ART AND CRAFT — SAUNTER SPECIAL

I was encountering errors when I attempted to insert my pictures throughout this account; you can find a link to the album here, and scroll as you follow along.

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Let's assume someone walks three miles an hour.

The 5th Edition Player’s Handbook of Dungeons and Dragons cites the Normal pace of an adventuring party as 24 miles per day for an eight-hour travel day; Worlds Without Number, my personal fantasy game of choice, cites a similar rate of travel at 3 miles an hour for a ten-hour travel day. Both these resources, in all their scientific repute, seem to come to similar, reasonable conclusions as to how people ought to go about the whole act of walking for a long period of time.

Sometime early in the fall, I saw a social media notification about an event called The Great Saunter. As advertised, it was a walk around the whole of Manhattan Island, its name reflecting a casual, meditative air sure to delight its thousands of annual attendees. I saw the ad and thought, Huh. That sounds pretty cool. In my calendar it went, a distant blip in the span of my rather month-by-month forecast.

At some point, I was scheduling some commitment or another, lining it up with my available Saturdays; I paved over my note for the Saunter, and thought Ah well. The weeks went on. The hot chocolate walks concluded. My directing class ended. Winter thawed into spring. And as I was examining my schedule for the coming weeks, I realized something: The Great Saunter had not, indeed, been overrun. That other obligation that I was sure fell smack on the same day did not, in fact, correlate with the occurrence of this annual event—it wasn’t even a run-of-the-mill workout day!—and there was nothing for me to do with myself but to partake in this jauntily-named walk.

I love a good walk. I attribute the disposition to my parents. From an early age, I have been taken on strolls around vast New English cranberry bogs, through snow-laden backyard forests, up mountains, around sun-dappled lakes, up backroads to the library, through craggy gorges, up more mountains. I took the hint from the odd couple who introduced me to these sorts of outings and insisted upon my attendance—now I do it myself, and delight in dragging friends along with me.

New York, and Manhattan more specifically, has proven to be a delightful place to walk. An amble of any length can take a person to a peaceful riverside, a view of jaw-dropping towers, a park or a secluded garden, or a delightful new ice cream vendor or gelateria. I have eschewed a convenient public transit ride in favor of a ramble up my favorite avenues, taken the long way home from work or an event in order to soak in the sunset off the windows and absorb the chatter of myriad returners-home.

When I realized I was in fact quite available to walk the walk, the first thing I did was tell people about my attendance, so that I could be pumped up and showered with admiration for my undertaking. Sure, it was to be a thrilling personal experience, a capstone to my first year in New York City, but it would be perfect to have people in my corner cheering me on, too. Plus, NYC Shorewalkers, the organizers of the event, predicted average walkers to take between ten and twelve hours to complete the entire Saunter. I would need companionship on my journey—or surely at least yearn for it over the course of a long day of walking.

The responses I received from my social media missives and personal outreach were confusing. 

First of all, there was no exaltant praise of my resolution; no one immediately reached out to me to express what I would describe as fawning awe or worshipful adoration. But, more confusingly, it didn’t seem as if the respondents I did hear from understood the gravity of the tradition in which I was participating. My father:

10 to 12 hours? Are they stopping along the way for a 6 hour rest?😏

Dad. What? 

As it turned out, Rick had misprised the scale of The Great Saunter.

Oh, I thought you said you were walking around central park. Never mind. 😊

Nowhere in my texts did I make any mention of Central Park, but my father’s mistake represented probably a greater wisdom at play in his assumptions: what kind of nutcase would walk all the way around the Concrete Jungle all day when there’s a perfectly nice park in which they might rather partake?

The rest of the replies hung no such flags. A smattering of well-wishes, reminders to bring sunscreen, and agreements to call me as I walked. And a last remark from my father, on clearing things up:

That is a. l-o-n-g walk!

It was, Dad. It was.

You see, the circumference of the Isle of Manhattan, at least for the purposes of The Great Saunter, is 32 miles. Now, I knew the 24-mile-per-day rule by heart (or I thought I did—my initial recollection was 25) but I figured an extra 8 miles would only exceed the Fast pace of a standard party—30 miles—by 2 such measures, and I wasn’t worried about a -5 penalty to Perception checks or being hounded by roving packs of gnolls.

