Most of the time I walk too slowly, spend too much time looking up and sometimes around. There's always so much that I want to cram in to my eyes. This sounds like it would be an endearing quality, but you find yourself frequently exasperated, wishing that I would match my pace to yours instead of to everything else. I won't, although sometimes I might pretend to, risking skinned knees in an effort to both walk faster and stare hard all around. That frustration is always a sign. Not the biggest, or the worst, but still a sign.
And so I don't go hiking, because I can't understand the need to walk past so much just to look at the end, not when along the way is all full of new things. Because I have never yet met a hiking partner who will explain to me exactly why the destination looms larger than the stroll. I always think of that old Life photo of Nabokov and Vera, elderly, in the woods with their twin butterfly nets. Two synesthetes capturing something beautiful and pinning down the world, together.
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