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September 12, 2004


Walking Alone

“I forget what my friends look like and they forget why they like me / but that's old hat. / I'm so happy. / How do you write about that?”- Harvey Danger

It was about seven o’clock on a Saturday night. The first week of sophomore year was finally over, and I was fidgety. My parents were about to have a dinner party, something in which I would normally love to participate. However, this time was different. I wanted to take a walk. Not the kind of walk that you have a planned destination though.  I wanted to wander spontaneously. I was going to go wherever the wind took me, if that’s how that cliché goes.

“Mom,” I asked, “Do you mind if I take a walk?”

“Not at all! Which way are you going?”

“I really don’t know,” I replied.

“Okay then, just take your cell phone. I’ll call you when dinner’s almost ready.”

“Thanks…”

I was surprised that she didn’t question this walk. It’s not that she is the type to question me; it’s just that it’s very out of character for me. I’m not one to just get up and leave when there’s company. In fact, I love my parent’s little get-togethers. I’ve always liked listening to their conversations. I just needed time to think. I simply got my cell phone, said good-bye, and walked out the door.

The moment the screen door slammed behind me, I was on my own. I was free to do whatever I pleased! I hurried across the busy road I live on, and wandered down Nobska Road. Nobska is one of those roads that could only be on Cape Cod. It is populated by all of these quaint little houses occupied by sweet older couples. I almost never venture down it. I don’t know why.

When I turned down that road, everything was immediately quieter. All I could hear was the faint sound of cars rushing by my noisy street and the steady singing of my gray corduroys rubbing together between my legs. As I walked, I thought of another walk I once took with my friend, Suzy, earlier that summer. She used to come to Woods Hole all summer to live with her grandparents. She only came for four days this year, and I missed her. As we walked, we discussed walks such as the one that I was taking that day.

“I love taking walks,” I said out of the blue as we wandered up a dirt road, kicking up dust. “I just don’t take them a lot because I don’t like to walk alone.”

“You wouldn’t,” she replied, but not in a mean way. She has a way of saying things nicely, even if they would sound insulting coming from anyone else.  “Its more of a Zen experience. I like to, but it’s not your style.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and at the time I did. However, now, as I strolled around the last bend of Nobska, I realized how wonderful walking alone really is and how well the word “Zen” describes it. Although I was just walking and thinking, my senses were alive. All the things I do everyday all seemed like new and amazing experiences. I was looking at a wonderful forest of healthy green trees and at cracked black asphalt as if I had never seen them.  As I stared at the faded black surface, I heard the mundane sounds of my life like I never had before.

I was at that point where Nobska Road ends. I had reached a crossroad and had to decide which way to go. I really wanted to go left, left towards the town of Falmouth, on a road I have never walked on. It would’ve been completely different, a small adventure, but I went right, towards the ocean, the lighthouse, and home.

As I walked, I noticed things that I had never seen before. I don’t mean little things either; I mean whole rows of ocean view houses with acres of land, tennis courts, and their own private beaches.

“This is disgusting,” I thought. “How could I live here for four years and not have noticed entire mansions? Am I that oblivious?”

I turned off the road on to someone’s private beach, found an uncomfortable rock to sit on, and stared out to sea. I noticed how the waves were capping at different times all along the beach, and listened to the sounds this made. It was so quiet that the cricket’s chirping seemed amplified.

These constant pulsing sounds allowed me to really think. I thought about how exactly three years ago, when every channel was CNN, I was watching the image of buildings collapse repeatedly, trying to grasp what was happening. I thought about how the first week of school had gone and the writing assignment I should have been doing. I thought about how if I were more ambitious, I would write a poem about the waves and somehow connect them to life, like my friends seem to do without effort. I even thought of a few rhyming lines and wished I had a notebook to record them, for I knew that I would forget them later.

I then thought about how most people would write about the salty smell of the ocean in their poems. I sniffed, and then sniffed again. “I don’t smell anything,” I thought. “I must have lived here too long to be able to. My god, am I that spoiled? People dream about smelling the ocean, and I have smelled it so many times that it is normal air for me.”
I sighed and went back to staring at a clump of seaweed on the ocean’s edge. It was being submerged in cold water with every wave. I felt like I could sit there forever, just staring at that clump of seaweed, but after about five minutes, I decided to move on. I still had about a mile to go before I got home. Once again the sounds of the waves and the crickets were joined by the steady singing of my corduroy pants.

I joined up with the road again and decided to go sit on the lighthouse lawn to watch the sunset. I walked the few hundred feet to Nobska Light, entered the grounds through a white picket gate, and lay down on the dead grass looking at the setting sun.

It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. I’m not sure if it was that it really was that beautiful or that I was just so happy. I almost called home to tell me parents and their friends to come and see this sunset, but I decided to be selfish. I kept the beauty all to myself. As the sun faded, I returned to the comforting noise of home once again, the happiest I had been in a long time.