I made myself a batch of overnight oats and prepacked my bag: my phone charger, a battery brick generously gifted by my co-tenant Chris, sunscreen, my water bottle, a copy of The Magician’s Land (something for the train down to the starting line) a PB&J sandwich, an apple, an RX Bar, a protein bar, my bone-conduction headset (I like being able to hear my surroundings while I walk), and an extra pair of socks. My raincoat I stuffed at the very bottom of my bag; forecasts suggested a possible day of rain, but the NYC Shorewalkers’ Instagram page cheerily notified attendees that they would give live updates about lightning risk as the walk commenced.

I went to sleep at my usual time, around midnight. I wasn’t concerned about an early wakeup for the sake of the Shorewalkers’ advertised 7am-9am (was it 9? it might have been less merciful) start time for the event; to be honest, I didn’t even pay for a bib. Too expensive to pay for a walk I could do myself, I thought about the $30ish registration fee that would be donated to NYC Parks and Rec; Bah humbug, I practically remarked as my cursor hovered about the event’s landing page. If I paid, I would feel inclined to show up on time, which would require I wake up much too early on a day where I would be walking for up to 12 hours. The express train alone from Washington Heights to Fraunces Tavern is about an hour’s ride (a dreadful omen of the walking ahead). Why not just take it at my own pace? Wake up at my usual 7:30ish, make my way down, skip the crowds. Pay nothing. Perfect.

At 5 o’clock on Saturday morning my body decided that it had about had it with the waiting around and I found myself quite thoroughly awake, ready—or not—to face the day. I scooped overnight oats out of a former peanut butter jar, listening to the birds chirp in the blue light of sunrise.

My book served me well for the subway ride: the time passed like it was nothing. Soon enough, I was making my way through the cobblestone maze of Lower Manhattan, counting the intersections from Chambers Street to Pearl Street. I started noticing certain people, measuring my proximity to the starting line by clocking their frequency like ticks on a Geiger counter. The typical figure bore a fashionable backpack, a white bib with bold numbers, neon apparel with a synthetic shine. They were like me, and I was like them, sans bib—we trickled towards the starting line like some great human tributary, flowing north to south towards the confluence of the Hudson and East Rivers.

I didn’t quite arrive at the starting line. The site was like something out of an SNL skit, making me frankly a little relieved I hadn’t registered and thus obligated myself to deal with it. Instead of standing in line, I snapped a picture of myself at the top of the lap—the timestamp would be useful later in recording my pace—and followed the flow of the crowd out from Fraunces Tavern onto the FiDi waterfront.

Earlier, I had been fortunate enough to hear back from a friend who was also sauntering the Saunter, and, by some lovely serendipity, our arrival times aligned just about perfectly. After a Marco Polo-style series of texts, we found each other and hit the trail together.

Lower Manhattan’s waterfront is really an awesome part of the city. It's got a beautiful view of the Hudson River and the bay beyond, a vast vantage point of Jersey’s towers opposite, and a sleek series of piers and parks available for public access. Now, it was the backdrop for a surprisingly sentimental leg of the journey. When I was a bright-eyed theatre kid in high school, the theatre department’s NEW YORK TRIP—the caps are intended to indicate such a trip's legendary status for a suburban theatre kid—saw my classmates and I taking lunch at a mall next to the water (Brookfield Place?), kicking back with friends and dreaming of a future where we were here.

During my senior year at Ithaca College, I volunteered to chat with prospective students deciding between Ithaca and other colleges for their undergraduate studies. One of those prospective students, Madz, determined that Ithaca College wasn’t for them, but in spite of that, they stayed in touch over the past four years. When we met up in Lower Manhattan for the walk, they were now facing down graduation from Pace University’s theatre program, a full span of collegiate experience already behind them. Time flies.

Madz and I walked and talked for a good while. It certainly seemed as if their choice of college worked well for them; they’ve been writing plays, doing improv comedy, and connecting with what seems like a great network of peers and contemporaries.

Their legs are also shorter than mine, and my sister was calling me, so we parted ways when they rendezvoused with their boyfriend somewhere a bit above Little Island. My first days living in NYC, when I was just setting out on that old dream of mine, I made my way all the way south, from WaHi to the Intrepid Museum. Now, I walked the reverse route, tracing my course back through the journey I began my time here with.

