A little lazy for my weekly Thursday morning run, I decided to walk my typical route. I hoped it would clear my head in more contemplative way than running. Maybe, just maybe, I would notice something about the city I live in that I hadn’t seen before.

 

As I stepped out of my house, a little more bundled up than I usually am, I made a last minute decision to opt out of bringing my headphones in order to make this run as pensive and therapeutic as I knew it could be. I walked streets that I walk all the time to get virtually anywhere I need to go. I noticed just how much the leaves fell of off the trees in the past week. There are old men, all on different streets, raking the leaves out of their yards and into huge piles in the middle of the street. I find it very funny that it seems like every street has its own peculiar old man, who I could just imagine lounging on their back deck in the summer time in wearing khaki shorts and a white tank top.

 

I get onto Ocean Parkway, the main street in my neighborhood, and I begin to walk. Not an industrial street, there wasn’t much to see but a bunch of nice houses. As I’m waiting by a light, staring at the sky, a car zooms by me and my heart stops for a second. I realize I’m too close to the street and back up. Suddenly I’m reminded of a tragic incident a couple years ago. A girl in my neighborhood, I forget if she was a sophomore or junior in high school, as she was crossing Ocean Parkway something of hers fell. She bent down to pick it up and was hit by a car. A truly heartbreaking and earth shattering occurrence. She was so young, with so much future and all of that was taken from her. I was in Disney World with my family upon hearing the news. Hearing about it in the “happiest place on earth” actually made the news worse. As I stepped off of the famous “It’s a Small World” and my grandma called my mom to break the news, my trip ended. Not physically, emotionally at least. For the rest of the trips our pictures with Mickey, Minnie, and the gang were plastered with tainted smiles and minds far away thinking about the life that could have been.

 

As I continued my walk down Ocean Parkway I found myself all the way at the Coney Island Boardwalk. Normally, I’d run up the boardwalk and run. The only difference would be the extra wind in my face. Today, with no agenda in mind I walk on the sand. Even through my sneakers I feel the cold sand. A very weird contrast from the scorching sand I’m used to running away from. Sitting in front of the ocean, it was very serene.

 

I sat there for 10 minutes or so until I decided to get up and explore the now abandoned Coney Island Boardwalk. It was pretty creepy. I was extra pensive today so I tried to picture myself walking through a typical summer day on the boardwalk. I imagined a mom buying her son cotton candy and an old couple daring to get on the ferris wheel. I walked some more until reality kicked in. I took way more time than planned and had to make it to school for a 3:00 class. I’m not sure if this is cheating, but I called an Uber to take me home. And with that, my walk came to an end.