walking a mile

[marycatelli]

In Tom Simon's Zeno's Mountains, he says

In one of his moments of wisdom, David Eddings observed that a man who has never walked a mile on his own legs has no clear idea how far a mile is.

to which my immediate reaction was not how he was applying it metaphorically, but to think that a mile was out the front door,  around the loop until I reach the arterial road, down it to the next complex, then down that complex's road and back up it again.If I turn right there, and go back to my door, it's another half mile.  More typically, I turn left and tack on another two to four miles, depending on which route I take.  (Four miles being only recently, and still giving my ankles and knees occasional twinges and mild aches.)

Some pedestrian characters will indeed be surprised at how long a mile is.  Post apocalyptic, for instance, and trekking to some hope of safety.  Or the king kept in ritual purity at his castle until the war forced him out.  (Since for him to be surprised you need both his not being used to such journeys, and for him to take one.)  Surprised at the distance, surprised at how much your muscles and joints can ache, surprised at how much of an objection your ankles can put up to going down a steep hill.

Most pedestrians, OTOH, will find it rather short.  I had to work up to five miles, but then, that's because I hadn't worked up to it all my life for reasons having nothing to do with exercise.  Bilbo Baggins's corrupting influence on his nieces and nephews was in part taking them on long walks, but any old hobbit would probably find my five miles pretty typical, even on shorter legs.  And then you have a different problem in conveying it:  how it feels like to find it ordinary.

Comments

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

If you're in a rural farming area, and do a lot of visiting, "five miles" would probably not be that much for a nice Sunday round of visiting.

Imagine what whoever delivers for the baker must do!

[marycatelli]

To be sure, if you're far enough out, you bake your own bread -- or stick to porridge.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Or buy from a neighbor-lady-- possibly the same one that does your landry. (I can't see Bilbo ironing his own shirts, can you?)

[marycatelli]

yes, indeed, there's a laundress in there somewhere for Bilbo. Indeed, given that it's Edwardian England, it's a bit odd that he doesn't have any servants at all -- though not so odd as it would have been a few decade-equivalents earlier.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Isn't Sam's backstory that his family has been taking care of the house since forever?

Or do you mean house servants?

[marycatelli]

House servants. Who does the cooking?

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

...I never really poked at it, but I kind of assumed that whoever did his laundry also did the major cooking, like bringing over roast chickens and such for the cold room when they bring the bread or cheese, and the total of his cooking was the kind of bachelor make-due stuff-- soup from cooked chicken, frying fish if he caught them, frying a nice bit of sausage with potatoes and cabbage....

[marycatelli]

It's the prospect of a man of his prosperity living on bachelor make-do stuff that makes me wary. Being between servants is one thing, but treating it as ordinary is another. (One notes that Tolkien himself was rather poor during the era he admits to be imitiating here, so the finer details of the more prosperous life might be off.)

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Possibly the reason that the conclusion came to me is that's a way I would be happy to live... it's not hardship, it's just so much easier than dealing with people ALL THE TIME.

Come to think of it, he COULD even have someone that came by once a week or so to do all the household stuff.

I just didn't take Bilbo as normal for a Hobbit-- if he were, he'd have been married, rather than a comfortable bachelor who hangs out with wizards.

On further consideration, I suspect that 1) Tolkien was an introvert, and 2) Bilbo has a bit of Tolkien in his build.

[marycatelli]

I think the modern convenience may have a lot to do with that. Cooking was a lot bigger proposition, back in the day.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Hm... maybe a good place to insert some philosophy, if one is inclined; you could build a very lovely sort-of free market... what was that thing GK Chesterton really liked, that basically meant keep business as small as possible?

Anyways. Good place for show-your-work philosophy, or for world building, or an excuse to see the neighbors. (For all of 'em, have someone be a new person who is trying to set up getting the milk, and some wood, and bread, and asking if there's a place to fish, and....)

[marycatelli]

Distributism -- the aim of which is to distribute capital as widely as possible.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I couldn't remember enough to even find it by searching easily!

[marycatelli]

Those are always a pain to find.

[writerjenn.livejournal.com]

I walk a lot, and sometimes when I am entertaining visitors, I discover that their idea of a walkable distance is much shorter than mine ...

[marycatelli]

It's surprising how much shorter walkable distance was for me, once upon a time. When I started with thirty minute walks -- expanding the length as I found the walk no longer took thirty minutes -- my first walks were something I could knock off in ten minutes nowadays.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I had an odd experience when I was visiting Edinburgh and was informed that the place I wanted to go was around a twenty-minute walk.

I learned that this was a sort of standard estimate and not to be taken literally, but not until after eventually reaching my destination three miles away. I realize racewalkers can get down to something like six minutes per mile, but my goodness. *g*

[marycatelli]

o my. That would be a forty five minute walk for me. Maybe a little lower if it was level.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

You are quick, and would probably be a comfortable walking companion for my husband. My maintainable walking pace has been a moderately steady 20 minutes per mile for years now, although I did walk a 12-minute mile once when I was really hurrying.

[marycatelli]

I was talking with my mother about walking, and she said she and my father did a five-mile walk in a hour once. On level ground. With plentiful black flies to provide incentive.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a very effective incentive.

[marycatelli]

Midgewater in The Lord of the Rings was not exaggerated. And the one lucky thing about taking to the road in winter is that they didn't get as many biting insects.