As a result, this portion of the Saunter was one I was familiar with, a familiarity reinforced by my conversation with Julia. Spending the hour or so with the sun shining down and my family’s voice in my ears was a great way to travel. My sister and I talked at length about all manner of outdoorsy things. She was, a little over 200 miles away, taking a nice walk herself, a lap around Walden Pond (the one of Emerson fame). We talked about the oddities of high school band kids; she had been one, ages ago,  and had a nice bit to share with me about how to step properly for a long march.

On the narrow bike lanes crowded with fellow walkers, I started to become aware of my own pace in relation to others: persistent, maybe a little rapid. I have long theorized that my walking pace is in the top 75th percentile in the city—I imagine I get that from my dad. The walk northward became a bit of a game for that stretch, as I judged distances in the foot and bicycle traffic and overtook fellow walkers. The sun was hot; I reapplied sunscreen as I walked, hoping I wouldn’t sweat off the white gobs of grease.

I started noticing the tired sensation in my legs around Washington Heights, maybe a little earlier in Upper Harlem. It was a dull, persistent ache that might have slowed me down had someone not captured my attention as they sped past me: as the crowd powered up a hill, I saw a flash of blue sandals, a woman probably a bit older than me easing on by.

I was amazed. How was she setting such a brisk pace uphill? In flip-flops?? I checked her bib number—484. It was a striking number: two half-values flanking a whole, eight itself being some effigy of infinity. I committed it to memory in that grandiose way; you can tell how impressed I was, and how little else I had to do with my brain once my call with Julia ended. I felt a little bashful. Was I developing a crush on this person based on how fast she could walk a marathon in sandals?

The field of entrants condensed in Cabrini Boulevard, the titular hills stratifying the walkers into distinct cohorts. I ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and my apple on the go, right behind 484 and a clutter of other youthful walkers.

Youthful for the most part, rather—because amidst a selection of young jogger types and my doofy self, there was an older woman with a distinct gait: one mottled arm folded behind her back, the other swinging in time with her steel-cable legs. I want to be you when I retire, I thought, dripping peanut butter into my tupperware.

Iron Gran was a socialite, as well. I forget what precisely sparked it—maybe a remark about the lattice-and-brick architecture of Cabrini Boulevard?—but there was soon a lively conversation going on between 484 and Gran. I was a little envious; I wanted to strike up a conversation with my fellow walkers so easily, too, especially with walkers who could effortlessly outpace me in sky-blue flip-flops. In my shyness, I resorted to eavesdropping. My fellow walkers were simply fascinating. I’m a little embarrassed to write how many compelling snippets of other lives lived I picked up on while I was working up the bravery to say hello.

As it turns out, I never did. Past the beautiful gardens of Fort Tryon Park, probably around the Inwood Hill area, 484 excused herself to take a pit stop and that was that. Never saw her again.

Iron Gran, though, was a different story. Quickly deciding I was her next mark—what a distorted lens my social anxiety puts on casual chatter—Iron Gran struck up a conversation with me next in no time flat, and I had a lovely—if somewhat stilted, thanks to me—social backdrop to the twisting riverside cliffs of Inwood Hill. As it turned out, Michelle (as she introduced herself) had some serendipitous proximities to me. She is a resident of one of several large “cities” in Vermont—that’s what Vermonters call it when enough people get together to share maple sugaring spigots—and a previous resident of the Pasadena/Altadena neighborhood of LA, where my dear Ryan and a couple family friends reside. She was walking the Saunter on a whim. “My husband and I are visiting New York for four days and thought we’d do it again,” she said, relieving her previous conquest of the challenge a decade ago. “Maybe I’ll make it to the end. We’ll see! My husband is going to bike the route twice.”

“I want to be you when I get older,” I said, this time out loud, but she was already far ahead of me; I’d reduced my pace to let another woman into the conversation and Michelle promptly declared the both of us were “slowing her down.” I could have sworn I heard a V8 engine shifting gears as she powered up the present hill and out of sight.

By then, we were halfway done, curling underneath the Henry Hudson Bridge and making our way along Spuyten Duyvil Creek. A great fanfare awaited us at this marker; a truckload of Cheez-Itz and Body Armors were being distributed to a looong queue, crowds of people milling around or nursing their sore feet or shuffling by unaffiliated with it all. One pair of young guys, I assume not participating, walked through the park as they joked to each other how white the assembly was. Fair point, I supposed, but the walk was more of a mix than their derisive tone might have indicated. I wondered for a moment how the Shorewalkers’ messaging was reaching people, who it was reaching, and what kinda folks would actually want to do such a thing.

