I've have always been a walker. According to my mother — who I admit is an exaggerator — I started walking at 6 months. The first time I took the streets alone, I was 8 years old. I had missed the school bus, and my mom had already left for work, and I didn’t have a way to contact her (this was before cell phones became ubiquitous). I decided to walk to the next town over where my aunt lived. It was a 30-minute journey that required crossing over 3 major intersections, and a bridge. I thought I was going to get in trouble for doing it, but once my mother realized that I could handle a trip like that on my own without getting run over by a car, I was allowed to walk everywhere — and so I did. My walks were not wasted. I spent a lot of time having full-blown conversations with God about everything. I didn’t care how it made me look. I had a brief period between the ages of 10 and 12 in which I had one of those no-secrets-do-everything-together friendships. I wanted it again,