With friends new and old, I figured out what I really value — one step at a time.
It was an odd scavenger hunt, to be sure.
Four of us wandered Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, searching for tombstones of notable New Yorkers. With every wrong turn on our way to Jean-Michel Basquiat or Leonard Bernstein, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we were increasing our step count.
Bob, the resident comedian of our group, cried out for “Lenny!” when the paper map his wife, Hope, held proved useless. Eventually Bob, as well as Hope, my husband, Jay, and I found our way to Bernstein’s tomb. We snapped a few photos, declared victory and laughed our way to Industry City, adding a few more miles — plus some delicious Korean food — to our outing.
The day — exploring, laughing and talking with friends — was exactly what I’d envisioned when I turned 58 and decided to take 58 walks with friends, each one at least 5.8 miles long.
My dad had died suddenly, at 59, and our regular walks are a memory I cling to over 35 years later. As I approached a stage of life he never experienced, I wanted to honor him. But I had other goals, too. I hoped to pair two favorite activities — walking and talking — with small excursions around New York City, where I live, and during my travels elsewhere.
Some walks went much farther than the 5.8-mile goal. Sarah and Tony, longtime walking buddies, organized a breathtaking 12-miler, traversing the Hudson River on the longest footbridge in the United States. Sarah brought fantastic chocolate chip cookies. As a bonus, I learned how to spell Poughkeepsie.
I didn’t hold others to the Sarah-Tony standard, though. A few people, because of injury or a lack of appetite for long walks, did their 5.8 miles in stages. Some were creative with the prompt: Patrick, an artist, took me to see a Käthe Kollwitz exhibit at MoMA, where we visited the fifth floor, found Gallery 8 and snapped a photo. I wanted to widen my circle, not limit it.