Walk Starved

The last few days have been a whirlwind, every minute filled. What's gone missing is what never should — walk time, think time, coming-to-terms-with-it-all time.

This will change soon, so I'm hanging on.

In the meantime, though, I realize how much I need to be outside in the elements, striding through them. It's a combination of movement and light, of rhythm and pacing. It's the shrubbery, the flowers and the muddy path. It's every house I pass and every tree.

But insights come from absence, too.

Placeholder

It will be one of those days. Work piled on my desk. A couple of blog posts percolating that will take too many minutes to execute. 

Time for a placeholder ... because there's not much time for anything else.

But placeholders serve a purpose. They widen the moments, hold time in check. They keep us open to possibilities. And of course, they deserve a pretty picture. Just because.

Adopt a Spot

Walking home yesterday from Metro I noticed a sign. "Adopt a Spot," it said. This is new to me. Adopt a highway, yes. But adopt a spot?

How good to know that spots have  clout, too. That a clump of trees, a curve of trail, a stand of meadow grass could be noticed, claimed, taken to heart.

I think about the spots I love, places I pass daily, corners worn smooth by passage, roads ridden and paths walked. A new boardwalk in the woods. A nubby stump in the forest. A block of sidewalk in the city, pavement stones ragged.

These are the textures that become dreams, that take hold of us and won't let go.

Do we adopt the spot — or does the spot adopt us? 

Full Circle

Our neighbors are expecting their first grandchild, due any day now. These folks have lived next door since we moved into the house 26 years ago. I remember their daughters as little kids and they remember my daughters as babies.

It wasn't a foregone conclusion that we would stay in the house more than a quarter century (maybe two years?!), but stay put we have, and the staying and the putting have brought a great full-circle quality to life that almost makes up for the years lost to traffic jams and Metro delays.

So on this red-letter day for my family — one daughter celebrating a birthday and another learning that a long wait will soon be over  — I pause to savor the richness of it all — and to give thanks.

(Two rush hours, two red-letter days, much gratitude.)

Frontier Learning

I'm just starting Wallace Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening to the West and am captivated by Stegner's observation of the haphazardness of learning on the frontier.

I knew books were scarce; teachers, too. But Stegner riffs on this "homemade learning" and how boys (and they were mostly boys then, of course) were often captivated and bent by the first man of learning (and they were mostly men then, too) they encountered.

The closest books Abraham Lincoln could borrow were 20 miles away — and they belonged to a lawyer. The closest books John Wesley Powell could borrow belonged to George Crookham, a farmer, abolitionist and self-taught man of science. Crookham collected science books, Indian relics and natural history specimens.

So "[w]hen Wes Powell began to develop grown-up interests, they were by and large Crookham's interests," Stegner writes. Powell went on to explore the Grand Canyon and to champion the preservation of the West — all of this with one arm; he lost the other in the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh. (Powell was a major with the Union forces.)

I think of us now with more influences than we know what do to with. Libraries at our fingertips. Information bombarding us day and night. Would we climb on a raft and venture down uncharted waters? Well, I know what I would (not) do. How about you?

The Utility of Trees

Thinking this morning of the utility of things and how they change through time.

The tree that once shaded the backyard, whose sturdy trunk supported first a baby swing and then a porch swing, has been a branch-less trunk for more than a year now. It's the Venus de Milo of the backyard.

But what it lacks in shade and stability it makes up for in bird habitat. No branches for nests but a great tall expanse of trunk for woodpeckers. I heard the birds yesterday, rat-tat-tatting for insects and grubs, and thought of the tree's gracefulness in good times and bad.

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do," Willa Cather said.  She could have been thinking of this noble, denuded, pockmarked oak.

Just Sitting

Who was it that said, "Sometimes I sit and think — and sometimes I just sit"?

This is a "just sitting" kind of morning. Which is too bad since I have lots of work to do. But for a few minutes "just sitting" is what I plan to do.

The cicadas are in high-summer mode. Their sounds ripple through the air, the aural equivalent of a dip in the pool or a Popsicle dripping down the arm on a sticky afternoon.

The morning air is cool and full of promise. I want to bottle it for a stripped-bare winter day. I want to store up inside, which is the only place that counts.

