Plantar Fasciitis Walk

It rained early this morning, and our reward is an Ontario-humid morning. It’s been over a week since I walked with a full pack. Most of the time I’ve been writing, including this morning, and as a result, I’m starting today’s walk in the noon heat. I set off walking down College Avenue towards Albert Street. The mystery novels we put in the nearby little free library are gone. Flowering onions are going to seed. Nearby, someone has planted blanket flower and goldenrod beside the sidewalk; it’s a little garden of native plants on the corner of a lawn. A poster stapled to a tree announces a yard sale this weekend. I wonder if we should have a yard sale; we have lots of stuff to get rid of. I walk past the Crescents School, formerly named after one of the architects of the residential school system, and I think about the province’s terrible plan to return students to classrooms this September: no changes in class size, no PPE, no mandatory masking. How many teachers or parents or grandparents will die because of the government’s negligence? I understand that the government hates the teachers’ union, but enabling Covid-19 outbreaks in schools seems like a drastic response to a bad employer-union relationship.

I realize that there are many beautiful gardens on this street, and the materialist in me wonders if that’s a phenomenon of disposable income and leisure time, rather than aesthetic choices. Someone has dug out currant bushes along the sidewalk—a thief? A man is writing on an electronic pad; could he be another kindred spirit? A cool wind has started blowing from the north, and the humidity starts to dissipate. I hear a window above me, in a highrise building, slide open or shut. A squirrel buries a nut in the lawn while a crow stands guard. I’ve been stretching to try to make the plantar fasciitis that’s been bothering me go away. I wonder if it’s worked; it’s probably too soon to know. Someone driving the wrong way on the one-way street has knocked over a no-parking sign. 

I turn north on Albert Street. It hasn’t been a good week. First, I learned that literary journals consider blog posts to be previous publications, which means that if I post something here, a journal will reject it. I had no idea that was the case, and it’s left me wondering about the future of this blog. Should I stop posting? Should I take my writing more seriously and try to publish it? Or are these sketches without interest? Then, I learned that for the second time this summer I didn’t get a teaching job I applied for, despite having taught for that department for almost 20 years, despite having won teaching awards, despite having created new courses when asked to and having taken on courses at short notice. I had imagined I was part of a community, if only on its margins, but I was wrong: I am merely a fungible labour unit, to be used and then disposed of. Now I’ve been disposed of. It stings. But, on the other hand, it’s better to know the truth of my situation, isn’t it? Now I know how that department—how the university as a whole—sees me. And I can make future decisions with that in mind. A man wearing a mask exits a chiropractor’s office, and a woman without one follows. The wind has shifted to the northeast; it’s cooling. My pack keeps pushing me forward, even though I’m trying to stand erect. I run through its contents in my mind, wondering if I’m carrying anything I could leave home. It’s the water that’s so heavy, I realize, and I can’t do without that. 

I cut across a gas station to Victoria Avenue. Last night, the writers’ group I’m part of met, and I got a lot of questions about who the audience of what I’m writing might be. I’m trying to imagine the Venn diagram of people who might be interested: people who enjoyed W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, on one hand, and people who have read Jim Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains or Harold Johnson’s Two Families on the other. I might be the only inhabitant of the space where those circles overlap. Maybe I’m wasting my time. There’s a new sidewalk on Victoria, and new trees have been planted on the boulevard, part of the city’s beautification project for this street, but that new sidewalk is marked by spray-painted hieroglyphics, and I wonder why. Is the city planning to tear this new sidewalk up again? I cross the street—the sidewalk has been torn up a few blocks ahead—and pass Victoria Park. The elms along the street look healthy, but the spruce trees in behind look terrible, and I wonder if they’ll be cut down. 

