Get out of your car and walk your town.

I don't mean that you should park your car and walk the restored downtown, where everyone is walking from one cool shop to another, maybe stopping for lunch, or at least a latte, before getting back into your car and driving home.

And I don't mean walking the hike-and-bike trails that may snake their way through your town, ending up at the outskirts and maybe leading into wide-open spaces or foothills, etc.

I mean walk the streets of your town as if you didn't own a car and had to make your way, on foot, to the grocery store or wherever, and then back home again.

If you're like me, you live in a town/city where you're used to driving everywhere. You park your car, you get out, you do your business, you get back in your car, and you're off to wherever else, either another store or home.

Stop that and put yourself on foot, on the pavement. It doesn't matter why. Just do it.

I've done it myself twice in the past year or so. Once I left my car in a repair shop and decided not to take their offered ride home. The other time I'll tell you about later.

Okay, so I left my car at the repair place and started home on foot.

At first it felt good. Walking instead of driving. I was getting back in touch with my old physical self. After a block or so, I was remembering that rhythm I used to have. This foot first, then the other, arms swinging just so. It felt good. Hey, I thought, I should do this more often. (I see women in my neighborhood walking like this: they're obviously more in touch with themselves than I am.)

I live in a town/city of 100,000+, so I knew there would be plenty of traffic. What I didn't realize was how fast people drive. Whoa! I was waiting at my first intersection, and the cars were whizzing by at what had to be above the speed limit. So the light finally changed, and I
stepped into the street to cross -- only to hear someone's horn honk. I stepped back, and as I did, a car zoomed across in front of me, having obviously run the red light. I waved to the car I thought had alerted me and made my way across, jogging intstead of walking.

I felt like a rabbit among wolves! They could kill me in an instant.

As I made my way closer to my house -- still a few blocks away -- I thought about how nice it was to be slowing down, just looking at things I hadn't noticed before: the flowers in someone's yard that weren't yet up in mine, the swing in someone's tree like what I'd put up for my own kids years before, the beautifully manicured yard that put mine to shame. More than one person, out tending a lawn or hosing down a driveway, or just out for a smoke, waved to me, and I waved back. On foot, I noticed things I hadn't before. It was kind of nice.

And when you're on foot, just walking, no one thinks you're up to anything. All the bad guys drive by in cars. If you're out for a stroll, you're harmless. And maybe friendly.

I was almost to my house again when someone in a car peeled around a corner and nearly came up on the sidewalk where I was walking. I yelled at him. He paid no attention and kept on driving way too fast through the neighborhood. He was either somone just speeding through or a culpit who would be caught sooner or later for careless driving. Or so I hoped.

I made it home okay and was of mixed mind about my walk-through. I realized a few things: people in cars really don't look out for people on foot; people in cars drive too fast; people on foot get to see things, at a slower pace, than they would otherwise. It was a mixed bag.

The second time I walked through my town was altogether different. I'd had one of my once or twice a year back spasms that left me in pain but knowing that the best thing I could do for it was to get out and, because I couldn't jog, just walk. And not walk as normal but very slowly, like someone older than me. Not quite with a cane but almost. (In fact I have a number of canes, just for that purpose.)

I decided to walk to my neighborhood book store. I was making my very slow way, looking like a much older person, walking upright, hoping my back wouldn't act up and send me to my knees in excruciating pain, which would be embarrassing, when I came to a main artery of my town and a stoplight. This was a street that has two lanes on each side, with cars waiting on both sides, drivers not happy to be stopped and ready to be on their way. I started across, making my way carefully, watching my every step, aware that any mis-step could trigger that awful back pain. I was very much like an old person trying to cross that busy street.

Everything was fine until the light changed, and I wasn't all the way across. I tried to hurry, but I couldn't. Every step was more pain. Horns honked. A car actually came into the intersection and almost reached me. Hey buddy, he seemed to be saying, get a move on!

By the time I'd crossed the street, traffic behind me was moving along.

In the bookstore, everything, of course, resorted to normal. Time slowed down. I was looking at books, especially those on sale. I even sat down in one of the chairs and looked through a few that I might want to buy.

In the end, I did buy one or more and then set out on my trip home.

Well, while I was in the bookstore, it had gotten dark, and I still had to cross that four-lane street, on foot. I stood at the intersection, watching the cars go by -- so fast! I pushed the button that's supposed to let pedestrians cross. I waited. Nothing. Finally the light changed, and I started across. Again, I was moving slowly, as my back was really starting to hurt. I felt, again, like an old person, thinking: Is this what it's like for old people, without cars, to try to cross the street? Well, duh! Of course it is.

When I'd made it across the busy street and was on my way back home, I slowed my pace -- partly because my back hurt but also because I wanted to -- and I smelled the aroma of flowers just coming up in a neighor's yard and heard children playing in the dark in a park not far from my house. Hide-and-seek? That's what it sounded like.

I was walking, in pain but knowing it was doing my back good, past lives that would have escaped me had I been in the car just driving by. A little girl voice cried out: "You're it!"

A block down, I heard a dad call out, "Burgers are on!"

I told myself that I needed to get out of the car and walk more.

Maybe you should, too.