Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
It’s not likely to be a workday except for those who are still working at home. (I mean professionally. All women work at home.) More likely a weekend day, but for me as for many other women Saturday is for errands that nearly always require driving. And so for me it’s Sunday, beginning today.
I live in a walkable neighborhood: the bookstore, the coffee shop, the park, a couple of restaurants and my church are all within ten blocks of my house. On a beautiful spring day, like yesterday (too chilly for real spring, but with the Vernal Equinox today, a good introduction) walking with Pip, always delighted to go along, is a pleasure. Less so of course on a freezing winter day or in summer with the intense heat that climate disruption is bringing.
I wasn’t searching for a walkable neighborhood when I bought this house fifteen years ago; the thought didn’t occur to me, then. Most of us don’t think of walking when we look for a place to live—the lack of sidewalks here and nearly everywhere prove our dependence on cars. But as we move into several crises—climate disruption, and the high price of gas among them—surely we can find a way to dodge the cars (some of the drivers may ever have heard that fifty miles an hour is the most efficient speed for saving gas) and perhaps have a new thought or two as we look at the trees and the sky.
Maybe even a prayer for peace.
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