A new friend, a woman who is a bit older than me, asked if I’d do something for her recently. She wanted me to start taking regular walks. This was surprising, because an interesting fact I’d only just learned about my new friend was that she really hates walking.
What’s more, she knew that I also hate walking. It was one of the many things we bonded over. It’s well known that I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid using my feet to get anywhere. I take stroll-avoiding taxis. I catch buses. I cycle. Back when I used to drink alcohol and make interesting choices, I’d spend a fortune on those illuminated rickshaws that buzz around Grafton Street late at night. I have my limits. I draw the line at electric scooters. The tiny amount of pride in me, lodged somewhere beneath my solar plexus, rules out the indignity of adult scootering.
“Will you do something for me? Will you go walking?” asked the woman who hates walking. So I did.
I went walking because a few months previously she had given me some other advice that I found impossible to refuse, and it had proved somewhat life-changing. I will tell you about that another time. The truth is, I’m not always good at taking advice. Good advice I mean. My mother, everybody’s mother, used to say, “if so and so told you to put your hand in the fire, would you do it?” and the thing is, I would have. I did. I have been known to put my hand into some mad, bad fires in my time.
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I burnt several fingers doing questionable things because I wanted to be like other people. But that was long ago. My hands have healed up nicely, although if I look closely I can still see the scars. “If so and so told you to go walking would you do it?” I would. I did.
I mean, don’t get too excited. I’ve only been walking around the block. So far anyway. I set off just before sunrise while the teenagers are still fast asleep, to get the walking over with. I’m getting up earlier these days for some reason. I walk slowly, resentfully, like I’ve nowhere to go, because the truth is I don’t. I’m not like the other people who get up early in the morning. The joggers, the people rushing for the bus, the rubbish collector near the park, the man out walking his tiny dog. I have no purpose other than walking because I’ve been told to by my new friend. I don’t really know why. Perhaps I am walking to see what happens when I go walking. It’s not as terrible as I imagined. I enjoy the cool air, the dusty blue sky overhead and the pale yellow light rising in the distance over Clontarf.
I am not walking alone. My head is full of people, some living, some dead, some in between. I bring them with me on my walks. I am not alone. I walk with them, past the railway tracks, wondering about all the passengers on the early morning Darts, and where they are going and whether they are happy or sad. My head is full of ghosts. I think about death and dying. There are people dying everywhere. I hear about them on the news. I read about them in messages on my phone. Robert Redford is dead. We’re all dying. These are the kinds of thoughts I have while walking around the block at the request of my friend who can’t stand walking.
We have no control. We think we do, but if this life teaches us anything at all, we really don’t
My mother, who turned 86 last month, has written a book about ageing and about what happens in your head when you get conventionally closer to your death day. It’s a surprisingly funny book. The working title, a question she was asked by her youngest grandchild, is When are you going to die, Nanny? My mother couldn’t really answer the question. It’s a tricky one in fairness. When are you going to die, Roisin? It’s hard to say.
A friend once told me that when she was very ill, she’d make bargains with herself and with the universe. She wouldn’t mind slipping away if she could just make it until her son was a certain age. To see him into college. Or married, maybe. I don’t make bargains. I remain open to whatever is going to happen. We have no control, so there’s no point trying to make deals. We have no control. We think we do, but if this life teaches us anything at all, we really don’t.
I’m sorry that I don’t have anything new to say about death or dying or walking for that matter. I just walk around the block and think of dead friends who don’t feel dead to me. As I walk I hear Aisling’s loud, long laugh and I see Brian’s beautiful smile, which can still melt my heart. I walk and I cry and I think about what to make my mother for dinner when she comes for her weekly visit. She says she doesn’t mind what we have, that she just wants to be around our table laughing and talking. Maybe meat loaf, I think. And then I am at my door. I am home.
