On Walking at Night and Thinking About Animals

Not too long ago, I posted about a wish I had on a beautiful night to just be able to take a walk. I knew if I could just walk for a couple of miles, that could quell my restlessness. It was 3:00 in the morning, though. I couldn’t go out for a walk, not safely. If I’d caved to this craving for a walk and something had happened to me, well, you know what they’d say. I’d have no one to blame but myself, they would say. I stayed in bed instead, wide awake.

It made me wish that this fear of unknown eyes tracking you and sizing you up was never a factor, that if any of us felt compelled to take a walk in the middle of the night, there should be nothing to stop us. I have struggled my whole life with how my idealistic notions bump up against reality and the other night in the throes of insomnia was no exception.

Typing on my phone in bed in the dark about my desire to walk, I wrote…

“I guess there’s never been an idyllic time when walking by ourselves at night was considered a prudent choice. There have always been eyes with sharp night vision watching us from behind trees and obscured by foliage; this knowing is wired into our DNA. We have endless cautionary tales to reinforce what can happen if you wander at night, from fiction (Red Riding Hood) to nonfiction (Jack the Ripper).”