But for now ... I want to just sit.

Time Travel

Last night I finished watching the movie "Interstellar." It's a long film; I had gotten halfway through it Tuesday evening and finished it up last night. But its length was befitting of its topic, the expansive subject of space and time.

Time, the fifth dimension, the true final frontier. Astronaut Cooper trapped in a box of boxes, able to see his daughter Murphy but unable to reach her, except in code, except, he realizes, through time itself, the watch he gave her before he left on his fantastic voyage to another galaxy.

Farfetched? Of course. But who hasn't felt trapped in the here-and-now? Who hasn't yearned to break free from the linearity of our lives? Just a peak at the future. Just a glimpse of the past — long enough to forgive, to restore, to understand.

Hot Day, Slow Walk

Usually we move purposefully, Copper and I. But our purposes are not the same. He has his goals and I have mine. For him, a splendid walk wouldn't be a walk at all, but a series of stops and starts. Full-tilt runs followed by dead standstills. Meanderings and sniff-fests. Ambles.

Whereas I have a distance marker, a point I'd like to reach — say Fox Mill Road — he lives for the next sign post, guard rail or fire hydrant.

But yesterday our wishes were one and the same. It was late; it was warm. We wanted a brief jaunt, a slow burn. No way would we make it to Fox Mill Road.

So we turned down a pipestem and ogled some showy phlox. (Well, I ogled the phlox; he salivated at a squirrel.)

We paused often to look at the sky. (Well, I looked at the sky; he sniffed the grass.)

The heat and humidity slowed his normal rocket-fire pace to a more comfortable stride where the two of us were walking side by side — almost as if he was heeling.

"You're doing a great imitation of a well-behaved dog," I told the little guy. Luckily, his sarcasm meter is always set to low. He looked up at me with his big brown doggie eyes, wagged his tail — and we both kept on walking.

Emerson in the Morning

One of the most delicious parts of reading — and liking — a new book (Theroux's The Journal Keeper, which I mentioned on Saturday) is discovering — or in this case remembering — other wonderful books to read.

Theroux mentions Emerson several times in The Journal Keeper so I spent some time last weekend scouring the house for a collection of his essays. One was nowhere to be found. Only a copy of "The American Scholar" in the Norton Anthology.

But this morning I realize that I don't need a hard copy; I can go online. And there they are, familiar words a balm to my flagging spirit:

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.  ...

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.  

 Ah yes, I feel better now. Ready to take on the day.

Weeds: What Are They Good For?

Here in the rainy East, it's a good summer to be a weed — or most any kind of plant, for that matter. But I'm thinking more about weeds this morning because I pulled so many of them over the weekend.

The soil is moist and they're easily uprooted. Plus, there are so many of them to banish. I would no sooner finish one patch of yard then I'd spy another plot of stilt grass a few feet away. Let's just say that no weeder will be idle this summer.

One can't help but wonder when weeding: What is it that separates the weed from its more accepted cousin? Or, put another way: Why do we cultivate one set of plants and get rid of another?

Beauty has a lot to do with it, of course, and utility.  And then there's basic economics: We value less what we have in abundance. But isn't there some arbitrariness to it all? After all, a weed can also be a flower.

Book, Marked

I'm reading Phyllis Theroux's The Journal Keeper and — as usual when I read a book that stirs my imagination — am marking pages where there are thoughts I want to ponder. Once an English major always an English major, I guess.

Whatever the reason, I often can't read a book without a pen and paper in hand. When it's a library book, as this one is, I content myself to mark the pages with little sticky notes. Re-reading some of these marked pages this morning, I came upon this one:

"Rereading an earlier part of my journal, I came across the lines where I say that Emerson chose his life early. I have chosen to be a writer and must be willing to do what it takes. It is like drilling for oil, having the faith that it is down there. But beyond or beneath that faith is the commitment to dig, whether the oil is there or not."

A Different Hour

Not my typical time to post — but that's not the different hour I mean. It was my walk yesterday to Metro, more than three hours later than usual.

The light slanted in from the west on a day that was as exquisite as promised. The fact that I'd spent almost every minute of it inside made these outdoor minutes all the more precious.

