Ever since I moved to start “living on my own”¹, I’ve always abhorred this one idea that people like to disseminate that:

“Living close to a shopping center is the best, you can find everything in one place and it makes life a lot simpler and more efficient.”

I won’t lie, I did live next to one for almost 6 years and it was convenient, but there was something dull about getting inside a gigantic closed building unaware of my surroundings or the weather, doing all of my shopping on stores from big brands and confining my whole living to a square kilometer.

To escape this feeling, I tend to walk a lot every time I travel, regardless if I am alone or accompanied. I think that’s how you get to explore the city, giving chance to serendipity, and eventually finding something you were not expecting, but loved, like when I was in London and ended up at the Battersea Power Station or just had a breakfast. So why wouldn’t I do this when I am back home?

When I moved to another apartment with my wife 3 years ago, we started living in a neighborhood that people sometimes described as:

“Like you’re living in a countryside village inside a big town: you have lots of small businesses and people know each other, but you’re 5 minutes away from everything the city has to offer.”

I loved it, having then different places for my different needs: a favorite bakery, grocery store, emporium, even a small and trustworthy tire repair shop. Sure there are some medium to big retail chains we cannot avoid visiting now and then, but the feeling of roaming the streets and being out in the open was and still is everything to me. It gives me peace of mind and joy², one such example happened yesterday, but not in my neighborhood, as you would expect.

Earlier this week my brother and I had found out that Lacuna Coil would be playing a concert in our city and given that I have listened to it since at least 2008³, I was very keen on buying the tickets to attend it. I decided to buy them physically to avoid the 15% processing fee or as it is called in Brazil, the “convenience fee”, therefore I started my journey going to a local musical instruments shop and buying the tickets.

It was still early evening and most of the stores had not shut down yet, so I chose to walk to a nearby emporium I knew to buy some salami for an evening of cheese and wine with my wife. Once that was out of the way, I went on to just walking the rest of the avenue to get the bus back home, which is when I spotted a recently opened⁴ flower market and earlier that day my wife had asked me to buy flowers for Saturday, so another item crossed off my list. I was back on my journey to the bus stop, or so I thought, when I saw a hardware store and since I needed to buy a replacement faucet handle for my bathroom, I got this out of the way too, perfect!

I was truly elated, one errand turned into four and I had suddenly efficiently solved tasks that would have required several strolls or car trips on different days, contrary to popular belief that doing things on foot is ineffective. At that point I let go of the idea to catch the bus back home and figured I could just walk the rest of the way.

Many will find this activity mundane, even tedious, but it was important for me: no music, no podcasts on 2x speed, no walking with my phone in hand, I was heading home distracted and feeling good, through activities we barely stop to notice in our rushed routines. I was just living the joy of walking the streets.