Nobody Walks in L.A.

Today I did something strange -- I walked around the suburbs. Our wonderful Mazda5, christened BunnyJoeTai by Sofia, had an ominous "check engine" light, so I arranged to take it to Luis at the Getty station in Kensington. We live near Kensington, MD, but not close enough that our house is unaffordable. It's located along a congested stretch of Connecticut Avenue, complete with its own train station, an "antique row", an overpriced farmer's market, and a bunch of high-priced and charming Victorian-style houses.

Kensington is an old railroad suburb, just like Garrett Park, where I grew up. It's a place where people could walk,but I've never been tempted to. For one thing, it's not very pedestrian-friendly. Either the cars are moving fast enough to be a threat, or they're moving slowly enough to create all sorts of noxious pollution, especially in the summer.

Still, when I was told by Luis at the Getty that we should come back in 2 hours, I felt energized. I used to walk everywhere, but now that I'm a slave to carseats and small legs and tummies, it always seems easier to drive. Besides, what with work and the strict hours of our daycare provider, I never have any time.

But one of the things I've always loved to do is to explore markets, both foreign and domestic. I've gotten lost in Palestinian areas near Tel Aviv, been followed by pushy men and boys in Morocco, successfully found my way around polluted downtown Lima, and had a great time in an overcrowded marketplace at twilight in Cairo. I've explored plenty of Balkan cities and towns on foot as well, including Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Zagreb. When I worked in Split, Croatia, I took beautiful walks up the hill called Marjan, where an unlikely Sephardic Jewish cemetery is located.

Two of the walks that I particularly remember were both in the US. One time when I was in high school, I ended up exploring an area right near Kensington called KenGar. Probably I just felt like getting some exercise. At the time, Garrett Park and Kensington were both basically white middle class. (Now they're both unaffordable to me, but that's another story.)

But when I got to KenGar, which is basically in between the two towns but also tucked away along the train tracks, I saw that everyone was black. People were staring at me, and a few people asked me nicely if I was lost. It was as if white people never passed through there, although it was so close to two mainly white towns. And I realized that there was really no reason to go there, because none of the roads into the area led anywhere else. I ended up telling the people that I was looking for High's (now sadly out of business...it's become a 7/11). And I actually haven't been to KenGar since then, although I've frequently noticed the sign for their Baptist Church. It seemed so strange to have this African American pocket near where we lived, although we never seemed to see any of the people who lived there.

The second memorable walk happened in Boca Raton, Florida, soon after I returned from a college semester in Morocco. I had walked a lot in Morocco, but usually during these walks I was bothered by what we called drageurs -- men and boys who thought it was their birthright to harass women in public, particularly western women. As I walked through the souk, where I was staying with a family, I remember young men calling out to me, "Beautiful foreigner!" "Hey, I know a good hotel!" "American? American?" Or sometimes they would just hiss at me.

One time, one of the male students from our program snuck up behind me and began hissing in the same way, and I practically punched him in the nose. One tries to be culturally sensitive, but it was so damn annoying, especially if I was in a bad mood. I remember that one time I was in a particularly bad state, and when a drageur called out to me I responded, "F--k you!" "Ahh....f--k you!" he responded with a smile. Another time, when my female classmates and I were followed on a beach in Agadir, I insisted to the drageur that we were Japanese. That annoyed him to no end, to my amusement.

I enjoyed my time in Morocco, but by the time I got back to the U.S. I was pretty well fed up with men who seemed to think I had no right to occupy the public sphere. During the Christmas holiday, my then-boyfriend and I drove down to Boca Raton. The memorable walk occurred when I walked down the beach by myself, wearing nothing but a bikini, and nobody bothered me. It was so liberating. I thought, wow, I can be here. It's okay. There's the sun, the waves, the sand, and I can just enjoy it by myself. Later I realized that the fact that I could walk down the beach with nobody bothering me demonstrated the relative position of power women occupy in the US -- after much struggle -- compared to in Morocco and probably in the Arab world overall. At the time, however, I just felt free, happy, and empowered.

So, I love going for walks and exploring places on foot. The only people I've noticed walking in Kensington seemed to be those without cars, but I didn't want to let that stop me. I put my daughter Angelina in her stroller, instructed my son Philip to stay close to me, and set off along busy Connecticut Avenue. And it was good. I noticed things I hadn't seen before, like how the Kensington Fire House was constructed in 1947. It says so in concrete on the building itself.

As we crossed the train tracks, I pointed out to Philip how one set of tracks goes towards Washington, DC and the other ends in West Virginia. We walked by a now-closed Wachovia Bank and then passed Continental Pizza, a storefront restaurant that's been around so long that it doesn't even have a customer bathroom because it was constructed before they were required in restaurants. They serve hard-core, amazing pizza and do a robust business. Next to the pizza place was a Salvadorean bakery with signs that indicated it could provide cakes for your quinceanera. If anyone has any tips about what to buy in a Salvadorean bakery, please let me know. I've never been particularly appetized by what I've found there. After the bakery came a real old-style barber shop, with men and boys waiting to be clipped and shaved. (It was all white -- why do I notice these things?) Anyway, it was good to see these independent businesses, because throughout the DC suburbs you usually see the same stores over and over.

