We are still in lockdown mode in New York City and I feel powerless, numb and useless. I’m an editor with no clients on the horizon and a waitress whose restaurant shut down in March. The days have been bleeding into one another for months and I wanted to change that, even for just one day.
Yesterday I walked for 15.6 miles to get from Astoria in Queens to Soho in Manhattan and back. I started the walk thinking that I’d just walk to Central Park, but that only took me about an hour and sort of ignited something inside of me to keep going. Here’s how it went and why you should maybe consider taking your own wandering walk.
(Sidenote: I had a mask on the entire time and didn’t come in contact with anyone, I’m not an idiot.)
(Sidenote #2: In order to take a walk like this, you have to have amazing bladder control because every store is closed and the ones that are open may not let you use their bathroom. I didn’t go to the bathroom for seven straight hours during this walk because I, ahem, have a fat-ass bladder that I’m abnormally proud of.)
I’ve never walked across this bridge before (I’ve only walked across the Brooklyn Bridge) and it took so much longer than I thought it would, but it was still a decent walk. Not as nice as the Brooklyn Bridge (maybe because it’s not as ornamental and old) but still, who doesn’t love a bridge walk?
Believe me when I say that there was practically no one in Central Park and the people that I did see stayed very far apart from each other. Granted, a lot of areas were blocked off, but still. For moments throughout my walk in the park, there was absolute silence and it felt unreal.
I didn’t want to stay inside the park too long mostly because I had my mask on and the sun was shining so it was getting really hot, so I ventured on. I’ll forever love the fact that you can dedicate a park bench to someone. (I just looked it up and it costs $10,000 to “adopt” a bench because of course it does, this city is nuts sometimes, nothing too nice can ever be affordable.)
After I left the park, I walked past Carnegie Hall (which always makes me think of both Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as well as Bill Cunningham) and then headed through Times Square.
I’ve never seen an empty Times Square before and it just felt sad. The city has never looked this way before. There are no crowds of people, only massive amounts of road construction going on against the backdrop of empty storefronts. Everything was turned off so fast and so easily, it’s insane to see the leftover realities of that.
From 42nd street, I headed past Bryant Park and down Fifth Avenue.
At this point I was just wandering. It still blows my mind that the subway closes at night now.
Around this point, I was getting pretty hungry so I started heading more south since I had a place in mind. I passed Madison Square Park and kept going down Broadway through an empty Union Square to get to Soho.
I got some takeout at Lovely Day (my forever favourite pad thai place) with the intention of eating it somewhere alone, not sure where yet, but I’d figure it out along the way. So I walked along Bowery heading back uptown through the East Village to get to the ferry at 34th Street.
I’ve never taken the ferry before and it was refreshing. It felt so nice to be on the water, even if it was only for a few minutes. It took me right into Gantry Plaza State Park where I found a bench chair to eat my late lunch. I stayed there for awhile and no one even walked by. That park is so great because there are a few little hidden walkways with these slanted chairs that are way more comfortable than they look. Then I started my final stretch heading home.
15.6 miles in the span of about 7 hours and here’s my face at the end of it in the lobby of my building.
I didn’t notice until posting this right now that the top of my face is clearly more tan because of the mask (pardon my glistening skin). Incase you’re going to do a walk like this of your own (you should!), here’s what I took in my backpack: a hat (forgot to use), a large full water bottle, a snack bar, my wallet, a scrunchie, my phone charger (which came in so handy, I used it three times at different LinkNYC USB ports around the city) and sunglasses. I also used the free app Map My Walk so I could have a map of the entire journey (shown below).
I took this walk mainly because I just wanted to feel in control of something for the day, since there are so many things that I can’t control right now. And I wanted my body and its capabilities to show me what I’m capable of. It’s becoming so normalized to be hateful of your own body right now and truthfully I’m too tired to participate in this ideology anymore. It’s miraculous that your body does so much for you on a daily basis and yet we still think & say such awful things to ourselves for not looking the way we think we’re supposed to look. To be so critical of something that literally gives you breath is absurd under normal circumstances, but especially right now. I’ve been saying and thinking awful things about the way I look for years and I’m exhausted. I just wanted a day where I wouldn’t be so negative about what my body isn’t and focus more on what it is and the possibilities that come with that. I shouldn’t be so hard on this body sometimes, I wanted to show myself that maybe it’s actually kind of a good body? Not good because it looks like what good should look like, but good because it can do things that make me feel powerful.