The way my dad works genuinely scares the crap out of me. Not because he looks weak doing so, or slow paced or burnt out. Infact quite the opposite for a man in his mid 70's, healthy and fit enough to leave the corpers in the dust. My issues is in the how he does it, not why.
First, there's his iconic walking stance, why does he walk like that? the acute angle walk.
If you're behind him, which often I am for his routine walks, it'll constantly cross your mind, how he could eventually tip to the ground with such stance, and even worse when we work on rocky or uneven grounds.
The vision of him about to stumble or fall the very next second never leaves my mind. But I can't exactly say he knows since it's probably a family trait thing.
Then there's the speed. He's unnecessarily freaking fast too, it's just a walk, we're just heading out. Yet, it feels like we're urgently heading out to meet a deadline.
What's worse is… I used to be like that and had to unlearn it because apparently, I was once told I walked so fast while going to take communion that the person behind me could feel the breeze I left.
But I think I just walk differently now, the speed still seems to still be there in form of longer strides as my dad recently brought it to my notice, about how fast I seem to walk despite looking so leisure and laid back.
That was the first time I realized when we were walking on parallel sides of the same road, my dad was always in a race I didn't know I was always winning.
Then there's his focus, a tunnel vision. Or lack of awareness? I don't even know what to call it, tunnel vision doesn't fully explain it. Because we have crossed paths, multiple times, and he didn't look my way. Was he just pretending to not be my father in public?
But we do walk around a lot already, and when I do call him, he stops for a quick chat. But this isn't a one time occurrence, not twice, but quite a few times I've had to call him after walking past him without his notice.
Which raises a lot of questions. Like what exactly is he seeing when he's walking? Because I see everything. People, movements, suspicious behavior, possible scenarios. Meanwhile, he's just… moving, like he has been assigned a destination and nothing else matters.
I could talk about his stamina but I can't really judge when I've walked quite the mile myself. There were periods were my legs evolved from simply walking to save my transport. It felt impossible the first week, but by week five, I was already moving like a pro.
But still, the difference between walking long distance with accompany and without is almost an extra hour for some reason.
And finally… He just likes covering ground for no reason. No clear destination. At mid 70's, he can walk for very long minutes in the scorching sun without stopping and it doesn't seem to matter where it is, those legs just keep moving.
I don't fully understand it, and maybe he knows something about walking that way that we dont, and maybe one day I'll walk like that. But for now… walking with him, I just like to not feel like a homing missile chasing a moving target you know.