk. At the risk of sounding too overly dramatic, I can honestly say that walking was probably the one activity that helped me the most at that time.

Perhaps it was the endorphins that were released during exercise (I would walk fast enough for it to be considered exercise)... maybe it was the vitamin D. Whatever the combination of elements, walking became more than just a form of every day transportation for me. My daily constitutional became the one part of my day that I was loathe to miss.

Of course winter arrived, and with winter came snow and ice... and although I pledged to continue, the frequency and length of my daily constitutional dwindled. I ventured out a few times now and again, but I fell trap to working longer and ending my day too tired to even think about walking. Which of course was ridiculous, since walking is one of those things that tends to perk me up. But after a winter of breaking my daily habit - working late into the evening and pausing briefly for supper and other life activities, my mood was getting progressively worse and worse. The last two weeks in particular... I found that I was becoming rather negative when I had no cause to be. The gentleman had commented on my general unpleasantness, which gave me pause... if he felt it necessary to comment on my attitude, how might I be coming across to others? I sought to remedy this immediately.

My plan... resume the daily constitutional.

On Sunday I was up early, so before breakfast I left the apartment and headed towards one of my preferred routes. I brought the beast along in case I felt like documenting things photographically (or cinematically as the case would be). As I wandered across the river and round about through Whyte Ave, I encountered a friend on her way to her community garden plot, a colleague out for coffee, and many random strangers who had left their homes on this beautiful Sunday, meeting friends for breakfast or stopping in at one of the many shops along the avenue.

(And now, the video of my stroll, accompanied by the sorrowful crooning of Frank Sinatra in the hilariously fitting tune entitled Walk Away. Sometimes I can't resist these music choices, no matter how cheeseballish they seem)


When you walk along the same route frequently, you start to take note of certain things. I walk on the multi-use trails a lot and I can't help but notice the variety of people using them, whether they be traveling on foot or rolling by on their bicycles or skateboards. While I'm sure many were just between point a and point b, I'm sure there were several who, like me, were out exploring the city just because.

This may end up being one of those posts that I never finish or choose to delete once I write it out. That would be a general indication that this post will be personal in nature, so of very little interest to anyone but myself. But I'm in need of a venting session. I was frustrated today and finding it difficult to pretend to be cheery. I was beginning to feel useless, but then late in the afternoon I received a small morsel of good news. I'm waiting for the rest of it.

I've spent the majority of the summer being very self-involved. It was all about sorting things out for myself, dealing with the end of a relationship and working on a project that would hopefully help me bridge into something extremely exciting. I've been social, I've been solitary. I've been taking the same self portrait over and over. Me, alone, standing in front of my window, trying to look positive, sometimes succeeding. But mostly, I've been walking. A walk which today I put off yesterday because I didn't sleep all so well the past couple of nights and I didn't want to go out during the peak heat of the afternoon.

I've had a few offers over the summer from people who have wanted to join me on my daily constitutional. But to be perfectly honest, I actually enjoy the solitary stroll. There's something about walking alone with some music to drown out the sound of the traffic that I find relaxing. I'm free to daydream as I wish and I don't have to worry about making interesting conversation. My walks are about the only time that I really love being alone.

This will not be a post about how I enjoy long walks on the beach. No, this is a more general post where I wax lyrical about my love of ambulatory movement. It's no secret that I like to go for long walks. My 20 minute walk to work is too short sometimes. It seems to end just as I'm beginning to enjoy myself. Walking is the most natural way to start off my morning. This solitary pedestrian journey has been my routine for almost my entire life, with a few short breaks when I was in high school and I would carpool with a couple of my friends and in university when I took the proletariat chariot (although all of these trips still began and ended with a little bit of walking). Recently I've taken to a post work stroll across the river and back. It's probably incorrect of me to classify my walk as a stroll, because I like to walk fast and my pace could hardly be described as a leisurely stroll or even a saunter. I walk with purpose and conviction, even if I'm not really sure on my direction.

At work we are in the midst of a pilot project to log our daily commuting choices in an effort to somehow promote the use of sustainable transportation modes (one of A's projects). This morning as I dutifully logged into the website to document my 1.62km commute, I began to wonder how far I have actually been walking every evening. A few quick clicks in Google Maps and I quickly discovered that I walk just over 10km a night. I figure that's pretty reasonable. I could easily double that, but then my night would be filled with solitary ambulation. I realize that I might have what is considered a walking addicition (not unlike a runner's high). I don't think it's a bad thing. But I have to worry sometimes that this urge for animal locomotion might take over, and that double pendulum motion which propels me might take control, not unlike Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the red shoes (good thing I forgot my red shoes in Trinidad).

There is of course one thing that will stop me in my tracks (heyO). That is of course a photo opportunity. And let me tell you my friends that the world is full of them. It is impossible to document all of them of course, which is why I often leave my camera at home when I go out for my daily constitutional. However, on Sunday evening I left the apartment with the express purpose of taking photos.

I wandered through the familiar streets of Oliver, making my way to Victoria Promenade, looking very touristy with my camera slung around my neck. I carried two lenses with me (the 50mm and 17-40) to provide me with a little bit of variety in my shots.

Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating a bit with photography. It's so easy to think that it's the camera that is doing so much of the work. But then I have to acknowledge that the camera doesn't assist me with composition, the camera doesn't know when to take a photo. It doesn't wait for a breeze to start or stop, or a cloud to move by. It doesn't know where to stop on the street, how to move back four or five paces to better frame a shot.

This was my favourite shot of the evening. If you follow my photostream at all, you will know that I have a minor fascination with looking up at buildings, particularly how this perspective accentuates how a building would vanish if it were any taller. I also find that looking up at buildings, removing them from their horizontal context (how they are tied to the ground) makes me look at the lines of a building differently. I love the abstract patterns of shadow and repetitions of windows. And as two of my friends pointed out, in this shot the reflection in the windows create a false continuity, as if the apartments themselves were filled with the sky.

Oh, what a beautiful dreamer am I. Time to pull my head out of the clouds.