I didn’t stop at the halfway, much as my legs were beginning to burn. The grass was green and inviting, the shade cool and tranquil. I was worried that if I stopped, I would never start again. I was, after all, not far from home. How easy would it be to just hop on the A train? my knees whispered to me. Pick up a pastry from CHOCnyc and go home?

No, I replied, no. Keep marching. Little did I know what awaited me.

The next leg of the journey was the worst part, in terms of road conditions, at least. You see, the upper east portion of Manhattan’s perimeter is marked by the Harlem River Drive Greenway, a strip of pavement that is heavy on the drive and light on the green. Here, the sun beat down on a strip of land directly adjacent to the nearby Harlem River Drive, steady traffic rumbling past as our feet pounded the hard ground. My memories of the stretch are clouded by some strange yellowy sepia tone, as if they had been shot in the narcotic-laden Mexico of crime fiction. It was as if it wanted to project an air of desolation. The views of the Bronx on the opposite bank were flat and uninviting, punctuated only by the occasional stark, brutalist apartment block. My fellow walkers had fanned out; I had even seen some going in the opposite direction on my way to here. I was terrified I was going in the wrong direction. I didn’t want to have to retrace a single step. The mere thought of doubling back sent waves of despair washing over me. On top of all that, it was a lonely stretch of my journey, too—my next call wouldn’t come until I was off the Greenway, what felt like hours later.

We made our way off the Greenway and into Harlem proper, I believe somewhere near or upon Sugar Hill. Again, diversions tempted me: this was the home of Sugar Hill Creamery! I could stop for delicious local ice cream! But no—I forged on. It marked the first moment I availed the concessions being handed out to paying walkers. Volunteers stood on the side of the path and offered Smart Waters. No bibs were checked. My gallant 32-ounce Hydroflask was long empty, its contents evaporated as sweat under the hot sun. I took a water bottle; my guilt at taking something meant for paying walkers only lasted as long as it took for the water to touch my lips. Surely they had a surplus available. I will donate, I resolved.

By the time I called Ryan, passing through Harlem, I was delirious. I'm not certain what the two of us talked about. I don't imagine I was entirely coherent. But I do remember, plodding through the back streets of East Upper Manhattan, a sense of wonder at the accomplishments that my friend and I could report to each other. I had been living in Manhattan for about a year now, making my way in pursuit of an artistic livelihood; Ryan, in the meantime, was finishing their first year of graduate school, all the way across the continent. For an hour, I marveled at their academic exploits, and they weathered my delirious ramblings. My feet smacked the ground, over and over and over again. After a while, they had to go. East Midtown and Lower Manhattan stretched before me. I had passed the two-thirds mark.

There's some tract along the East River waterfront that's actually really cool, a park or something. I don't remember what it's called. I recall gorgeous views of what must have been Queens and a terraced, cobblestone parkway. Grab another drink offered by cheering volunteers in yellow shirts—huh, lime Body Armor. Tasty. Hydration. Prop my foot on a bench for a moment if only to bend my knees and stretch my calcifying calves. Continue. The rest of the pack was thinly-spread now. I saw the occasional bibbed walker plopped on the nearest suitable perch, massaging burning legs and aching feet, shoes and moleskin strewn about them and grim expressions on their faces. I wouldn't be them. Keep going. I wondered how many people stopped partway through. I took pictures aplenty—many, many bridges. Many distant towers. Sparkling water of the East River at my side.

Off the boulevard now and in the 100s, the 90s. Every highway sign on FDR Drive mocked me: 71st Street in a quarter of a mile. 101st Street 1 mile distant. How many blocks in a mile? How much left in my legs before they collapsed from under me? Every time I took a selfie, my face twisted into a smile, or some form of cheery grimace. I bewildered myself. The connection between my brain and my body was no longer distinct to me. 59th in half a mile. Oh hey. That's the bottom of Central Park. There's an A Station there.

