More than 3.1 million U.S. women with a history of breast cancer were alive on January 1st, 2014.
Some inner consciousness of deference guides my interactions with the people I meet on the sidewalks of my wandering. I have not observed the same caution and consideration in the people I pass on my trips across the concrete. One strolling morning, I saw a man and a woman approaching me. The man had a dog on a leash and the dog was snuffling along the grass at the edge of someone’s yard; next to them, the woman walked close to a grass strip that edged the street. They were walking toward the East, and I was going West. Man with leashed dog to the right of me, woman to the left and I was stuck in the middle.
I try to walk, often. Not as much as I can, though, for I am cold-weather challenged, and inherently lazy. But I do get in a moderate amount of walking in my micro-hood. I’m always looking forward, up, down and around. I will stop when I hear an unfamiliar call and try to find and identify the bird. I watch for the skulking of cats and the scrabble of squirrels, and will stop in wonder at a sudden burst of sparrows, seemingly thrown into the air by the bush. And I see the people who share the sidewalk with me. I understand that in cycling, the courteous tradition is to warn the walkers that you are “on the left.” I think that urban runners and joggers observe the same rule. I remember Téa Leoni in the movie “Spanglish,” pounding up a street and barking at slow walkers: “Left! Left!” There does not seem to be those kinds of considerations in place for those of us on the sidewalks of life. The prevailing attitude seems to be, “head up, no eye contact and bogart on through.” I don’t do that.
When I see an approaching walker, I start to make minute calculations: how fast is the walker; what side is he or she favoring and how soon will we intersect. I adjust my passage to insure that a sufficient amount of room is created for us to pass, peacefully. I used to do these calculations unconsciously, having long ago committed myself to wordless courtesy. But the increasing frequency of encounters with other walkers who give no thought to how two groups on a small path are going to manage the pass has brought my calculations to the forefront of my critical thinking. Two people and a dog approached me outside of a wood, and none of the three creatures seemed inclined to yield space to an approaching traveler. I stepped into the street to allow them to pass; their gratitude went unstated.
So now, I have devised a plan to address this lack of courtesy. When I see an approaching horde and do not detect any shifting and course corrections to facilitate a peaceful pass, I plan to stop at the outside edge of the walk and turn away from the bogarting walkers and stare into the air, my hand shielding my eye. This immobile pose will force the approaching crowd to flow around me, perhaps wondering what I have seen in the air that is so interesting. And I cannot wait to employ my strategy. I have visions of passing motorists glancing over to see me on the edge of a passing crowd, looking upward for angels, perhaps, or maybe trying to get a message from a magical billboard.
I was strolling on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh recently, but the flow of latex around me impeded my sidewalk shenanigans.