Elizabeth Obermeyer

I have become a walking to work person.

I started walking to work—or actually, at that time, home from work—in August, which is really not the best time to start anything physical out of doors in southern Ontario except maybe for swimming. But my brain held the notion that if I could walk ~40 minutes in the heat and humidity of August, I could walk in any sort of weather, which turned out to be mostly true.

The impetus for this endeavour was (is) my increasing frustration with transit in Hamilton. I have almost always relied on transit to get to school and work save for the daycare years when it was close to impossible to get one kid to daycare, one kid to school, and me to work on time without the use of a car. In the early aughts I spent a ridiculous amount of time behind the wheel, and my later choice to give up a second car and take the bus everywhere was informed almost completely by that. I liked the control of a car, but I missed the freedom of the bus and the ability to tune out with music or a book and leave the driving to someone else. Especially in bad weather.

For the most part, I love the transit commute, but lately I’ve found myself crankier than I need to be on the bus, and I’m not entirely sure why. It might be that just past my 58th birthday I’m tired. And I become frustrated with buses that are late (I know sometimes this cannot be helped) and I become annoyed when the 51 University bus shows up and it’s NOT an articulated (aka accordion) bus because that means it’s likely already 75% full and no one will move past the back doors which means many, many people are squished up in the front half of the bus. I would like to sit down on my ride and since I’m not quite at the age where a teen will look up and think “Oh jeez, I should let this old lady sit down,” I stand with the students and am jostled by half a dozen or more giant backpacks and I arrive at work annoyed. And, in case you didn’t know, my work involves assisting these very same students (the ones who beaned me with their backpacks) at the research help desk in the library. Luckily I don’t remember the backpacks that hit me and I never usually see the face of the backpack owner, so everyone is safe.

I am lucky to live relatively close to the university, and I am even luckier to be able to take the Hamilton-Brantford Rail Trail to work so I can mostly avoid the city streets. The route takes me through the golf course, over Highway 403, and into the neighbourhood south of McMaster. Depending on head winds and ice, the walk is about 35-40 minutes, and I have grown to love it.

Some observations:

There is something about walking that is so freeing when it comes to the daily commute. Behind the wheel of a car you need to be paying attention, and traffic is beyond your control. Same goes for transit. You can’t make the bus go any faster, you can’t will it to come sooner (I have tried both these things) and you can’t predict (usually) how crowded/overheated/underheated it will be when it finally does arrive. But when you walk, you are in control and there is, at least for me, only one speed. I can’t shave time off my walking commute by a significant amount. Sure, I can hustle a bit more I suppose or slow it right down, but I think most people have a typical walking pace and so once I’m in it, I tend to remain there. And so I know for a fact that I will be at work around 40 minutes after I leave the house, which gives me 40 minutes of alone time to start my day, which has become a crucial part of it.

There are no shortcuts on this route. Once I hit the parking lot for the City of Hamilton facilities building I am officially “on the trail” and only way to get off it is over the highway into the the west end neighbourhood. To my left is the golf course and to my right, the railway yard, so I am, literally, fenced in. And there’s something of a metaphor in that, in a “the only way out is through” kind of way which speaks to me.

It was tempting when I first started walking to work to plug in with music or a podcast, but I decided that my morning commutes will be technology free, something I would never consider while riding the bus where earbuds and distraction from conversations are a MUST. And it’s honestly been the best decision. I’ve enjoyed watching the trail change with the seasons, watching the trees go from lush green to crisp red and orange and then to stark bare as winter arrived. I find so much beauty in the bleakness of a (relatively) barren landscape but I know I will also thrill to see the first buds, the first robin, the runoff as the snow (so much of it this winter!) begins to melt on the golf course. I’ve found I like being in my head and I have managed to work through SO many plot holes in so many stories and have had real “Aha!” moments for directions my characters and stories should go, so I’ve come to really look forward to and, dare I say it, rely on, these morning walks for inspiration.

It is also unfortunately true that a good walk, brisk or leisurely, can do wonders for your mental health. I wish it wasn’t so, friends, but I am here to tell you it is actually a real thing that exists. Will it cure your/my depression? Not likely. But I do know that the act of walking to work, to a job I am not overly thrilled about most days, sparks something that keeps me going and motivated, and the days I don’t walk to work just drag and drag. This is purely anecdotal evidence of course and it might not always work that way for me, but there is definitely a surge of some sort of happy, positive, brain chemical that really does change my outlook for the better. And, on days I decide to take the bus because it’s raining hard or I’m tired or whatever, I almost instantly regret it.

I think that means I’m hooked.