I have to credit Julia as one of my foremost supporters throughout the Saunter; a few times throughout, she would prod me for details and updates, pictures. There were one or two moments where she was in it just to rib me:

SEVEN MORE MILES
NOBODY TOLD ME NOT TO DO THIS

YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN ON THE SUBWAY AT ANY TIME LMAO

And yeah—would I have done this had anyone told me, “slow your roll Michael, 32 miles is a lot”?

Maybe not. But probably.

I don't like pain. I'm fairly agreeable—I like to take good advice. And I don't want to permanently injure myself in a follysome athletic pursuit. But built within me is a deep sense of stubbornness, a defiance born I think of a feeling, founded or not, of often being underestimated. A friend of mine recently described me as having a “sleeper build”: unassuming, but possessed of a strength that reveals itself under duress. Who knows? I'm not convinced we are anything much beyond what we tell ourselves we are.

For now, what I was was in agony. Before me stretched the United Nations complex. Yes, yes, beautiful. Extraordinary to live in a place once at the center of global peace efforts. Ah, yes, Trump Tower, glassy and dark. That's there too. It was a beautiful stretch. It all passed. I remembered a walk I had taken from my class around 39th to a hot chocolate place in SoHo, on a day distant and cloudy and cold. Now, the sun set on a warm day, and I was on the opposite side of the island. How far are those buildings stretching into the distance, huh? Surely they have to be in Brooklyn. That can't all be Manhattan land I have left to traverse. 

I felt an indescribably sense of elation once the street signs begun listing names instead of numbers. Soon, I thought. Soon. Somewhere west of me was a tangled mess of cobblestone streets that had abandoned the grid system like it was a tiresome hookup. I gained a burst of energy from an adorable dog that would dart ahead of its human companion and look back expectantly. “I'm still here! I'm coming!” came the reassurance. I expressed what a wonderful dog it was. Its guardian agreed.

There were three miles left and the lower half of my body was fomenting a secession. My back ached—damn, walking stresses the back, too! My legs screamed. My feet felt like sacks of rubble. Passers-by enjoying the day in normal, reasonable ways started to remark, “you're doing the walk, huh? Woah!” Those who didn't express such marvel I began to resent immensely. How dare they not acknowledge this toil and agony I had brought upon myself? Nobody had told me not to do this! Every half a mile felt like an odyssey.

Somewhere upon the two-and-a-half-mile mark I attached myself to an enthusiastic chatterbox and his partner. He had a bit of a bro-y vibe, middle-aged, sunburned. He and his partner wore hats and green shirts that said “fuck” something on the back, I forget what but it must have been some disease or the like. A noble cause. I wondered if a friend of theirs had died. The man talked jovially into his phone, remarking how his feet felt like hamburgers and he was looking forward to having chicken saag after the walk. Me too, man. Me too. But these two—these two were going to make it. I felt it. I felt resolved. Even as the posters and aid stations devolved into crinkled paper and withered balloons—“just keep sauntering!”—if I could just keep these two in my sight, I would reach the goal. I would make it, too.

The final distance folded in on itself slowly, slowly. I tried imagining it in terms of walks to and from my old high school, 1.6 miles each way. It didn't help. It might have made it worse. At one point, we passed a crowded pier housing a party boat. Ruddy-faced men loitered around with weed and cigars. Women in tight pants and short skirts chatted with each other as they sipped wine and boarded. With no other way to go, the Saunterers had to press through the crowd, trickier terrain than any broken pavement. I hated them. I hated them all.

Then, we passed under a bridge, the green-shirted pair and I, and we were walking on cobblestones. The setting sun cast shades of gold and pink over the water, across the skyscrapers, molten pools of light in the city glass. We hung a right, then a left. I must have looked like their child to outsiders, a weird stalker to them. I resolved to tell them how they were my lodestones, my northstars, my guiding light in this final stretch. I was going to talk to strangers—I was going to thank them. I checked my map. A couple blocks. So close.

Then, the green-shirted pair took a wrong turn, seduced by a flag that turned out to be for a different event. But I had checked the map as I walked, fraction of a charge left in my phone. I knew the way, and I was too desperate to be done to feel bad about leaving these two to their misguided ways. 

My heartfelt speech I'd planned for the pair fell by the wayside. I swung left, hung a triumphant turn, and the finish line was waiting for me.

People cheered as I arrived; there was a cluster of volunteers in yellow gathered by the finish line, smiling and ringing cowbells. I wasn't paying much attention to them. I was too busy identifying which porta-potties along the street might be unlocked.

