Northline Walking Blog #1

The first walk I went on was to Second Street. Allison’s walk is mentioned on page 144: “The morning was cold and she left the casino and went down Second Street as the sun began to come up over the mountains.” Allison does this after her night shift at the Cal Neva, so I decided to walk from the Cal Neva down Second Street. Although I didn’t go on this walk as the sun rose (even though I would have liked to), I could still imagine Allison making her way down the street after a long night of work.

                This was a unique experience for me, as I have traversed these streets before, but never from the perspective of a fictional character. I have never put myself in the shoes of a waitress on the graveyard shift at a casino before, or tried to picture what this same walk would be like if that were me. This catalyzed a novel way of thinking: How do my personal experiences cause me to view my surroundings? How do these differ for others? It is fascinating to consider that two people can live in the same city on the surface, but it can be two completely different worlds to each of them.

                As I completed this walk, I thought about how Allison would feel. Relieved, probably, that her work was over. Grateful, perhaps, that she didn’t have to sleep alone in her apartment. Maybe she was admiring the serenity of the sunrise. The most blatant emotion I could think of was a sense of peace and relief that she was alone. Allison was, in my opinion at least, by far the most introverted characters in the novel, and she loved to be alone. In fact, I couldn’t really picture her enjoying a walk on Second Street at any other time of day because of this.

                Shortly after her walk began, Allison ran into Dan Mahony, the man who always ate breakfast during her shift. She was hesitant to talk to him, and hoped he wouldn’t notice her. As I walked, I observed the people I passed—any one of them could have been a Dan Mahony, or an Allison, and I would never know. This helped me to consider the complexity of people—each one of us has deeply personal experiences, yet we pass each other by every day and often forget to consider this. Maybe I walked past a man yesterday who had once gotten mugged on the street, or a woman who was abused by her boyfriend. I will probably never know. Even so, it is valuable to consider this when we encounter people in our everyday lives. 

Link to a map of where I walked: file:///C:/Users/Kyla/Pictures/Walking%20Blog/W%202nd%20St,%20Reno,%20NV%20to%20Club%20Cal%20Neva%20-%20Google%20Maps.htm