The buildings were gleaming, the pavement stones shining and people lingered at sidewalk cafes and corner bistros. At Rosa Mexicana a man wiped his mouth with a large cloth napkin. He was eating guacamole from a stone bowl. At the corner of Seventh and F a beggar shook coins in a dirty paper cup. No one seemed inclined to add to them. Ahead of me, a couple strolled in the waning light, holding hands. He held a gym bag and leaned his head toward her when she talked, which she did, animatedly, all the way down the block.

I had Les Mis in my ears and the capital city in my sights. Day was turning to evening. It was a different hour. It was a good walk.

A Change in the Air

I love humidity, really, I do. I love the way it buoys me up, an invisible presence; the way it surrounds me. I like an air that can hold its own.

Sometimes after a long day in a chilled office I walk the hot sidewalks of a muggy D.C. and my fingers fairly tingle with the moisture in the air. The feeling comes back into air-condition-numbed extremities. I feel alive again.

And yet ... this morning I woke up to a lovely, chilled, low-humidity day ... and it feels divine.

Suddenly, there are closets to clean and yard work to do. There are books to read and comb through, materials to research. And this isn't even counting what awaits me at the office.

Summer torpor slows me down, and that can be a good thing, a corrective. But after weeks of stickiness, this low-weight air is invigorating, a mountain stream. It gives me a first-day feeling, a necessary fresh start.

Rows of Sharon

The Rose of Sharon is blooming now beside the driveway. The dark green plant is covered with plump, white, rose-like blooms. But it's not my Rose of Sharon I want to write about — but a row of these plants that line a yard a block away from here.

I know the history of these small trees, know why they bloom where they do. The corner house is the home of "the faithful jogger." Don't know his real name, only that my children used to call him that years ago because every day, at least once a day and regardless of weather, he could be seen running up and down Folkstone Drive. He never seemed very happy, had a plodding gait — I always imagined he had taken up the practice for his health. All of which is beside the point except to illustrate the man's persistence. He doesn't give up easily.

And he didn't give up when three years in a row bad wind or ice storms took down his split rail fence. Twice he built it up again. In fact, he was always one of the first people out clearing debris. Then a few days later, more fencing would appear.

This last time was different. Instead of planks he planted rows of spindly Rose of Sharon trees, the smallest, slightest stock, barely more than sticks in the ground. There were many of them, though, and I could see his plan — to create a green and living border, to make a fence that would bend but not break.

It's been years now since those trees went into the ground, and years since he last jogged down our suburban lane. But those once-spindly trees are filling out into a proper, flowery border. They have matured to beauty and to fullness. And when I saw them the other day, I saw not just what they are but what they were, what they have become.

This is what happens when you walk a place; when you know not just its stories but its back stories as well.

7,800 Miles

It is 7, 214 miles from Washington, D.C., to Kigali, Rwanda, where Tom has gone on a business trip. In less than an hour it will be 7,800 miles — just a few hundred more — from Nasa's New Horizons probe to Pluto.

Earth meets space, the Kuiper Belt, that which lies beyond our solar system in what surely deserves to be called terra incognita (except that it isn't terra!).

Early pictures show an orange globe with a crown of methane and nitrogen ice and craters the size of the Grand Canyon. By tonight we will have more photographs of this celestial body, photographs that may help scientists decide whether to call it a planet or a dwarf planet.

What we have right now is a tantalizing glimpse, a collectively held breath — and of course, the wonder. 

Water, Water Everywhere

A rainy Monday, so maybe not the best day for a post about thirst and the lack of public water fountains. But an article in yesterday's Washington Post made me think about this endangered feature of communal life.

According to the International Plumbing Code, the number of public drinking fountains required in new buildings is down by half, the article says. There are a few causes. One is the consumption of bottled water, which has quadrupled in recent years. Another is fear of contamination, which ironically has grown since the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 began requiring municipalities to notify their residents immediately of any problems with their water.

But the lack of clean, safe public drinking water has actually hurt American's health by driving young people to consume more sugary drinks, the article argues. And a preponderance of plastic water bottles is hurting the environment.