One of the volunteers offered to take a picture of me at the finish line.

“You can stand up straight!” she said. “You fit in the frame!”

I wasn't doubled over with my hands braced on my knees for the sake of the photo op.

Another volunteer with a stack of papers approached me, asked me if I wanted to sign. The papers were certificates—written proof I'd completed the Saunter.

I declined. I hadn't paid for my bib.

She gave me a funny look. “You sure?”

I indicated my numberless status. “I walked as a free agent.”

She gave me the sort of Ah, I see look given exclusively by people who don't actually see. Probably a reasonable expression to wear, given the odd duck in front of her. But I didn't feel like I'd earned a certificate for my freeloader walk. And I was mortified to think of an outcome in which a rightful, paying walker completed the Saunter only to discover the Shorewalkers had run out of certificates to be signed to show for it.

As I turned out, that probably never would have been an issue. Scrolling through statistics later, I learned that the Saunter's completion rate was high this year; of all the participants who registered, about fifty percent completed the entirety of the walk.

I didn't know this at the time. All I knew was that my legs ached something extraordinary and my feet felt, as so eloquently stated earlier, “like hamburgers.”

I looked around. I was alone. Madz, my friend from earlier, was miles away, looking at a ten o'clock finish. Now, Saunterers trickled in a couple at a time. I hadn't arranged to meet anyone. I stood apart from bustling crowds of volunteers busying themselves with support tasks and groups of walkers cheering each other on.

A round-faced man with a short, full beard and a massive backpack approached me. “You doing alright?”

“Yeah,” I told him, probably looking a little too much like I had been walking under the hot sun for a very long time.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m alright.”

I shifted my weight and experienced a sensation as if the balls of my feet were grinding together like gears in a freight engine.

“Well, I’ll take some moleskin if you got any.”

I walked away with my tokens of achievement: four patches of fuzzy fabric about the size of the top half of my thumb. I didn’t put it on yet. I was at the tip of Manhattan, an hour’s train ride—or about a four-hour walk—from home. I looked at where I started: smiling and ready, 7:33am. The last picture in my phone, me hunched next to a checkered banner: 6:21pm. I had been walking nonstop for about 11 hours. And miles to go before I sleep.

Something was missing. I checked my phone for a place to celebrate with a nice dinner, but I found I wasn’t hungry. I texted my friend, Nick, whose call I’d missed earlier in the day. Busy. My New York friends were out of town, or otherwise not apprised of my victory. It was just me. I wanted someone to celebrate with; hell, I wanted someone to tell me how amazing it was, the thing I’d done. Everyone was far away.

Time slipped by as I contemplated where to eat and how long it would take me to get home. I had been ready to try a well-regarded chicken pie at a nearby taproom, but I was a sweaty mess. I ached. I didn’t want to be smelled by people. Fraunces Tavern, which hosted the walkers from the event, was packed to the brim with folk I didn’t know, and, alone here as I was with our shared trials concluded, they felt like strangers, not compatriot athletes. My burning feet wanted someone to tell me how well I’d done. The sun was going down. I wondered what went wrong in my brain while my body worked. Why had I done this? Should I have done this? Somewhere along the way, my desire to accomplish an extraordinary feat had been adulterated by a desire to be praised for an accomplishment.

As I kneaded my petrified legs, a jauntily-dressed young adult probably around my age approached me: “You mind if I smoke here?”

“Nah.” I mean, you could go anywhere else then right next to me. Can’t you see I’m Going Through It? But you’re not supposed to say “yeah, I mind” in times like these, and I didn’t have the energy to be subversive.

The air filled with skunk. Time to keep moving.

I must have just been tired. Making my way south, I hitched a bus to the West Village, where a new Uzbek buffet/grocer had opened up. Inside, I was presented with a paralyzing mess of choices. Not feeling hungry, not feeling much of anything, I finally capitulated on a plastic box of chicken plov and limped to Washington Square Park to eat. The lawns themselves were filled with people. It was a beautiful evening. I almost tempted myself to finish with ice cream—couldn’t do it. Too far, and, despite the day’s exertions, too full. I stopped by a bodega instead and blew seven dollars on a flimsy little bottle of protein shake that promised a big hit of potassium.

