When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park, they created a section called the Ramble, a hilly woodland with meandering footpaths meant to allow park visitors to escape the hustle and bustle of city life and let their feet and minds wander. Olmsted believed in the restorative powers of nature and the importance of mental escape. In contrast to the Promenade, the razor straight road in the park designed for social intercourse that was chock-a-block with benches and given ample width for carriages, the Ramble paths were designed to wander through a thicket of trees that masked views to the city. The Ramble was designed for walking. Walking in a particular way, a way Henry David Thoreau, who said "It is a great art to saunter." would have endorsed. Or Jules Renard, the French writer who noted that in walking "the body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird."
Rambling has purpose.
I want to yell this at the editor for whom I was, until last night, revising a piece of writing. If I were reading the emergency instructions for what to do if my child accidentally wrote on his eyeball with a Sharpie, I would want it written like the Promenade, straight and to the point. (FYI, a long saline rinse and time seems to do the trick). But if I wanted to escape from the toils of my days, be transported away from my own world, I may take a ramble. I delight in following the mental paths of other writers, through the wooded thickets of their own design, seeing how they sculpt the views, revealing glimpses of the world I may not have noticed otherwise.
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