I lost my architectural job at the end of 2008, along with at least half the profession. It was the beginning of the “Great Recession”, and it devastated the industry. In early 2009, it quickly became clear that things weren’t going to improve for quite awhile, so I pivoted away from the daily expectation that I needed to be close to home, waiting for the phone to ring, or to respond to that important email that was bound to arrive with a job offer. They weren’t coming. So, accepting that I would need to manage on savings and unemployment for at least the next year, I would focus on other things in 2009. In essence, it became a forced sabbatical. I wrote, I traveled (cheaply), I volunteered all over town, I spent more time with family. In the end, it would become one of the most satisfying years I have had as an adult.
And I explored where I lived. To that end, one of the products of that year was starting a blog. It began with a pragmatic thought that having more of an online presence could help me in my job pursuits. This was 2009, and social media was still in its relative infancy, its potential unlimited one was told! (Start a blog- you even can get paid….so they said). Well, that turned out not to be the case. But I did find that I enjoyed doing it. I loved walking around San Francisco, and I decided I would chronicle those walks. Gradually, it would cover the entire Bay Area and beyond. As time went on, some of the walks became more ambitious, covering longer and longer distances. As time has gone on, there have been more posts on related topics, not necessarily devoted to a specific walk.
In the end though, this blog has been a celebration of walking. Be it of the urban variety, the sort that inspired the blog, or of a more rural nature, they have all been a well-spring of discovery. Even those walks I have done a 100 times inevitably found me seeing something new. They never fail to rejuvenate.
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