This article explains why I have to hunt longer to find a public water fountain. And it also makes me remember the water fountains of my youth. The one at Idle Hour Park, which made a deep whirring sound and produced a trickle of water that seemed to have been drawn up from the depths of a nearby swamp. And the one in the hall of my grammar school, which we would be allowed to stand in line and use on warm spring afternoons. Imagine 400 to 500 kids drinking out of the same fountain! Still, nothing has never tasted as good as the water that flowed from that cool — and I'm sure unsanitary — tap.

Summer Day

Yesterday was the perfect summer day. I thought this even on the way to the dentist, and if you notice it then, the impression must be valid.

The air was weighty and warm and filled with the sound of cicadas. There was no rain (this was key). And the morning held the promise of just enough heat.

In late afternoon, when I was walking Copper in the woods, a couple of big frogs were bellowing from the creek. They plopped in the water as we walked by. The katydids were chirping slowly, as if they could barely be roused from their dreamy, midsummer naps.

Spiders had been busy and webs were strung between the trees like tiny Buddhist prayer flag ropes. When they caught a leaf it waved cheerily in the breeze.

Trudging

To commute is to trudge. Yes, one must be nimble, must dash quickly into the car as the doors are closing. But there is a good amount of trudging involved, too.

The other day, as I was hiking up a broken escalator, concentrating on the thin-strapped gold sandals of the woman ahead of me, I thought that if we can't walk a mile in someone's shoes, we can always walk a few paces behind them.

Doing so may not give us complete access to the stranger's hopes and dreams and worries, but it does accustom us to her pace, to the effort she puts forth to climb a flight of stairs, which in some cases is herculean.

At the very least it requires a pause and a shifting of priorities, a switch from me to thee. I don't like it, of course. I'd rather rush up the stairs at my own pace. But trudging keeps me mindful of the lives of others.

Dancing for Joy

The rain was coming but hadn't yet arrived. The clouds were low and there was a bustle in the air. I walked quickly to beat the weather.

Down at the Mall, it was time for packing up. A cleanup crew was taking down the tents and partitions, the props of celebration, and loading them into idling trucks. Tourists in t-shirts were snapping shots of the scaffolded Capitol. All around me was movement and energy.

But the best tableau came later, as I was leaving the office. I glanced down at the expressway, and there, amidst the dust and turmoil, a hard-hatted worker pivoted and jumped on the folded arm of a construction crane.

I stopped and stared, thinking at first that I was seeing things. But no, it was real — and, at 15 or 20 feet above the ground, seemed quite dangerous, too. But danger seemed the last thing on this guy's mind. To him, the crane was a balance beam, a stage. I felt his joy travel up my spine.

Nearly Dark

A walk after dinner last night, nearly dark.  Bats dart between shadowy trees. A deer munches leaves at the house on the corner. When he sees me he stands still as as a statue. Next door is a little fountain, which makes a pleasant, splashing sound as I get close to home.

I try to figure out which neighbors are on vacation by the placement and pattern of their indoor lights. Then I start to think about the neighbors themselves, their triumphs and their tragedies.

There are a couple of ministers in the neighborhood, one of whom is a friend. He walks his dog late at night, and I've often wondered if he blesses the houses as walks by. Or at least offers up a silent prayer.

And that's what I found myself doing. Not blessing or praying so much as holding these people in my mind as I walked by. Thinking about the woman who lost her husband more than 20 years ago, when her boys were still in elementary and middle school; about the man who had knee replacement last year; about the woman I never see anymore and how ill she looked the last time we said hello.

And these, of course, are just a small sampling of the humanity here. Who knows what stories these houses hold, these peaceful suburban houses.

America the Beautiful

The fireworks are over, the flags are packed away, but the patriotic melodies remain. One in particular. Every other band seemed to play it as they marched past us, and I heard it Sunday in church as well. So today I did a little research.

English Professor Katherine Bates wrote the words to "America the Beautiful" during a trip to Colorado the summer of 1893. She was inspired by the "spacious skies" of the west and the "amber waves" of grain she saw out her train window. But the words came to her in a flash of inspiration atop Pikes Peak, where there's a plaque to commemorate the poem. Bates rushed back to the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs to write the words down.

