Having heard me tell wondrous stories about walking poles, my beloved wanted a pair. She never tried mine, though. She got her own walking poles earlier this year, but she tried them out only today. We went down the Motovun hill and some way along the Parenzana, the erstwhile railway line connecting Trieste and Poreč or Parenzo in Italian. I did my best to show her how to use the poles, but I let her get in her stride on her own. She did get better on our return, but nothing wondrous happened to her. I remember being mesmerized by the experience of having four legs rather than two, as well as the experience of walking with my stomach muscles alive. She has had no such experiences. “Perhaps your family started walking upright well before mine,” I joked at some point. She just grinned. No better explanation crosses my mind, anyhow.