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Footpaths and Trails: How We Own Them and Miss Them in Our Hearts

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Photo source: geograph.org.uk   When do you go for a walk? To welcome a new morning and inhale its charming minutiae, to clear your mind, or to stroll down avenues of calm and buzz with your friends, chatting lightly about you, them, and life? What is the one constant in all the above? The footpath.   Footpaths have a fascinating way of reminding us who we are. So many have come before us and walked the same paths. Their footfall created the physicality of those natural footpaths, the trails we walk. I know this is a stereotyped metaphor - walking the paths of our predecessors and ancients. This brief note anyway does not mean to have any such philosophical gravitas. This is just about the footpaths.   Yet, footpaths, especially the naturally evolved ones, always summon up thoughts of the very many people who would have walked the same path. A heavy pedestrian flow is mirrored in the wear and tear of these narrow lanes. Unlike tarred or concrete roads, they are mostly att...
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