Then I went home.

Back at my apartment, the multi-floor walkup felt like a cruel joke. My usual two-stairs-at-a-time bound became an upper-body exercise as I hauled my stiff lower-half up the steps.

I lay on the floor for a long time, mostly, rolling a lacrosse ball firmly along the length of my legs, hoping I could squeeze any soreness out of them before it settled in. I had matching blisters on the balls of each of my feet that I would be wrapping with paper towels and duct tape over the next week. One co-tenant of mine, busy packing for a trip, offered me an epsom salt bath as he glimpsed me from my doorway. He was entertaining a friend I was sure my sweaty, wrecked self was making a marvelous first impression to. The co-tenants, friends, and significant others who passed by my room saw a red-faced, smelly guy with wild hair staring at his ceiling in a daze, legs up. When I eventually went to sleep, I prayed that my self-care would prevent my legs from shedding off overnight like a gecko's tail or the arm of a starfish (pop!).

I hadn’t sauntered the Saunter alone; I’d met a friend in person, called others when the way grew wearying, and walked alongside numerous other valiant participants—even talked to one! But there was some nagging sense of isolation. For eleven hours, I had little more than the voice in my head to push me forward and my own legs to carry me that relentless way. Perhaps there’s some poetry that by the end of the Saunter, I was hungry for praise much more than food. Or, at least, attention.

It’s easy, even in New York City, to feel alone. Especially in New York City. Next time the Great Saunter rolls around, I want to commit myself to a path that isn’t marked by a desire for achievement or recognition—I want to volunteer, or find a friend to stick with no matter the pace. I want to do something in a way which compels me to engage with people—even helps them.

—

When Ryan and I crossed the United States to move them into Cal State, we stopped by the Black Hills, a place I’d heard referred to as one of the most beautiful in the country, otherworldly, even. At my urging, spurred on by myriad awestruck accounts, we picked a trail to complete together, the least demanding we could find, that we could complete at Ryan’s pace. They agreed good-naturedly, a little reluctantly—I was set on having my A Walk in the Woods moment with my closest friend. 

Ryan wouldn’t classify themself as a mountaineer, at least not at that time. I snapped a sturdy branch off a tree for them to use as a walking stick, brought up the rear as they set the pace up initially-gentle inclines. The more vivid the scenery got, the tougher the going did, as well. We left footprints in powdery silt that shimmered like gold dust as the hills began to steepen; we hauled ourselves up boulders to take in views of stone spires that rose like cathedrals over the emerald trees. And Ryan persisted: hours, plenty of breaks, and even more numerous dives into shared memories later, we reached the highest summit, Black Elk Peak. The vista at the top was incredible, and it was one I got to share with my friend as a product of their tenacity and their persistence. The chance to share that horizon with Ryan remains one of the greatest gifts they have given me.

There’s no way to wax poetic about how brutal the descent back to the distant parking lot was, though. After a taxing-on-the-knees ramble downhill, the path swooped into a series of literal ups and downs where Ryan and I eventually found ourselves hauling each other up any given hill. Every glimpse of the road into the park was agony, as that road had a loooong way to wind before it actually marked any terminus. By the time we returned to the idyllic lake at the bottom of the trail, Ryan had made it very clear to me that it was my turn to drive, and that they would not be partaking in a hike like that again.

I think of this hike when I think of The Great Saunter because I imagine my exertion over the course of the Saunter was probably somewhat proportional to Ryan's on the hike—I feel like I better understand what I asked of them, and what they achieved. The comparison also highlights to me the value of companionship on a hard journey; company can make or break the atmosphere of a casual significant undertaking.

So—when The Great Saunter rolls around again, I will be passing out water, or chatting all the way along. Maybe it's a chance for me to deeply commit to socializing in a way I didn't this last time; maybe it's a chance to spend a lot of quality time with a friend old or new. Either way, I'll be keeping in mind the people of it all, above all else.

—

I think the Player’s Handbook gets it right when it cites an average walking pace as 24 miles per given day. Greater than that is a significant undertaking far more severe than a simple day’s march. Not to mention, the standard D&D journey is undertaken with a full posse of quirky friends, gossiping about favorite bartenders and debating which dungeon next to raid. It’s another affirmation that distance isn’t everything—it’s how you go the distance, and who you go it with, that counts.