Pruning

When you live in a townhouse with a complex-wide gardening crew, you can leave in the morning and return in the afternoon to find half your fern lopped off.

While the fern was being butchered, a friend and I were walking the sidewalks of OB and Pt. Loma. Block after block, as we passed full-fledged houses with front yards (that have personal gardeners, or extremely motivated homeowners), we talked about very personal things. We left our secrets in the birds of paradise and palm trees of strangers.

Aristotle used to lecture while walking, and his followers came to be known as The Peripatetics.

Countless people have walked across America with the stated purpose of losing weight or raising money. Probably, they also did it to conquer something hiding in their shadows.

Therapists sometimes conduct sessions while walking with their client.

I occasionally walk circles while drilling Spanish flash cards.

Perhaps next summer, I will walk across Luxembourg. Without flash cards, but with my husband and a few friends.

Our fern is quite sick, blighted with some sort of fungus that turns its once-green leaflets an ochre-rust. Our caminito doesn't get much foot traffic. But maybe just one person, recently passing by, left a regret in one of its fronds, shortly before it was cut off.