A & E

Geoff Nicholson is a walker.

He walks when he's in Los Angeles and London, the two places he lives. He walked a lot when he lived in New York City for seven years.

Every day, he takes a break or two from writing for a 40-minute stroll. Or he'll hit the streets, wear out shoe leather, leg it, lope, pace or any of the other synonyms used for walking.

He's primarily a city walker, but he understands the attraction of the great outdoors.

There is one place, however, where he refuses to walk; not out of fear, but from a righteous sense of disdain.

"The idea of anybody doing it in a vacuum in a gym is a complete and utter nightmare to me," says Nicholson, the author of "The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism." "Walking is about exploring, or at least observing."

Nicholson writes about what is often considered -- if it is considered at all -- a mundane activity. Walking, he finds, is not only a decent physical activity but one that has a therapeutic element. A Duke University study found that three 20-minute walks per week were better for patients suffering from depression than "all the antidepressants in the world."

"There's the idea that walking is good for the soul, or good for character, but I don't think I could prove it in any meaningful way," says Nicholson, whose previous books include the novels "Bleeding London" and "Bedlam Burning" and the nonfiction "The Sex Collectors."

The word "walk" has its roots in Middle English, but the word's many synonyms are derived from other languages: the French promenade and march, shuffle from the German schuffeln, trek from Dutch. Some words -- trudge, stroll and saunter -- are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as "origins obscure."

In whatever language, by whatever terminology, however, walking is a thoughtful activity. And it is also, it seems, closely related to another primal human activity.

"The pace of walking, the pace of conversation, and indeed the pace of thinking, all go together incredibly well," Nicholson says. "A single pace is like a single word. And when a child is young, we ask, 'is he walking yet, is he talking yet?' That's the two things that signal a person is no longer a baby, that you're taking the first steps to be an adult, a real human being."

What seems to intrigue Nicholson most about walking is the opportunity to observe the world. Unlike running, during which the landscape goes by in a blur, walking, either at a brisk or leisurely pace, allows a person to see things. While Nicholson, especially in Los Angeles, has predetermined routes he takes, he anticipates an element of surprise in each walk, whether it's new neighbors, new plants or other minutia that come into focus.

"(Walking) does have a capacity to poke around, and look and see what's going on," Nicholson says. "Although L.A., where I live now, is a city designed to be seen from a moving car in many ways -- a lot of the signage and scale is designed to be observed from a car -- once you start walking in L.A., you see things you would never see from a moving car. And for me that's what walking is about."

Nicholson does distinguish between walking and hiking, another activity that is closely related but not quite the same. He says there is something "humorless" about a person who says "I'm a hiker, I'm going on a hike," which also implies particular footwear and equipment.

Nor is he setting himself up as a "great strider" who seeks wisdom or enlightenment. A walk can just be a walk.

"There is a purpose, but it's not goal-centered," Nicholson says. "You go out there and walk and whatever happens, happens. And if nothing happens, that's OK, too. You set off and leave yourself open to experiences that you can have in a small way. Whereas people who are marching or striding or strutting or one of these other words, that implies a certain humorless purpose. I guess I kind like an openness, a lightness, about it. There's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' and the lightness of walking. It's not to make it into some kind of unbearable expedition."

Walking facts

Facts from "The Lost Art of Walking:The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism," by Geoff Nicholson

� Famous literary walkers include Henry David Thoreau, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge estimated that Wordsworth walked 180,000 miles during his lifetime.

� French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) walked the six miles from Arcueil to Paris every day to his studio. On his way home at night, he created music in his head that he would jot down in a notebook. Satie also carried a hammer for protection.

� The Fats Domino song "I'm Walking" is thought to have been inspired by an incident when the musician's car broke down. As he was walking to a garage, a fan saw him and said "It's Fats Domino walking!" Domino supposedly went home and turned his misfortune into song.

� Songs with a walking component include Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight"; Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line"; "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra; "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox; and "Walking on Thin Ice" by Yoko Ono. Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" was supposedly inspired by Igor, the Marty Feldman character in "Young Frankenstein," who told the visitors to Dr. Frankenstein's castle to "walk this way."

Accomplished walkers

� Sebastian Snow, an Englishman who walked the length of South America from Tierra del Fuego in Chile to the Panama Canal over 19 months in the early 1970s.

� Arthur Blessitt, the Mississippi native who has carried a 40-pound cross during walks in 315 countries, covering more than 38,000 miles.

� Mildred Norman Ryder, known as the Peace Pilgrim, who became the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail in one season in 1952.

Eccentric walkers

� Capt. Robert Barclay Allardice, (1779-1854), a Scot who participated in a series of sporting walks, including one in which he walked a mile in each of 1,000 successive hours.

� The Old Leatherman, a 19th-century vagabond who from 1858 to 1889 walked continuous 300-mile circuits between New York and Connecticut dressed in leather from head-to-toe. His true identity is not known, although many think he was Jules Bourglay, a native of France who was said to be suffering from a broken heart.

� Edward Payson Weston (1839-1929) wagered that if Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election in 1860, he'd walk from Boston to Washington, D.C., in 10 days. Weston arrived a couple of hours late for the inauguration ceremony, but did attend one of the presidential balls. Weston went on to become a celebrity, notably walking 5,000 miles in 1869 for $25,000.

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