NumberOne Niece will tell you that I am likely to want to walk distances that are not well suited for walking. There are even memes about people like me who sometimes think ANYTHING is walkable – Just one more mile. Just one more block. Just one more kims ¹ Kims are what we call kilometers because of our last trip together. How far are we to Vik? 9,000,000 kims.

On my recent trip, I was shocked at the layout of the Charles de Gaulle Airport and how I couldn’t get from HERE where I found myself, to THERE I wanted to be by walking the half a mile ²Or 0.8 kims distance it appeared on the map. In the confusion of the past two years, I missed that Terminal 1³It was a very strange terminal. I always felt like I was on Babylon5 or something. at Charles de Gaulle airport had closed sometime between the summer of 2019 and today. I made my hotel selection based on flying into Terminal 1 and then departing for Paris each day by train⁴Strictly speaking, it is the RER. And if you call it a metro or a train, Parisians give you a look. from Terminal 3. There would be no need to go to Terminal 2 which is quite a large terminal. Except, it turns out we deplaned at Terminal 2B⁵Or not 2B… no really, it was 2B..

At the Charles de Gaulle, there are seven subdivisions of Terminal 2: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Terminal 2B looked quite close to the hotel I was staying at, but quite far from where you get the interterminal transportation options. I thought, oh yes! Perhaps I can skip the train and walk. Just 0.8 kims. Google Maps did not agree. I could see the hotel from the sidewalk outside the terminal. It was RIGHT THERE. 

That path was not walkable according to my phone.

Whoever designed the airport layout and connection to the Trains to Paris and the airport hotels did a good job. It is obvious how to get where you want to go⁶Obvious to most people. For some reason, the way they use arrows for straight ahead, pointing down, confuses me. It is the same feeling I get when people say, “Go left.” I don’t know what that means internally and I have to think about it.. I went the wrong way of course, but I got there. And honestly, there was probably more walking than if I had been able to walk to the hotel from the terminal exit just 0.8 kims away.

It should have been walkable. 

I started thinking about why it wasn’t walkable. Too often, I am tempted to accept a forbidden path as, “That is the way things are and there is not a lot we can do about it.” When I get to a waypoint where I believe it is just a short detour to my next destination, I often think, “Let’s do it!” When a path seems walkable, when I try to walk there and unforeseen obstacles appear, I get frustrated. Just like the time I thought I would cut through a field in deep snow to save 15 minutes walking in the wind. There was a gully I hadn’t noticed that was full of snow. It was not walkable⁷This was before GoogleMaps on a smart phone..

Choices sometimes put those obstacles in our path. In this case, the choices were made by the design team of the new airport terminal area. They decided a sidewalk along the roads leading to Arrivals and Departures did not add value to their design. I admit there are other ways to get to the hotels or the buses or the trains.

As I think about the choices I have made in my life where the destination I am yearning to reach is ahead of me, getting to the goal sometimes means cutting off paths to other places. Places I still think should be a quick walk to the side. They aren’t really. The sidewalk I need wasn’t part of the plan and the traffic between where I am and where I want to go presents a danger.

I remember watching in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, people took to the interstate highways to leave New Orleans and the flooding behind. I-10 shouldn’t have been walkable, but it was. It had to be. Because that was the only way to reach safety. And thus, the rules of what is walkable and what is not changed in the blink of a storm.

I admit, when forced, Google Maps did provide a way to walk from the terminal to my hotel. It was 48 minutes and 3 kims. If I hadn’t been traveling for over 16 hours⁸Even a 4 hour layover in the Keflavik airport is a gift to me!, I might have given it a try. So, it was walkable, just not the way I wanted it to be. Just like some resident of New Orleans might have pondered what it would be like to walk in the middle of I-10. I am sure they never thought they would have to do it for their own survival.

There is traveling, and then there is traveling. I often observe the physical world and internalize it into my mental landscape and how I interact with people, places, and things. The spurs on the road I walk in life are not always walkable anymore. Because I didn’t finish a master’s degree in classics, it is not a short walk to start being a professor in history. Not walkable. Not with every other milestone ahead of me I intend to hit. Because I didn’t stay in Cedar Rapids, I can’t get to the job title, “Principal Engineer.” Not walkable. Or at least, the path has more obstacles than I am willing to overcome today. I find it better to stick to following the confusing arrows of life along the path that will get me there safely.

Me, in my life, in my incredibly blessed life where I have had lots of choices, I see that even having this moment of frustration is a privilege. Those people seeking food, water, and a dry place to lay their heads didn’t think it was walkable until they had to do it.

I was frustrated that sunny Sunday afternoon that I couldn’t take the straight path to my hotel. I had to travel the path that had been laid out. I didn’t like my options⁹I did like my hotel when I finally got there and had a moment to lay flat.. Luckily, my life path isn’t as frustrating. Yes, I am on the path that I laid out with the choices from 5, 10, 35 years ago¹⁰When I quit playing violin because I wanted to take Honors Chemistry in high school.. And I am grateful my path still has walkable parts off the beaten path.

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