I will take a walk over this.
Recently, I walked the length of the Humber River with nine other people. If you can’t tell, I’ve really been into walking lately.
My friend Shelley and I cooked up the idea, inspired by the poet David Whyte and the writer Craig Mod, both of whom have been leading walks for years.
These walks are neither hikes (no summit to bag) nor self-help retreats (no incense, no circling up to “share feelings”). They’re something in between.
Lightly facilitated, a few prompts for conversation, and a lot of walking.
We started with dinner the night before — the ten of us, most of whom hadn’t met each other, some of whom Shelley and I hadn’t even met.
The next morning at 10am, we set off from where the Humber becomes walkable in north Toronto, and arrived at Lake Ontario around 4:30pm. Six hours, a lunch stop, a few regathering moments, and a whole lot of conversation.
Doing beats discussing
We spend so much time talking about connection.
“Let’s grab coffee.” “We should get dinner.”
And these can be lovely — breaking bread with someone is genuinely one of the better things humans do.
But coffee often becomes a status report of what you’ve been up to and what you have planned.
I saw the New Yorker cartoon above recently, and it’s what inspired this newsletter topic today. Because it made me feel a bit hurt, but … it’s also accurate.
Walking was different. Nobody was reporting out.
We were experiencing something together.
Almost everyone ended up paired off with almost everyone else for half an hour at some point — which was enough time for the real stuff to surface.
And at the end, we all had sore feet, tired legs, and the satisfaction of having actually done a thing.
Friendship grows from shared effort, not shared updates
Next time we meet, nobody’s going to ask, “So what have you been up to?” We’ll remember the heron at the river bend, the weird-smelling underpass, the person who made everyone laugh somewhere around kilometre 12 … and we’ll go from there.
Friendship unfolds from shared experience in a way it simply doesn’t from mutual reporting.
So go for a walk. Bring someone. Maybe bring nine someones.
If walking isn’t your jam, do something, not just a coffee date.
