An old favourite made new again

I met Damien 32 years ago this month on a May long weekend camping trip in Banff, Alberta.

I was 18 and he was 21. We were both involved in a campus group called Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Although Damien did give me a ride home from the mountains in his sporty little Honda CRX, neither of us made much of an impression on the other at that time.

We met up again in September on campus as we were both volunteering at the used book sale that Inter-Varsity ran as its primary fundraiser. We got chatting and found out that each of us lived along 82 Avenue, one of the primary routes that funnels into the University of Alberta campus.

The section of 82 Avenue that passes through the Old Strathcona neighbourhood is known as Whyte Ave. And in our early adulthood it was the “cool” street in Edmonton. I don’t know what it’s like these days, but back in the 90s there was just the one cool street. (Later in our lives we would live in Montreal, a city with many Whyte Ave equivalents.)

Whyte Ave was an eclectic mix of independent stores and businesses - coffee shops, non-chain restaurants, vinyl records and music stores, hippie joints, boutiques and second hand clothing stores, late night live music venues, used bookstores, etc.

It was a fun place to be and a fun route to walk. Finding out that we both passed through this district on our way to campus we started walking to school together.

Writing this piece I was inspired to dig out my journals from the time.

09/14/94 “It’s a week since school started. I’m on top of my classes and a guy has expressed a friendship interest in me, Damion [sic]. I would love to be friends with him. We walked to school together today. He’s great.

9/20/94 “Damien and I have seen so much of each other lately. I see him every day and I can’t wait to see him again.”

Spending all that time walking together things progressed past friendship pretty quickly.

10/28/94 “Well, it’s official, Damien is my boyfriend - AHH!!”

Walking was how we got to know each other. And we’ve just kept on walking together, literally and figuratively for three decades.

Walking has been the go-to activity in our relationship. Damien loves walking which is a big part of what has kept it alive for us. Additionally, Damien is not a sit-down-for-long-talks kinda guy.

He’ll do it if he has to, but his preference is to talk while moving. And so I’ve learned through the years that if I want to create a space for deep conversations with my husband it helps to lace up and suggest a walk.

For a solid decade of family life most of our walking was family hiking, which included backpacking. After hiking and backpacking through some spectacular places in North America we don’t find mainland Nova Scotia to be a particularly inspiring place for hiking. There aren’t a lot of long distance paths here, and very few mountain top views.

There are small hikes near us that we return to again and again as nice walks, but with our backpacking experience we feel like we’ve already reached the ceiling for difficult hiking available in Nova Scotia.

But we still want to walk. And as we age we want to keep physically challenging ourselves to help us maintain and build our health and longevity. Damien, in particular can be relied upon for introducing the “challenge” aspect.

And so it was no surprise to me that he suggested we get backpacks designed to carry weights for our walks and hikes. I’ve been adding the weights from our home gym to a regular backpack for a while now, but not consistently, and the ergonomics of having iron discs clunk around my lumbar region isn’t ideal.

Getting backpacks specifically designed for carrying weights makes weighted walking safer on my body and easier to just grab ‘n go, and therefore more likely to happen. We can do it right from our door, going for walks along the river, or we can drive to nearby trails.

On those hikes, instead of the physical challenge of climbing a mountain, we’re carrying weight and seeing how far we can go. And although the views are not from summits, they are spectacular nonetheless.

It’s our old favourite—our standby together activity—made new and fresh. Another iteration on a long history of walking through life together.