This is The Reader. I don't know her name. I don't know how old she is. I don't know where she lives or what she does for a living. All I know about The Reader is that she likes to read and she likes to walk and that she does them simultaneously. The Reader has been walking and reading the streets of my neighborhood for the last, oh, 15 or so years. And over those 15 or so years, whenever I've been living at my parents' house, I have seen her out and about on a regular basis. Always walking, always reading, never watching where she's going. Sometimes I see her walk by the house. Sometimes I see her nearby as I'm driving through the neighborhood. Sometimes she seems quite far from the last place I saw her. But, she's always there, walking and reading. She walks along, swaying from side to side (I'm guessing the upper body movement occurs to offset the lower body movement. Usually we swing our arms as we walk to take care of that, but since her arms are busy holding a book, she swings her entire upper body instead), ingesting whatever information she's reading. Yesterday, I saw her when I was driving to work and decided that it was time to honor her and her staying power with a blog post. So, I snapped the above picture with my phone and here we are. Whenever I see The Reader, I always wonder where she lives, how many miles she walks when she goes out, if she's ever fallen down and what she is reading. I wonder how many total miles she has walked and how many books she has read since I first saw her walking by with her nose in a book. I think it's impressive that she is able to walk and read, without looking up, and that she doesn't fall (at least, I assume she doesn't fall since she has been doing if for so long). So, here's to The Reader. May there be many more walking and reading sessions in her future.
8 comments:
I'm definitely a fan of reading while walking. Every once in a while I'll walk to the train station instead of riding my bike just so I can read while I walk. I've never fallen. I stubbed my toe once, but that's my fault for wearing flip-flops while walking and reading a book. It's really quite nice. You should try it. I can even go up and down stairs. I'm careful, of course, but I keep reading.
I wonder if she's ever walked into a pole.
that's weird. how old do u think she is?
Haha! That's weird. I just read your blog again and it said I don't know how old she is...
Um...this is why treadmills were invented.
But her coordination IS impressive.
That is pretty funny. Matt and I had a similar old lady in MIami only minus the reading. But everytime we went to our apartment gym she was walking with a very weird gate. And when it was closed we would see her walking outside. Well, to be honest it probably wasn't very similar because this lady seemed to have some psychological problems.
Looks like it works for her. She looks trim and fit and I bet she doesn't even realize how far she's gone. She just keeps reading till the next chapter. What a great idea!
I've tried it before. Even though I didn't run into anything, I don't think it's the best thing for me. Perhaps I should practice though. Multitasking is great (even though some "experts" argue there is no such thing).
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