Big City Walking

I don't have accurate memories of learning how to walk but I'm pretty sure it took me a while to master the standing up, the one foot in front of the other and the moving without teetering. For most, including me, when it comes to learning how to be pedestrian it happens slowly. And now it is happening again.

Not that I am struggling with standing up and the basics of one foot following the other but I am struggling with learning how to walk in big city crowds. Having moved from Perth to Melbourne I now face twice (or more) the size of city pedestrians. Walking involves breaking into and through walls of folk. Passing pedestrians means going wide and often into the gutter. Getting somewhere on foot means learning to appreciate that other people are walking without a purpose. Big city crowds incorporate people who like to stroll, then stop suddenly and simply enjoy standing in the middle of a footpath.

Learning to walk BIG city style is akin to learning how to drive bumper cars without the cars.

Then again, learning anything requires a bit of bash, crash and stumble & fall. Always better to see the challenge as an adventure in side show alley rather than getting hot, steamy and suffering pedestrian footpath rage.

HOPS - Higher Order Presentation Skills

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Cracks in the Jetty

As a kid I was afraid to walk on the Esperance jetty because I thought I would fall through the cracks. Now, let me make it quite clear here that I was not a super thin kid so there was no actual way I could possibly slither.

I am not sure when the cracks stopped having power over me. There was no Karate Kid moment, no climactic arm pumping Rocky run, no triumphant knock out blow… just one day, in one set of holidays, where I forgot about the cracks and walked up the jetty without worry.

Decades later I was watching Jack Nicholson in the movie ‘As Good As It Gets’. His character wouldn’t step on any of the cracks in the New York pavement. I laughed, smiled and kind of understood.

If the character had come to me for advice I probably would have said to him ‘just get busy enjoying other stuff in life and somehow the cracks dissolve’. Better still, I might even attempt singing some Leonard Cohen lines from his song Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget the perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

I have learned to love the cracks in life: cracking up, giving things a crack, things being crackerjack. Life is more interesting with a crack or two.

Waves Across the Nullabor

When you take a slow (or fast) drive across Australia you get to drive 'the longest straight stretch of road in the World' or so the sign says. 1000 kilometers east of Perth on the Nullabor Plain you hit the 90 Mile Straight (146 km). No bend, no kink,no deviation. The only trouble with no kinks in life is that they can sometimes make you become complacent.

One of the many beautiful things about the long drive across Australia is that more often than not when approaching on-coming traffic you and the on-coming driver exchange a little wave of the hand in passing. Sometimes you can go for hours without on-coming traffic, other times there can be three of four vehicles in the space of an hour. These little waves, these acknowledgements of the passing 'ships in the night' help to keep focus, help to jolt complacency. They may be only little waves from seemingly 'complete strangers' but it is a way that long haul drivers look out for each other. It's a way of saying 'Mate, keep alert. You're not alone. It's good to see you.'

Little waves are important in life whether we are driving long straight roads or walking bending streets in a thriving metropolis. Human beings need connectivity, we need to acknowledge and be acknowledged as part of a whole. Little waves in the form of a nod, a knowing smile, a gentle hand, a thumbs up... are ways of reminding us to reach out and understand. Let's not take our fellow folk for granted. Little waves can keep us trucking.