Church organist Samuel Ward was moved to write the hymn that would later be paired with Bates' poem when he was riding the ferry from Coney Island to New York City. He asked a fellow passenger if he could jot down the notes on the man's shirt cuff, so full of the music was he, so eager to capture the melody before it left his head.

Two artists, two inspired moments — and two frantic and ultimately successful efforts to capture the muse before it flew away. The words and music were published together in 1910 as "America the Beautiful." Since then there have been many attempts to gain national hymn or even national anthem status for this song, none successful. All I can say is, it has my vote.

A Fruitful Walk

Over the weekend — dodging raindrops — I strolled over to Franklin Farm, through the meadow, past the pond and along West Ox Road, where I re-entered my neighborhood for the final run home.

There's a shortcut I take sometimes and as I was angling off the main road I noticed blackberries growing wild beside the path. The community meadow used to be full of berries, and I would brave the prickles and poison ivy every year to glean enough fruit to bake a pie.

This year I had no bag or bucket, only my hand, but I gathered enough berries to dress up the fruit bowl and add a tart flavor to the mix. 

I walk for exercise and reflection; I do not walk to eat. But picking these berries reminded me that there was once a greater purpose to movement, that to stay alive meant being able to pack up and walk to the nearest watering hole or hunting ground.

It was a fruitful walk.

Fourth of July Parade

Yesterday I went to the National Independence Day Parade with my dear friend Kay, who is visiting from France. It was mostly a chance to hang out with her, but it was also an opportunity to soak up the holiday spirit and marvel at the expansiveness of the American dream.

There were high school marching bands from Ohio, Nebraska and Alabama. There were cloggers and Irish steppers and Chinese-American dancers. There were the Sikhs of America holding down a Smokey the Bear balloon.

There was, in short, all manner of celebration and diversity.  Not exactly a small hometown ensemble — but not sophisticated and glitzy, either. More of a medley than I thought possible in these days of politicized newscasts and gerrymandered districts. And that in itself, I think, is worth a parade.

Walking to the Airport

Yesterday I walked from my office to National Airport. This is not something I thought I would do when I woke up and dressed for work. I wore jeans and sandals for "casual Thursday." I left my running shoes at home. But I have an old pair of shoes (only one small hole, in the right toe) at the office, so about 3 p.m. I slipped into those, turned off my computer and headed out for the five-mile stroll.

The route to DCA took me down the National Mall, across the 14th Street Bridge and along the Mount Vernon Trail. I was on paths or sidewalks the whole time. I saw tourists, patriots, vendors and cyclists. I heard sirens, jackhammers, street musicians and bike bells.

When I got to Gravelly Point, planes were taking off and landing right overhead, and I could hear a Metro car rattle and a freight train whistle. My walk was part of all the activity around me, was heightened and made whole by it.

Casual Thursday

Like most of the rest of the working world (those of us who are working today) I'm wearing jeans and sandals. Also seen in the office today: flip-flops, shorts and a little gray terrier. The pace is slow, the day is short and the mindset is ... what is the mindset? I've already forgotten.

I'm tempted to hang up a "Gone Fishin'" sign, but I don't want to check out completely.

Instead, I'm sitting here in office chair, hands on the keyboard, work piled on the desk, summoning up the energy to dive into it.

And I will dive in ... any minute now.

Dreaming Up July

A new month, a new leaf. I'll take any excuse to clear the slate, to see the world with fresh eyes.

As if to prepare for this adventure I had one of those classic insecurity dreams last night. As usual it involved a piano recital I'm expected to play. No rehearsal, of course. Just a last-minute request that I play a difficult piece on stage with no preparation. There's no way to escape the performance. Humiliation is inevitable.

Last night's saga had a funny twist. There was sheet music; I wasn't expected to play from memory. But the score was inflated, like one of those puffy books children can take in the bathtub. That's strange, I thought, but at least the plump pages will be easier for the page-turner to turn. And by the way, where is that page turner? I woke up before I could find him, but I woke up to realize that — yes, bliss! — I am not playing a recital tonight.

I may have several publications to write and edit, meals to cook and a house to clean for company — but I do not, absolutely do not — have to play the piano before an audience of strangers.

July is looking good.