As we walked on, I pointed out to Philip two landmarks from my past. One was a building where I remembered going to the bank with my mother when we first moved to the area, in 1969. The other was a Shell station that had also been around at the time. The Shell station was also the place where the DC sniper killed one of his victims in 2003. I didn't tell Philip that, of course. It all seems so unlikely now, and there's not even a memorial to mark the spot.

Finally we came to the main goal of our trip -- a monstrous, renovated Safeway in the center of Kensington. The renovation of the Safeway had sparked some controversy, because opponents were concerned that it would split the town in two. I'm not sure how they resolved it, but the Safeway is still there. At first I felt weird just walking in off the street, but I began to notice people here and there putting their grocery bags into backpacks. Maybe it wasn't so strange to be walking in the suburbs. Hey, walking saves money and it's good for the environment.

I remember when I lived in Somerville, Massachusetts after college (we called it Slumerville), and I would buy food at the Stop-n-Shop after work. The walk home was over a mile up dark, often icy streets, and I often daydreamed about running into acquaintances who happened to have cars. Even after I came to DC, I walked to the local grocery store and Saturday farmer's market in Adams Morgan. I eventually purchased what I always thought of as an old lady folding grocery cart, the kind my grandmother used to take along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West side. It's so funny to think back on this stuff, because nowdriving to the grocery store feels like the only possibility. But maybe I'll look back on this part of my life -- with the minivan, the carseats, the tightly scheduled days -- as the anomaly, although it seems to be all-encompassing now.

Anyway, we had a good time in Safeway. Philip tried to talk me into buying two magnets that make noise when you put them together, a nerf basketball, and something from the gum machines out front. I managed to make my no stick on the first two (Magnets? God forbid! Hazard, hazard!), but I gave in and let him have 2 quarters to purchase a football-related sticker from one of the gum machines.

And it's like this every time we go to the grocery store -- "Mommy, buy me this! Mommy, I need this!" Honestly, those companies that market to kids are just too good. Whoever came up with the idea to brand everything from toothpaste to yogurt to cereal with Dora, Diego and the like certainly deserves their bonus, because my kids are always drawn in. I actually find it sort of fun to argue with Philip and Sofia about why we can't buy these things. I try to teach them how it's all about some evil corporation wanting to manipulate them. However, I'm sure it will all backfire on me someday. I can just see Sofia becoming corporate counsel for the Disney princesses, or Philip figuring out profit margins for surgary Superfriends cereal. The kids are just like sponges, and Sofia -- at age 3-1/2 -- is equally excited about "Iraq" Obama, the Redskins, and Cinderella.

I've fully accepted that if anyone is going to be indoctrinating my kids, it's going to be me. Hence my decision to have them go to Sunday school to learn about their Jewish heritage...even if it wasn't something that I experienced when I was a kid. I want to forcibly immerse them in Free to Be You and Me and box them around the ears with ideas of compassion and lovingkindness. Luckily, the interfaith congregation where I take them is dominated by moderate left-of-center 1970s-influenced parents (like me?), so I feel like even if they have Pavlovian responses to Dora and Power Rangers, at least they'll know something about the values I want them to adopt.

And I guess walking and exploring on foot are closely linked to these values. I don't want them to be the kind of kids who are isolated in comfortable, air conditioned cars all the time, riding high above the crowded streets. I don't want them to be reluctant to go outside when it's raining. I don't want them to look down on using public transportation. I want them to be connected to their community and the people in it. I want them to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. I want them to notice small things and perceive larger patterns based on their observations of the peopled world. I think walking be empowering, because you're establishing a goal and getting there on your own steam and volition. I want my kids to feel this power, and to have a curiosity about the world that overrides much of the fear they'll probably also have.

So, in the interest of further indoctrinating Philip, I suggested to him that we walk to a nearby bookstore after we were done with Safeway. He was excited about that (yay!), and I ended up buying him a book on "Magic Escapes", which included detailed instructions about how to do tricks like freeing yourself from iron chains. I have no problem buying him books...the more, the better if it helps him read. Later that afternoon, Philip entertained us with his new "magic" tricks, one of which involved hiding a large red block up his sleeve. Unfortunately, when he tried to make the block magically reappear, it got stuck in his sleeve and he couldn't get it out. But it was all fun, and I was so energized by the day.

I think I'm just an urban person by default, having grown up with New York City as my promised land. Anything that brings me into contact with bustling commerce and other people puts me in a good frame of mind. My kids, growing up in the same area as I did but in very different times, may have a different experience than me. Hopefully -- despite all of the isolating factors of our age -- they'll still be able to share some my enjoyment with community and commerce. I'm certainly going to try my damndest to make it happen.