(Opinion) My good friend Mauro is an unrepentant urbanista.
He would rather walk than take advantage of the readily available myriad choice of wheeled vehicles. And he keeps telling me that I ought to follow his good example.
If he wished, he could choose from pedal bikes waiting patiently for the insertion of a piece of plastic on sidewalk islands or scooters, push and motorized.
He could take advantage of the normal array of public buses, which seem to get longer and longer every year, regular metered taxis, and Ubers, easily recognizable by their would-be passengers’ heads straining to see if ‘that’ blue Volkswagen’s plate number matches their Uber cellphone message.
They are all the while tightly clutching these phones to keep them safe from any fast-passing cyclist who would be only too ready to snatch it and speed happily into the night.
And there is also the metro whose noisily disruptive tunneling promises – and eventually delivers – a fast and more or less economic ride from here to there, shielded from the ‘transito’ and the weather.
Why, with all these engaging options, should I choose to fearlessly navigate the potholes and broken pavement, and endure the frustrations of street crossing buttons that fail to light up the ‘walk` signal on the opposite side of the avenue?
They appear not to care that I am hungry and want to get to the restaurant before they give my table to someone else.
And that’s before I am run down by a mad motorcyclist oblivious to streetlights.
Why, do I have to take extra care to avoid the canine droppings the pet’s owner didn`t take extra care to clean up?
I always clean up after my beautiful dog.
So do the sad homeless folk whose tents increasingly line and narrow the sidewalks and whose protective dogs bark menacingly if you get too close.
The choice between the narrowed sidewalks with the dogs and the street curb with its motor and otherwise cyclists is an ever-changing challenge.
Is the challenge worth it?
On a recent splendid spring morning, my golden retriever Jordan took me for a walk as he often does in the park opposite my apartment building.
Jordan likes to circle the square garden, past the little kids joyously playing on the swings and urging parents to help them defy gravity by pushing them higher and higher.
He forces serious joggers to slightly alter direction so as not to run him over and ignores other dogs with an embarrassing hauteur.
He has very consistent likes and dislikes which become evident when he can run loose with his buddies in the enclosed dog run.
How wonderful it would be to know what they gossip about. It’s probably not about the ‘Cup’ unless it is filled with dog biscuits.
I sit on a comfortable stone bench watching the trees become greener with each sunny day.
The dimensions of the park are just bountiful enough to dull distractions, never completely, but rather like the second Caipirinha.
It’s a very good time to enjoy some very natural space just far enough from all those two, three and four wheeled vehicles, space where people are free to do their own thing, space that invites reflection, space that welcomes walking for nothing more than its own sake or for keeping up with your dog.
I’m mindful of a recent quotation from the artist William Kentridge, about the nature of our being: “Here I am constructing myself, from yesterday’s dream and tomorrow’s expectation.”
Aren’t we all wondering about that? And isn’t that walk in the park an ideal time to speculate about it?
Doesn’t the stretching of our limbs when we walk aimlessly, even when our walk is more purposeful just feel better than when we leap into a car and swear at the crazy bastard who just cut us off or stole the last damned parking space?
Mauro would say that walking can be much more than just a way to get from A to B. “It is a moment of fruition of what the city has to offer: shops, cafés, parks, watching other people, and inspired by Baudelaire, getting lost in the crowd.”
Mauro may be fighting an uphill battle in favor of creating a better urban environment where we can walk and enjoy walking, discovering all the joys of a vibrant city.
We would do well to applaud his effort and try his way, at least until the next time we want to get to the restaurant on time.