The therapy of walking
Among the fraternity of walking writers, I find myself falling into step with Robert Louis Stevenson, who opens his essay Walking Tours by dismantling the idea of their purpose as principally to see landscape. Instead, he highlights the sweet dialogue between the “march” and the evening’s rest; the rhythmic chain created during a walk taken over several days. Coming to rest is for him an active element to be appreciated, savoured all the more for the walking itself being relatively short. For Stevenson, the “overwalker” misses out on the very happiness sought, evoking the proverb of the person who “goes further and fares worse”.
Although I sometimes choose to walk a long, footsore day in the Scottish hills, or take a week or fortnight on the trail of former walkers,
