The Weight of the Step

We walk because the earth requires it. Each step is a small negotiation with gravity, a quiet insistence that we are still here, moving through the space allotted to us. There is a rhythm to the aging stride—a careful placement of weight, a reliance on the wood or steel that bridges the gap between the body and the ground. We do not notice the pavement until we are forced to measure it. We do not notice the light until it begins to lean, stretching shadows into long, thin fingers that point toward the coming night. It is a solitary business, this navigation of the city. We pass one another like ghosts in a hallway, each carrying the history of a thousand miles in the soles of our shoes. Does the path remember the feet that have pressed into it, or does it simply wait for the next traveler to arrive?

José J. Rivera-Negrón has captured this quiet persistence in his image, The Gentleman’s Path. It is a study of a single, deliberate movement against the backdrop of a world that does not stop. Does the stillness of the figure change the way you see the street?