Signpost for the next stage of the journey

In August 2008, I went overnight from being a pampered chauffeured passenger to being a pedestrian/bus rider. By the time my chauffeur came home from the hospital in November (with chauffeuring on the backburner for now, I’d joined the sisterhood of grey-haired ladies with shopping carts and learned a lot about my new mode of transportation. For one thing, I found that quite an interesting walk can be experienced along city streets. For another, I learned that distances by foot were far shorter than they seemed when travelling by car and that even on the grid of city blocks, there were shortcuts to be found along occasional diagonals.

And so it happened that after four months of being a full-time walker, I decided one Saturday morning to get off the bus at a different stop and walk a route I hadn’t previously travelled. Pulling my blue plaid cart behind me, I reached a pedestrian crosswalk along diagonal Kingsway and marvelled to find this witty signage.

Whodunnit? I was intrigued to imagine who would see the possibilities, whip out a waterproof marker, and leave the message for all to see. Let’s say: Female. Under 20. Rings in eyebrows. Wearing skeleton-motif hoodie. Whoever – I loved it and hoped the graffiti busters would spare it. The next Saturday, it was still intact and this time my thoughts turned to The Message and Me. “Destined to be walking forever.” Right. Here I am. Saturday morning. Blue plaid shopping cart. A bit of a wry commentary on how things get done these days.

I lived with the wry commentary for a few weeks and at last became confident that the City of Vancouver had greater things on its to-do lists (like bailing out the Olympic Village) than cleaning up the street signs along Kingsway. And after a few weeks, as I looked for and greeted this message each week, I came to see it in a different way.

“Destined to be walking forever.” Seriously, isn’t this a cheering exhortation for the great roadtrip we’re all on? Right. It deserves an exclamation point: “Destined to be walking forever!” Open the door. Put one step in front of the other. Just keep walking.