Written in response to...
A walk about town.
I’ve moved house recently and am so enjoying exploring my new neighbourhood. The area I live in now has a heady mix of nature, access to public transport, suburban charm and cafes/boutiques/restaurants on my doorstep.
And this made me think about the delights of exploring not just a new neighbourhood, but anywhere on foot.
The concept of walking as a means of discovery is not new. In fact, did you know there’s a name for those who wander city streets specifically?
Welcome to the world of the ‘Flâneur’.
This week, I’m reposting a piece I wrote about the Flâneur in response to the walking I’ve been doing lately.
The Flâneur
The term originates in the 19th Century with wealthy literary types, ie. rich men (Le Flâneur) who had the time and money to stroll the city streets observing and writing about the life they saw around them.
The Flâneur is an urban explorer who inhabits, but is detached from, city life. For women, the freedom to stroll the city at will was denied them until writers such as George Sand and Virginia Woolf took on the role of La Flâneuse and made it possible - and acceptable - for women to stroll the city independently.
Virginia Woolf described moving about the city encompassed by the “champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets”. She went on to write about the joy she found in joining the surging mass of people, and of how she left the comforts of home to become “part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers”. (You can read an article on female Flâneurs here in the Guardian).
Lauren Elkin, in her beautiful recount of 'idle strolling' (also in the Guardian here), reclaims the notion of urban explorer for herself and all women who are disenfranchised by the city streets. She calls for the 'determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk' to take up the challenge of roaming once again.
And what is it about the ‘liberating possibilities of a good walk’?
I think it's the chance to wander, to be free, to allow the thoughts to roam, to be lost in a world that is vibrant, diverse and absorbing and, in losing oneself in the aimlessness, ironically you are more likely to find yourself again.
Where is your favourite place to wander?
You can read more about why young people find adopting the habits of the Flâneur important for social connections here.
Stay tuned for next week’s instalment where I publish the response to my first reader suggested prompt which, if you remember, was a barcode with the words ‘scan me’ embedded within it.
I hope you enjoy the result :-)
And, the week after that, I’ll go ‘behind-the-scenes’ of the piece I wrote - what inspired the story and how I went about crafting it.
Until then, happy walking!
Jacqui.
