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Don't Walk
Louise Rennison straight talks on the subject of walks ..
We usually have our All Women Moon Group meetings round at Jonty's place. She's psychic so her house is a nightmare of bells and natural fabrics, but it's snug. Last weekend when Prue and I arrived she and the other women all still had their kagools on. Jonty said, "We thought it would be fun to walk to Ditchling Beacon and hold our meeting at the old Iron Age fort." Two hours later we arrived at the fort.
When you're very little you hear 'walk' and you think swings, and cuckoo spit and weeing behind trees, and you'd generally be spot on. Walks were simple. Then in the gothic basement which is teenagedom, to go for a walk is a statement of a deep turbulence of spirit that can only be satisfied by a physical bonding with the elements. Tossed about by the winter winds like a … tossed around teenager, contemplating the exquisite sadness of life.
Prue says that even now, the phrase, "Shall we go for a walk?" fills her with dread. Her first intimation that a walk could be synonymous with tragedy came when she was 16. Her date of 2 weeks, Alan, took her to a dance, and she was thinking "Hmmm he looks quite handsome in this half-light, you hardly notice his acne." Then Alan said meaningfully, "Let's go for a walk", and Prue thought, "Oh, yeah, you cheeky minx, I know what that means. It means walk walk, snog, snog, walk, snog." By the end of the walk she was dumped and home, crying in bed by half past ten. It happened 4 more times in 6 months.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-walk. I just want to know what kind of walk it is! Is it to be romantic? Challenging? Strolley, stridey, rambly? If Jonty had said it's a 2 hour route march up a sheer precipice to get to the Iron Age fort, I could have replied "I'm interested in Moon meetings, but not obsessed - goodnight!"
Do your family or group of friends use an innocent sounding phrase of which you've learned to be wary?
What is it?
What feelings does it engender in you, and why?
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