Measured Steps

Thoreau writes “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from all world engagements.” In a sense Thoreau measures his walks by time—he devotes three, four or five hours sauntering. Now, sauntering as Thoreau etymologically invents, derives from “the people who roamed the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre.” The saunterer was headed toward the holy land. Thoreau offers another derivation of the word. He says that saunter is said to refer to the traveler sans terre, or one without land or a home, as if, Thoreau comments, the saunterer is not homeless but may actually call his home everywhere. Thoreau’s “Walking” is a paean to the saunter and to the saunterer.
             When I was a runner, I measured my runs in distances: two, four, six, ten and twenty miles, and I would record the achievement into a running journal. I also kept record in my journal of the  minutes-per-mile at which I ran which and I would at times add a comment on the nature and quality of the run. I kept such measured and measuring records obsessively. Even my moods were measured.

 Now I don’t run but walk, and I measure my exercise in steps. The goal I seek is to finish about 10,000 steps a day though somewhere I read that 7700 steps is adequate. My number of steps is measured by my smart phone that originally I placed in my pocket so that I could listen to music on my Bluetooth ear buds (another issue I know, to be addressed at some point: the inability to be alone). The phone records my daily steps and tells me if I walked more today than I did yesterday; it tells me if I have walked more this week than I did last week; it tells me if I am walking more this month than I did last month, and if I am walking more this year than I did last year. I feel chastised by my phone when it notes that I seem to be walking less today than sometime in the past. Indeed, it seems lately that if the number of steps isn’t measured by the phone then it is as if I hadn’t walked at all!

Thoreau is a Walker, a Saunterer, but his walk is not mere exercise but becomes a step into freedom. “We should go forth on the shortest walk perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms.” His walks are measured in measures of psychological wellness; the physical benefits of his walking accompany those steps but are not the primary motive for them. “No wealth can buy the requisite leisure freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession,”—of the Walker. Thoreau’s measure expresses an expansiveness; but my walks now are quantified by the number of steps! My world seems to be shrinking. I am not sauntering.

            I do not mean this post as a recap of Thoreau’s essay, nor even a paean to walking or running or any form of exercise be it indoors or outdoors. What I am interested in concerns the question of the measurement. Thoreau walks for hours until he achieves some peaceful state. In my runs I might once have achieved this condition, but what I religiously recorded was not what I saw but how far and fast I ran. Now I have now reduced my measurement to the number of steps I have taken. It is this shrinking that concerns me. During the pandemic the world has shrunk into the confines of my home; over the past several years our cinema screens have shrunk to sometimes no bigger than the six-inch screen of a smart phone. And as our screens have shrunk so too has the focus of our vision: in the theaters our vision widened but now our vision is telescoped. 

Like Prufrock I worry that I have begun to measure my life in coffee spoons.