Solvitas perambulum: Solve it while walking

Submitted by tomrue on

The origin of the above Latin motto is not known to me, but I suppose it could be taken a couple ways. The first, and most likely, refers to the ability of the human mind to settle and clear itself during the simple process of putting one foot in front of another, particularly for extended distances. The second might be something along the lines of an exclamatory injunction in which the person being addressed is instructed to resolve an issue while leaving. Or, in other words, "Take a hike" or "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

In August 2003, I began walking every day at the advice of my doctor. Within a few months, I lost 60 lbs. and I felt better physically and mentally than I had in a long time. Soon the behavior formed a habit to the point that on occasions when weather or circumstances do not allow walking, my day feels incomplete. Today, during a 13-mile stretch from Monticello to Rock Hill (New York) and back, I took a collection of photos examining the condition of some bridges. More often when I take pictures while walking, they are of natural scenery or buildings.

Until my early twenties, I walked because I didn't own a car. There were times, even then, that I walked for its own sake. In 1977, while visiting kibbutz Degania Aleph, walked the 33-mile circumference of the the Sea of Galilee. Israel's largest freshwater lake is locally known in Hebrew as Yam Kinneret (ים כנרת), a name said to originate from the Hebrew word kinnor ("harp" or "lyre") - which the heart-shaped lake resembles. My most vivid recollection of that walk is that of eating a sabra fruit, freshly cut with my pocket-knife from a prickly pear cactus. The fine hairs that grow on the skin of the native Israeli fruit are hardly noticeable to the eye, but when the fruit is eaten (if not skinned first), these hairs lodge in human skin like tiny quills. They didn't hurt, I could feel the barely visible spurs in my mouth for days.

I was inspired to walk around the Sea of Galilee by a man with a long white beard who introduced himself as Alex Finn. When I met Alex, he was walking the entire length and breadth of Israel, and was planning on traveling by foot through the Sinai Desert. Briefly (very briefly), I considered joining him. The blisters on my feet after my solitary hike around the Sea of Gaililee persuaded me to return to my academic studies and and I put the idea of walking the Sinai Desert on indefinite hold. Alex wasn't with us long before he walked off to the south with his camera and knapsack. His daughter, he said, an American, had arranged funding for his a photographic expedition by foot, through the Smithsonian Institute.

Here are a few links to pages that contain photos, mostly local, that I've taken while out walking.