I stop to look at the sign chained to the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald. It acknowledges that, for some people in the community, that statue is a problem. I wonder if it will be removed. It probably should. We need to acknowledge that the Father of Our Country ™ was also engaged in a genocide. That’s the point of Clearing the Plains. It’s time we started paying attention. I turn to keep walking. My shirt is soaked with sweat, and I realize that when the breeze drops, it’s still a hot day. It’s lunch time, and people are enjoying the park and walking down the sidewalk. Two men, moving slowly, look dazed; they are walking like zombies. A woman waiting for them to cross Scarth Street looks angry at them. A coffee shop that was closed during the pandemic is now open, although there aren’t many seats on the patio outside. At one table, a man is talking loudly about psychology; I can’t tell what his point might be. Three men are repointing the brick at the hotel down the street, one on a lift. The condo tower across the street, formerly an office tower, gives them some shade. A deeply tanned man is shading his phone, trying to read it, the way I do. Two painters climb into a van. I press the beg button at the corner of Broad Street and it almost falls onto the sidewalk; nothing seems to be holding it in place.

West of Broad Street, the city changes: now there are residential buildings and small shops. The beautification project has emphatically ended at Broad Street; a line has been drawn between what matters and what doesn’t. A plywood fence, sheathed in plastic fake brick, is weathering as well as might be expected, and a boxer dog in a window barks aggressively at me. I’m happy there’s a locked door between us. A woman passes eating an ice cream. The Milky Way! That would be a nice place to stop for a minute, I think, and then I realize that they only take cash, and I don’t have any with me. I take a drink of water instead. Zucchini and tomatoes are growing in a front yard, shaded by the street elms. I cross Winnipeg Street. In front of the Milky Way, a woman is swaying on the sidewalk—dancing, maybe, or just trying to remain upright. I can’t tell. An employee stops serving ice cream, comes out, and tells her to move on. The credit union branch next door is permanently closed. An empty lot behind a tall fence is playing host to a forest of five foot tall sow thistle plants, all in seed. 

The Indian restaurant down the block is closed. A man is using a jackhammer to remove the front steps. Twenty years ago, I was doing the same thing. The heavy concrete steps at our front door had sunk into the ground, and their weight had broken the front foundation wall into pieces. The steps had to be removed so the wall could be stabilized. It took weeks to finish that job. A Purolator truck pulls up against the curb, its breaks squealing, and the driver hops out, wearing a mask, to deliver several packages. The house where a temporary fence used to keep angry dogs off the sidewalk has changed; the fence is gone, and a cat sits on the front steps instead. The whole row of bungalows, though, has for sale signs on the lawns, highlighting the fact that the block has “commercial zoning.” I predict that those bungalows will soon be demolished. Where are people supposed to live—especially people who don’t have much money? Another vacant lot is home to a large billboard. A horn honks. 

I cross Arcola Avenue. Inside a bus shelter, a torn jacket has been abandoned under an advertisement for high-tech raincoats. There is a long line of clouds in front of me, and I wonder if it’s this morning’s rain leaving, or another storm moving in. I walk past a fire hall, a store selling medical supplies, and a muffler shop. There are no trees here, just six or more lanes of traffic, and it’s hot. I’m hungry—it’s past lunch—and I drink some more water. There are many empty storefronts here, but also new businesses: an African food store, a place that sells South Asian clothes and shoes. I come to a row of dead trees by the sidewalk. They are chokecherries, according to the tag hanging from one of them. Chokecherries are hard to kill, and I wonder what happened. At Park Street, I start walking on the North Service Road. I see my friend Yens, and I wave; he’s standing in front of an empty storefront, and I wonder if he’s renting an office for his campaign. The McDonald’s next door smells like frying fish, but since it’s Friday, that only makes sense.

The Ring Road offramp that crosses above the service road is thick with traffic. I see a discarded mask in the grass, along with some white asters. I walk beneath the Ring Road. Traffic roars by above. Crickets chirp in unmown weeds, and grasshoppers are jumping on the sidewalk, I realize that even weeds are better, ecologically, than a tidy lawn. The service road is very quiet, but Victoria Avenue East is very busy. Clearly the Bypass hasn’t done much to divert traffic south of the city. I stop for lunch, and afterwards, carry on heading east. It’s windier now, cloudier. There’s trash everywhere outside the Motel 6. I hear a siren behind me. At Fleet Street, the sidewalk ends, and I know I’m getting closer to the edge of the city. A carwash hums. A man scolding a child in his car’s passenger seat veers close to me; he glares at me, as if his driving is my fault. A red, mid-50s Pontiac chugs past. The sign at the Super 8 motel promises “special ratfs.” G. Gordon Liddy slept here?

