Here’s the thing, as a cop’s daughter, with a hero complex, and limited sense for danger, but a overly heightened fear of being surprised, I’m not a good walker. I never have been, never will be. If I hear a noise rustling behind me, I will take off in a full sprint. My nickname in middle school was Athletic Shoes. I’m a good runner, but I’m sure I’m wasting a lot of my energy because no one has ever chased me.
So with dedicating so much of my time here to exploring neighborhoods on foot, I’m really sticking myself far out of my comfort zone. There are animals, strangers, sticky children and probably alligators running an absolute muck. I have so far managed to avoid all of this in California by being visibly unfriendly. But that doesn’t really deter people here. Everyone has spoken to me, people I don’t know ask how my day is going, and when I pass people sitting on the street I either hear them singing or giving people blessings as they walk by. Worst of all, my resting bitch face is completely obscured by a mask and my eyes are perpetually friendly. Which puts me in the very awkward position of enjoying myself and not sprinting at every twig snap.
At this point, I’ve walked from my place (in the 7th ward) to the Quarter, which is around a 1 1/2 mile walk. I walk to the grocery store. I walk to get shrimp plates (to be honest, still not sure what’s happening there, but I give a nice woman 5 dollars and she gives me a plate). I’ve walked damn near everywhere, except all of the places I had noted ahead of time to walk to. Like the Garden District, Magazine Street, around Tulane, Bayou St. John, Oak Street, Esplanade Ridge, Lakefront, Metairie Road or Algiers.
That is to say, I haven’t walked around all of the places I’ve obsessively read up on, looked at the crime reports for, read the neighborhood watch facebook pages (because I’m a psycho), or driven around 3 times to make sure I’ll know all of my escape routes in case I do hear a twig snap. I’ve been walking like an almost normal person, who needs to go somewhere and affirms that God gave her two feet for a reason.
I don’t know what the point is of telling you this. But it’s something along the lines of, I think I’m okay. In the theme of getting on the other side of my wall, or demolishing the wall, or whatever my metaphor was about the wall, sometimes it’s okay for me to just walk. And I need to remind myself of that right now. When I don’t know what to do, and I’m a little overwhelmed, and hungry, and cankerous, it’s okay to just go on a walk. And that if the outside is consistently providing that much anxiety, it’s probably not outside’s fault.
Especially when the place I was most skittish was the FBI’s safest place in the country many years in a row.
But addressing my phobias/internalized stories I tell myself to “keep myself safe” isn’t proving so scary. It’s just nice. And walks are nice, and the sun is good, and people are okay.
Ash tells a story 