Walking The Burbs

The suburbs are weird to walk in during the day. Imagine if suddenly all the cars disappeared. The streets would be deserted.

Three or four times a week I like to walk about 800 metres down to the local shops and pick up a few extra groceries to get me through till I’m desperate enough to drag myself to the generic supermarket. And the crazy thing is, you can walk all the way there and all the way back and not pass another walker. There’s plenty of cars going past and who knows where they’ve come from. Total strangers all of them. As are the owners of most of the houses I see. I’ve walked past them a thousand times and have no idea who lives in them. The doors are locked, windows opaqued with blinds or curtains. There’s room in the driveways for two or three cars. No kids playing outside, but there’s signs of them in the front yards with playground equipment and discarded toys. Crazy, though, I’m having much more luck getting to know which houses own cats. There’s the calico one that’s always on the veranda two blocks away. And a couple of houses after that, there’s a black one that likes to sit on the steps and blink at you as you pass. The dogs aren’t all that friendly, yapping as if I’m out to steal something. Last week I saw more people walking the Bibbulmun track than I see walking during the daytime in the burbs.

Six o’clock in the morning is a different story. The footpaths are so full of the usual crowd of joggers and walkers it’s like you’re walking on a conveyer belt, the same faces passing you everyday. I have no idea who they are though. We can’t stop and get to know each other because we’re all too busy keeping fit.

It’s the cars I blame for this. I wish we didn’t need them so much.