I changed my walk this morning. I’d planned to walk through the water meadows; it’s a beautiful path first thing in the morning, all reeds and tall grasses, criss-crossed with streams and waterways. Close to the town, and yet pleasingly wild and unkempt.
It would be especially beautiful on this bright, spring day.
As I walked through the quiet, early morning streets, I noticed there was a woman thirty yards or so in front of me. She turned left at the end of the road, along the path round the church and right into the street of Victorian houses that runs down to the sports grounds. Exactly the path I needed to take. As she turned left, then right, so did I behind her. I realised, when she set out across the rugby pitches towards the bridge that crosses the first of the streams, that she too had chosen the path that runs through the water meadows for her morning walk.
And so I took a left.
I chose another route, so she could enjoy the quiet beauty of the water meadows without my heavy, male steps behind her. I chose another route so that she would not feel threatened by me.
It made a good start to the day: the fact that I could perform this small, probably unnoticed, kindness for this random stranger.
It made a bad start to the day: to be reminded that this is how the world is now, and that, I, like all men, must own my part in making it so.
There’s a longer read on this from 2018 here. It’s sad and angering to read it again and realise how little has changed.