the dawn walkers' society

The society walks. Each member takes one walk of not less than forty minutes, in the hour before sunrise, on a day of their own choosing each week. The route is the member's; the weather is the day's; the silence is, however, mandatory. The walker carries no notebook, no camera, no telephone — only the body, the coat, and the dawn. On returning home, the walker writes, in a small ledger, the date and one sentence. The sentence is not about the walk. The sentence is the first sentence the walker thinks of, on closing the door behind them.

The society meets twice a year — once at the equinox of spring, once at the equinox of autumn, by tradition in the kitchen of whichever member is willing to host. The meeting is brief. Each member reads aloud, from the ledger, one sentence from the year. The room is not asked to interpret. Tea is served. The walkers sit together for an hour and then leave, separately, to walk home. The society's archive is fifteen ledgers, each in a different hand, kept in a long drawer in the library.

Walkers are often also pluviometers, the two practices being complementary in season and in hour. They are on cordial terms with the silent writers, and a few have been admitted as guests to the more demanding seven-lamps observance. The walks, by long convention, are walked alone — except on the day after a member dies, when the others walk for them, at their hour, and write, that night, the sentence that did not come.