!Afoot
---
agk's diary
13 January 2025 @ 16:26 UTC
---
written on Pinebook Pro
at Evy's desk as the laundry dries
---
I woke to the phone's muffled ring from my purse in
the living room. On her way to her first nursing
school clinical day, Evy's car abruptly cut off,
wouldn't restart, just click. The doors wouldn't
even lock! Alternator?
I drove to Evy in my nightgown. In neutral we
pushed her car into the breakdown lane. She called
her clinical instructor and dropped me at home. A
few hours later the tow truck driver took Evy's car
to our mechanic. I'll get the key out there this
afternoon.
After breakfast, I walked daughter to school. I
need a chainbreak to fix my bike and a nylon dowel
no one carries to fix her chariot.
Through snow unshoveled, heaped atop narrow side-
walks, our boots crunched. Cars sped by at 70kph.
We held hands. Some snow was dirty. Past the public
housing project we walked (yes, there's public
housing in most small towns!). There, snow was
tramped down by others' feet.
After fifteen minutes afoot, a-slip and a-crunch,
daughter had something to say.
"I wish my school was closer, Mama."
"Are your legs tired?"
"No, it's just lonely. Nobody else is walking at
all. Everybody's just driving their cars so fast. I
wish somebody would walk with us."
Roads, perfectly clear, were indeed well-traveled.
I was thinking something similar, about neglect of
pedestrians discouraging walking in our pretty
walkable town.
"I think they'd be happier people if more of them
walked," I said. "And you and me would be less
lonely if they walked with us."
"Yeah," said daughter.
Twenty-five minutes brought us to her school.
Daughter's teacher lamented for me. "I'd a given
you a ride if I could," she said.
"I'm just a couple blocks past the Peacemakers
motorcycle clubhouse," I said. "It wasn't too bad."
It would have been a nice walk, and maybe a less
lonely walk, if the infrastructure was maintained
and a little different.
In Illinois, the state just to our north, a daycare
shortage drives nursing students to drop daughters
more than 300 km from home, and drive the same
distance after clinicals to get them.
Our little bit of neglect's not so bad.
---
Update: When I picked daughter up from school in my
car, she cried. "I wanted to walk with you, not
drive. I wanted to hold hands and feel cold air on
my body," sobbed daughter.
Of course I feel proud. Of course I want this, too.
