A photo of my daughter’s baby shoes. (Provided photo — Peter Berra)

Aristotle was a walker. He liked to walk so much that he would meet his colleagues on the grounds of the Lyceum, a temple in Athens, and stroll through the covered walkways while exploring philosophical and scientific theories. Today, Aristotle’s school is commonly known as the Peripatetic School, a transliteration of the Ancient Greek term peripatetikos, which means “given to walking about.”

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The Peripatetic philosophers

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The Peripatetic philosophers believed that walking connected the physical to the metaphysical, that the flow of blood nourished the flow of fundamental ideas, and that the movement of walking inspired the movement of good conversation. As such, Aristotle’s philosophical method was rooted in the notion that you should get outside, meet up with people and have a conversation.

Aristotle’s favorite topic was “how to live a good life”, and from the years of walking and debating the subject with his peers, something fantastic took shape. The foundation of Western philosophy, yes. The root of the scientific method, sure. But more specifically, Aristotle and his philosophical peers remained close, life-long friends who were as committed to each other as they were to the pursuit of truth. For them, the investigation of how to live a good life mattered because that life was lived together. This, above all else, is why I think walking with others is special.

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Walking as a form of care

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There’s a commitment to care when you choose to walk with someone — you need to follow a similar gait, discover things to talk about, and be comfortable with protracted silences. Aristotle’s peripatetic belief that walking stimulates thought and conversation also applies to relationships — walking together can create a deeper connection with others and forge the desire to find a shared path onward.

I love what it means to walk with the people I love. We are in movement together, physically and emotionally, and there is a distance we promise to cover. Walking with the people I love is itself a way for me to work on my relationships. Sometimes, though, the walking ends before you want it to.

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Walking with mom

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By every relevant metric — time, distance, blisters, scuffed shoes, holes in socks — the person I’ve walked most with in my life is my mom. She taught me to walk, to skip, to run. She walked me to school, to the library, to the theatre. She took me shopping at the Bay for winter jackets, to Woodward’s for cabbage rolls and pierogies, to HMV for music. Later, she walked with me around McGill University, the blend of 19th-century architecture and Brutalist structures impressing and intimidating us. We walked slowly, excited about the new chapter in my life, an experience that my mom, who only went as far as grade 11, did not know.

When she would visit me in college, I’d walk with her through the coolest parts of the city, showing her cafes and restaurants you could only find in a place like Montreal. I’d take her to bars with my friends, and we’d all walk back to my rental late at night, my friends sharing secrets with my mom that they couldn’t tell their parents.

What do my mom and I talk about when we walk? Everything. Nothing. Sense and nonsense. We talk about cooking and gardening. We talk about Hollywood celebrities and the neighbours. Forty years after their divorce and we still talk about my dad a lot, the husband he was and wasn’t. We talk about my daughter C, and if I can stand it, my own divorce. This is our way to work out how to live a good life, and it makes sense to me.

My mom has arthritis in her knees now, a constant pain that makes everyday tasks like laundry a challenge. She hardly walks at all anymore, her mind and body deteriorating from the lack of movement, the vibrancy of our conversations declining as well. We talk differently now, with a directness that can leave us both raw. My role in her life is changing in a way I am not entirely comfortable with, but I’m trying. Things are shifting, and I wish we could go for a walk together to figure it out.

One of the last real walks my mom and I took, she gripped me for support and left little bruises on my forearm. It was a warm autumn day, and the short walk to C’s daycare felt nice. The flow of our conversation was easy and familiar, vignettes on the beautiful weather, how good yellow looks on C’s complexion, what we should make for dinner. I miss walking with my mom.

Prompt: Tell me about someone you love to walk with.