I love to walk anywhere. This might seem strange to anyone who assumes I am using the term “to walk” as a means of transportation. As if I am choosing to walk to a destination over driving or bicycling or taking a train. While this statement is still true, “to walk” in this context is meant as an activity in itself, a form of leisure. It’s not about counting steps or finding the quickest route to a particular destination. It is a stroll. It is wandering aimlessly with the simple meditation of one foot in front of the other foot in front of the other foot in front of the other.

“What do you want to do today?”

“I know! Let’s go for a walk.”

I have walked through the streets of Toronto and Athens and Accra. I have walked around the Guatemalan highlands. I have walked while holding the hand of people I loved and walked with some of them as our love began to deteriorate. Conversations about far off spaces and the reason, or lack thereof, for existing have occurred on walks, conversations which certainly would not have started in motionless company. I walked to conclude rowdy nights and settle into new days.

Walking allows me to exit the confines of stress, kick my brain into a slower gear and blend into the scenery around me. A countless number of steps featuring a countless number of moments that mosaic into a life.

I really love walking.

My daughter walked for the first time. To be clear, she walked for the first time unaided by help. She wasn’t pushing a light up elephant on wheels or clutching the hands of any poor back-breaking individual that would hold her while she strutted around. This was all her, one foot in front of the other in front of the other.

We were expecting it to happen soon, if not eagerly pushing her to do so. Rachael and her were leaving on a trip the next week and I was gutted at the thought of me not being in ear-shot of her when it happened. We’d plop her down from our arms on any flat surface, watch her look up to us as she shakily balanced on two feet, giving a sly smile that said, “you really think this will happen on your terms?”. She’d cruise around on furniture chasing our cats or babble “wa wa” over and over again until she used a human to help her get somewhere. It’s not that she couldn’t walk yet. It’s that she wanted to master it first before her grand moment.

She had just come out of a bath. Generally this means she’s in her wild phase, tossing herself around on the bed, screaming in joy at a passerby animal or bringing book after book to Dada for a read. This particular night she was with Mama, Auntie and Grandma while Dada was upstairs eating dinner. Out of nowhere, I hear a scream from downstairs. I come down to see our beautiful baby girl, naked and in shock from all the yelling women around her. She had just took her first steps in true style, with no clothes on and running towards her Grandma.

She did it a couple more times. Running wildly from one person to the next, arms in the air and unshackled from the constrains of clothes. She is a little animal, free to roam.

Just like when she stared up at me and gave me my new name, Dada, for the first time, this moment is forever etched into my brain. She walked. Well, I guess she actually ran.

How can the word ‘proud’ possibly capture the intense love I felt for her in that moment?

I now understand why the “First Steps” are so important. It’s more than just transportation. It is her first encounter of real independence. Another significant reminder that she is an individual person that has her own unique experience of the world around her. It is moment one, of a countless stream of steps that will take her to unknown places for years to come. All the walks that she will go on with all the people that will accompany her can be traced back to that basement and that moment.

I still have a lot of steps ahead of me too. Now I get to share many of them with the most special person in my life. What will we find together? What backdrops will drift over our experiences? What conversations will we share? I am giddy to find out.