Three Weird Walking Habits I Took Up During the Pandemic

And how they helped me stay connected to family members

It’s been a year of trying to stay connected with faraway friends and family… and not strangling the loved ones you see all. day. long. Over the past year, taking hours-long walks (usually between 10–20k steps, 5–6 days a week) has regulated my mood, given me time to listen to all the things I need to for my day job, and kept my children’s bodies from morphing into wet noodles. But I’ve noticed that I’ve picked up some unusual habits while doing all this walking. I hope they continue well after we come out of hibernation.

Texting roadkill with my brother

My brother and I regularly text each other photos of roadkill that we come across while on long jaunts. Petrified frog pancakes, deer rib cages picked semi-clean, rats that look like half-flattened toothpaste tubes. They’re all fodder for showing my brother that I love him and I’m thinking of him. And that I know he shares my sense that if we don’t laugh at this horror-filled world and/or turn it into ironic art, we’re doomed. Although, I just couldn’t bring myself to photograph the dead possum — and her parcel of eight dead babies attached to her back — at the top of the hill where I like to take walks. That would have been taking our…