Editor's Note

An Antidote to Striving

I can’t say how many times I’ve walked by this Airstream trailer—it’s just down the street from where I live.
“I can’t say how many times I’ve walked by this Airstream trailer—it’s just down the street from where I live. Whether during an aimless stroll with the camera, a quick trip to the corner store or a downtown errand, I’ll cross the street purposefully just to take it in closer. My eyes are always drawn toward the scene; the weathered aluminum, the ever-changing growth and retreat of the garden, and the mountain setting framed in the window grab my attention. I have only photographed it once, maybe twice. I’ll be moving soon—perhaps I’ll need to make a few more pictures of it.” Photo: Copi Vojta
Words: Jason Rolfe

I love a good walk. Not a brisk or bracing walk (though there’s nothing wrong with those), but a steady one with time for stops (but no requirement that stops be made). Though I have no distinct memories of my earliest walks, I think the seed must have been planted when I was 4 or 5 years old and living with my military family in Germany. There, we took part in the German tradition of the volksmarch, or people’s marches, loosely organized communal walks in towns and the countryside. I still have my collection of pre-reunification walking-stick badges, which I’ve managed to hold onto in the 40 years since we returned to the States.

I’ve been fortunate to embark on a handful of memorable walks in my life. As a college freshman in Seattle, I once set off at dawn, after pulling an all-nighter, on a long walk through several neighborhoods of the then-new-to-me city. Another time, I got lost in Venice, Italy’s labyrinthine byways and alleys, and though I had a map of the city in my pack I chose to forge ahead blindly, trusting that eventually, if I kept turning left like a NASCAR racer, I’d find my way back to something familiar. Last year in Buenos Aires, with less than 48 hours between a pair of flights, I took a taxi from the Recoleta neighborhood, where I was staying, to a part of town a few miles away, and set off on foot. My legs were deliciously sore by the end of it, and I left that great city eager to see more.

Back to Issue 17.3