Walking With Ghosts

How many times have I walked this walk?

Sometimes I drift into the road slightly; sometimes I skip down off the kerb. Come to think of it, I should start skipping in general. Podcast, music, or a phone call in my ear. I avoid eye contact until the moment I’m forced into it — a quick glance up, a small smirk, and then straight back to pretending I haven’t just been obsessing over that tiny, forgettable moment for the past thirty seconds. Strangers as skippable cut scenes.

And as I walk, I see ghosts.

Me from two months ago. Me from two years ago. Me when my hair was longer. Me before I wrecked those shoes. Me when I accidentally had a mullet before it was ironically cool. Me when I used to talk to you. Me when I didn’t speak to you. Me before I knew you even existed. Thousands of steps, walked by thousands of versions of me.

When has nostalgia ever actually done you any good?

I remember reading — what was it again? — The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski, back when I used to walk that way to the shops. Back when I fought the cold by stubbornly wearing shorts on freezing winter days, just to prove I was still in control of something. Early in the book — if I’m remembering right — the word tesknota is mentioned. It probably has accents I can’t type. What was that? Most people can? Naw, fuck off. No one actually knows how to do that and that's the end of it.

Anyway, in Polish, there isn’t a perfect word for nostalgia. The closest is tesknota — a kind of longing for the past, but without the sugarcoating. A memory that cuts without comforting. When I looked it up, man, it hit me right in the gut. Because yes. Exactly. That.

Nostalgia is a word for walks I can’t take anymore. A sport I’ve aged out of. These streets have been rinsed of sweetness. Sucked dry. Empty Capri Suns lying flat on the concrete. I didn’t walk those walks — surely? Someone else did. Some other version of me, for years. But it couldn’t have been me.

I have other walks now. I used to walk that route when I shopped at the Co-op. That was a Gorbals walk. I’m never having that walk again. Gorbals steps. Ayr steps. High Street steps. East End steps. Possil Park steps. West End steps. Ghost-tracked, every one of them.

The people, the places, the feelings — all out of reach. Not just gone. Unreachable. Because the me who held them… isn’t here anymore. I can’t grip those things. I couldn’t even if I tried. They vanish on contact.

You walk the old paths like an intruder. A trespasser in a graveyard of inaccessible memories. You see the faces, but they don’t move. You know the dates — roughly. Granted, the ganja years might’ve fogged some of the timelines. That whole era is soft focus, hazy edges. But it still happened. The archive’s been looted. Everything’s gone except the longing.

And fuck me — they left the longing.

Why couldn’t they have taken that too? Leave me with a spark, some inspiration, a joke — anything. But no. All that remains is this... phantom ache. Not even a longing for the past, no no no. A longing to feel any connection to the past beyond just remembering it happened. That’s all that’s left — a bare awareness that it was real, once.

When I walk now, I sometimes forget about the ghost walkers. They become background noise. Strangers I ignore. I don’t walk hand-in-hand with them — not anymore. But when I’m reminded — and I always am, eventually — I’m haunted.

Haunted by imposters. Versions of me that don’t even feel like mine. You don’t get to opt out once you’re seen. Once they’re visible, they stick. Your brain tugs on the Kevlar umbilical cord. Unsnappable. And suddenly your ghosts are scrubbing in — suited up, masked, sterile — and shoving memories down your throat like a surgical team gone rogue.

Next time you’re out walking, ask yourself:

How many times have you walked this street?

And do you see your ghost walkers?

Cheers.