It's a cure for anxiety, an escape from domestic tension, a means of transport – and there's no better way to procrastinate. Novelist Emily Perkins loves to walk.
I do not run. I will never run. I like my knees. I like my ankles. I like to be able to breathe, and I like not vomiting from exertion. I like to make my way down the street without looking as if I’m fleeing a crime – or more accurately, with my running style, as if I am the crime. Running is for other people.
But oh – I love to walk. Every time I go for a walk I feel grateful that this is something my body can do, and know this is not the case for everyone, for any number of physical or circumstantial reasons. Part of my appreciation for walking is the awareness of this good fortune – to have the time, the space, the physical ability to leave the house, breathe, put one foot in front of the other and look around me.
Walking is the ultimate way of doing something while you’re doing nothing – a bit like being pregnant. It’s not productive but it feels like an achievement. It is free, accessible, and gets you away from the computer screen.
I work from home. My job is writing, which also means reading, and thinking, and snacking, and procrastinating. I procrastinate online. I procrastinate by making lunch. I procrastinate by having a nap on the floor (23 minutes max – I could write a whole essay about the joy of napping). I don’t procrastinate usefully by weeding the garden or putting things away or folding clothes. After the last of my children left home – no, be honest, way before that – I gave up folding clothes. Maybe one day I’ll take it up again but for now I’d rather go for a walk.
When I say walking, I also mean looking. Thinking. Listening. Letting my mind wander. Walking, for lots of writers, is a crucial part of the process. If I’m stuck on something in my work, by far the best thing is to go for a walk – not to attack it front on. Sometimes I’ll clearly state the problem to myself (usually a form of ‘what would this character do in this situation?’) then just head out the door and not actively try to come up with an answer. It’s when you let the subconscious do its work that those plot discoveries and character insights land in your imagination – and walking is one of the best ways to get into this state. Something to do with the rhythm, the meditative pace, connecting with your heartbeat. I always take my phone in case I have to jot things down. While writing my last novel (in which a character goes for a memorable, life-altering walk through Te Ahumairangi at night) I probably walked so much that if you stuck all my walks end to end I’d have circumnavigated the globe.
How many walks did I go on before settling down to write this? More than one. But it’s research, right? On my walk today I saw a cat with a collar like a jester’s ruff, bees going crazy over some manuka, a diving tuī, an elderly couple holding hands, a playground under construction, a man on a cherry picker fixing a roof and another man sitting on a park bench, singing. I bumped into a writer I know and they told me some excellent gossip. There are always birds: kākā, pīwakawaka, ducks. I’ve seen titiwai illuminating the paths. Toadstools. Erosion. Lenticular clouds, snow on distant hills, the harbour. It’s enough to make you love Wellington.
My love of walking started here, when I was a teenager. What better way to escape your family or have a sneaky cigarette? At some point we got a dog, and even I, a cat person, liked the excuse he provided for a walk. It wasn’t just the smoking, either – I was addicted to the quiet in the bush paths off our local park, to the damp, mossy air, the flow of creek water across rocks. A place to inhale and think.
But a walk doesn’t have to be in nature to be enjoyable. When I lived in London I loved walking through Soho, or the scruffy neighbourhood we lived in – loved the masses of people and buildings and visible history and street names – best of all was walking down to the South Bank and along the Thames under pearly grey clouds. Above ground, rather than traveling everywhere by tube, I got to know the city.
I moved to Auckland in my mid-thirties, an anxious time, and found walking was an excellent cure for nerves. Anyone familiar with anxiety will know that unwelcome, unrelenting surge of adrenaline – one way I dealt with it was to let it power me out the door and through the suburban streets, walking until I was no longer in its grip. I nearly always found myself more settled on arriving home – although the habit of walking to escape domestic scenes didn’t leave me, and more than once I walked away from a dinner table of fighting children to clear my head in the local park.
Because these are the walks I’m talking about – not long hikes, nothing where you have to plan, look at a map, or carry water. Not power walks, not walking to tick exercise off a to-do list or count steps. Not even walks to get somewhere – though walking is always more fun than waiting for the bus. But walks out my front door – on my own, with a mate, with music or a podcast or silence – just a little walk, maybe half an hour or longer, enough to turn the day around.
Emily Perkins' latest novel Lioness (published by Bloomsbury) came out this year.
This essay is part of a series 'This Makes Me Happy' about the things that bring us joy.
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