A pedestrian approaches. She’s wearing a jacket despite the heat. We recognize each other and say hello. I cross Coleman Crescent and walk across the condemned bridge, living dangerously. Purple loosestrife is growing along Pilot Butte Creek below. Twenty years ago, it was rare to see purple loosestrife here; now that noxious weed is common. A gopher whistles. The service road—at least, I think it’s still the service road—veers away from the highway, and I follow. Sparrows twitter in the trees along the sidewalk. A horn sounds on the highway behind me. The wind has shifted around; it’s coming from the west now. Another pedestrian passes. While I’m waiting to cross Prince of Wales Drive, I stretch the hamstring that’s contributing to my plantar fasciitis. I cross and pass the mosque, a truck stop, and a cluster of hotels. I stumble on the uneven sidewalk. I realize I haven’t been taking pictures, partly because I can’t find a subject in the visual confusion, but I settle for a cell tower against the blue sky.

I walk past a farm equipment dealer. The road is busier now than it was on my last visit here; that was on a Saturday, during the lockdown, so I’m not surprised. I see the transmission tower marking my destination in the distance. Two Sasktel workers are doing something inside a switching box. My heel is starting to hurt, and I guess at how far I’ve come today; I check my phone, and my guess turns out to be right. So the stretching hasn’t helped—at least, not yet. I listen to the crunch of my boots on the gravel shoulder. My lunch is repeating; I taste pickled. An abandoned Quonset sits behind a locked gate. There’s more purple loosestrife in the ditch, and bolts and flakes of rust on the shoulder. The transmission tower is closer now. The sky has cleared, too. I can hear traffic on the highway behind me. A sign tells me where I am: this is Eastgate Drive, not the service road. When I crossed the condemned bridge, I realize, I travelled from one street to another. So that’s where I am. And then I arrive at Tower Road: my goal. I take off my pack and sit on a concrete barrier that blocks the old exit from Tower Road onto the highway. This spot will be the trailhead for my attempt at walking around the Bypass. Now I know how far it is to walk here. I watch the traffic on the highway. The Bypass is carrying so much less traffic. I take a drink; my water is warm. I stretch my hamstrings again, and I’m surprised to see a wooly caterpillar between my feet.

Now comes the hard part—walking back. I shoulder my pack and set off, walking into the wind and the sun. Poplar trees beside the campground across the road rustle. I smell cigar smoke—one of the campers, no doubt. Why park an RV beside a highway? What’s the attraction? I don’t get it. Trucks rumble past. Of course, you could just as well ask what the attraction of walking around the edges of a small prairie city might be. Two cyclists—kids, really—ride by. I keep walking. My heel is starting to hurt. The Sasktel workers have finished whatever they were doing and have moved on. Where Eastgate Drive curves away from the highway, I decide to take a shortcut, walking across lawns and parking lots, past motels and restaurants. I spot a desire path next to a billboard—other people walk here!—and keep going. A grove of silver buffaloberry trees is covered in garbage, and magpies rest in their shade. At every step, I set a dozen grasshoppers stirring. I cross Prince of Wales Drive and pass an Indian restaurant I’d never heard of before. I walk back across the condemned bridge. Outside the Giant Tiger store, a woman waits with her purchases in the shade of a single tree for a ride home. At Fleet Street the sidewalk begins again. I’m tired, but I’m not quite ready to stop yet. I check my phone again. How far have I walked? The plantar fasciitis is starting to hurt quite a bit, and my stride is becoming a hobble. I wonder how much more walking I have in me. I walk under the Ring Road again, pass the fishy McDonald’s, and decide to call home for a ride. I cross Victoria Avenue and wait outside a Shopper’s Drug Mart. I’ll have to keep stretching, but I’m happy with what I’ve managed to accomplish today. Perhaps I’ll be able to make it all the way around the Bypass after all.