1 . I was having a period of bad health. I had one operation after another. I was falling _______ faster than the doctors could put me back together. But I just couldn’t bear the operation, the hospital stay, the long recovery and the physical therapy（康复治疗）. I told my doctor I was going to try _______ else.

I’d discovered that walking gave me a little _______. So I started walking. The first day, my wife _______ off our steep Silver Lake hill to a flat street. She got me out of the car, and I walked about two blocks _______ asking to be taken home. The next day, I walked about four _______.

Slowly, feeling a little _______ every day, I began to walk a mile or more. I even _______ some hills to my route. I became interested in the network of public stairways around Silver Lake I made a _______ of it and walked every public staircase in Silver Lake. That went pretty well, so I ________ onto Echo Park. I was feeling better, so I kept going. The search finally ________ “Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles’ ”a book ________ in the spring of 2010. By then, I had ________. I’d been walking at least an hour a day for three years. My life ________ returned to normal.

In three years of walks, I’ve met dozens of people who’d had ________ experiences of rebirth or recovery. One man told me he’d lost 80 pounds walking the secret stairs and was dating for the first time in a decade. One woman told me she’d ________ knee operation. Another told me she’d been ________ to start ballroom dancing again.

All I’d ________ from the walks was relief from pain. What I got was ________, community and a whole new experience of my city. Out of the car, on my feet and moving at walking pace, I ________ Los Angeles for the first time.