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]

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.