Smile Lines

It's the last day of a soggy July, and I'm reminding myself that if we have to have extreme weather, better excess moisture than excess heat. People in northern California wouldn't mind some rain about now, as they struggle with temps of 110 and a fire so intense that it's creating its own winds and tornadoes.

Compared with that, I can easily find something nice to say about the frequent showers and thundershowers, the coziness they impart on a rainy Saturday afternoon. How they nurture the young trees we planted this spring. How little watering there is to do.

Of course, if I really could choose, I'd prefer ample rains that fall at night and leave the days sunny and clear. But since I can't, I'm remembering lines from a Robert Frost poem about reconciling the choices we can't make. They always make me smile.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Seeing Clean

I knew I'd gotten serious about cleaning when I found myself scrubbing the washing machine, wiping off the soap residue, concentrating on a few dark streets I found on the front of the machine that finally went away with enough time and elbow grease.

The immediate excuse was my brother Drew's visit, but it was more than that. It was as if a switch were triggered and the smudges I usually don't see were decked out in crazy neon colors, begging to be obliterated.

So on top of the usual routine — the dusting and vacuuming and scouring — there was using the vacuum attachment to siphon out crevices in the basement, squeegeeing the front and back doors, washing the parakeets' cage cover ... and much, much more.

It's all a matter of seeing. Usually, I absolve the clutter, move past what I know I can't remedy because there's only enough time for the basics in my life and cleaning isn't one of them.

But this weekend I allowed myself time to dust and vacuum and sweep and scour, granted myself permission to use more hours than usual for those purposes. It's always comforting to accomplish much with little mental effort, to complete tasks always looming.

And now, I harvest the result: an almost spartanly clean house. Key word "almost" ... of course.

Remembering Waves

It's been a tough work re-entry, so this morning I'm thinking about the beach. Most of the people I saw there are back home again, too. The vagaries of chance and locale that brought us together have split us apart again.

But we were renewed and refreshed by our contact with the elemental, with forces beyond our control. We encounter those all the time, of course, but seldom are they so powerful and so beautiful and so endlessly fascinating to observe.

I don't swim in the ocean; I just look at it. But I never tire of its patterns and moods: of calm, warm, lapping waters or dark, fast, roiling ones. Of waves that roll and stipple and soothe. I'm seeing those waves now, and will see them later when I walk through the suburbs, when I make my way through the day.

Sea Legs

After days inside, a body longs to be outdoors. So this body made its way to the deck as dawn was breaking, lured the little doggie outside, too. I found a seat cushion that wasn't totally saturated, and sat down on one of the wrought-iron chairs.

Before I could type a word, a drop of water plopped on my screen. Another morning shower — or the bamboo shaking off its excess? I chose the latter. Not that it's up to me, of course, but at that point in the day the morning still seemed up for grabs. I wouldn't go inside, not yet.

I sit and watch Copper, who's sticking his head between the deck railings and screwing up his courage. A few minutes later he's trotted down the stairs into the sodden yard.

The two of us have sea legs. The dry world is new to us. But we'll get the hang of it; I know we will.

Not Tragic, After All

It was 15 minutes to starting time when I hauled my string bass through the doors of the Sunrise Valley Montessori School, the first of four summer reading sessions of the Reston Community Orchestra. The first piece of music on my stand was Brahms' "Tragic Overture." I hoped it wasn't a sign.

I'd signed up for this local orchestra's "summer camp" when I was still high on my youth orchestra's reunion performance in May. It was another chance to be part of a big symphonic sound ... even though I barely knew where the notes were, even though my biceps ached from hauling a bass around in Lexington, I thought it was time to try this again.

But standing there Monday night I wasn't so sure. The Tragic Overture wasn't the only omen. The room was filling up with musicians — violinists, flautists, brass players and half a dozen cellists (including one who doubled as a French horn player). But no one was walking over to my little corner of the orchestral universe.  And no one did. I was the lone bass player Monday night.

And ... it wasn't as tragic as I thought it would be. The notes came back into my fingers again, the lower C, the high D. The string bass part often doubled the cellos, so I mimicked my fellow lower strings as much as I could.

We played the first movement of Schubert's Symphony Number 9 in C Major, the Brahms' overture and a lovely waltz-like piece by a local composer who was there to hear us rehearse. The thrill was back. The tragedy ... nowhere to be found.

The Deluge

Woke up this morning to a deluge, to the tapping of drops on leaves, the plopping of water on roof, to the gurgle of rain through the downspouts. It will rain several inches today — this on top of yesterday's sporadic downpours, the record-breaking six inches on Saturday and Sunday's showers (most of which I blessedly missed).

This is one heck of a weather system. The ground is sodden, the impatiens are drowned (one of the flower pots holds water) and the yard is squishy soft. Copper refuses to go out of his own accord and must be lured with leash and walk.

Rain like this just doesn't happen in July. It's a confluence of many factors, said the weather guys. A winter-like storm, almost a nor'easter churning up the coast, then parking itself over the mid-Atlantic and not budging for hours. (That was Saturday.)

All I know is that the rain hasn't ended yet. Downpours are expected through Wednesday.

I'm glad I stored up some Florida sunshine in my psychic account; I'll be drawing on it this week!

(I like my clouds fluffy and white, thank you very much.)

The Tan

When I was young, a tan was something you sought, treasured and displayed. You laid out on lounge chairs or towels. You slathered on baby oil and basically fried out there. "Did you go to Florida?" high school classmates would ask after spring break.  "No, it was just my back yard," I'd say, enjoying the surprise on their faces.

This is because I would lay out in all weathers, tilting my face to the sun, from which flowed all strength and goodness (or so it seemed). I liked the way I looked when I was tan; brown was beautiful.

When I was older I went to ocean beaches for my tan. When no shoreline was available (and it usually wasn't), I settled for towels spread on the well-trod grass of Lincoln Park or the soft tar roof of my Greenwich Village apartment building.

In time, grudgingly, I applied sunscreen. At first, only SPF 8. It was a pride thing. But later I tried the higher numbers. The tans, though reduced, still remained. I couldn't imagine returning from a week at the beach without having skin that was a different color than the skin I left with.

Not anymore. This year I come back the same. I attribute this not to lack of time on the strand or at the pool — but to lavish use of SPF 50, a UV-protectant shirt I pulled on over my bathing suit and a towel draped over my legs.

I long ago realized that the "healthy glow" was not so healthy. There are wrinkles and age spots and worse.  So I was careful; I heeded the dermatologist's warnings.

The beach vacation remains, but the tan is history.

Backward Glance

I'm big on the backward glance, on analyzing what has happened, on figuring out from it what might be to come.

This does not go away when I'm at the beach. But it softens a little, like a once-crisp cracker at an al fresco lunch beside the waves.

At the beach it's easier to see the back-and-forth of things, the ebbs and flows; easier to trust that all will be well.

I'm always looking for lessons, even from vacations. And that's what this beach week is showing me: Clouds will pile up in the east, will show themselves as rain-makers by the dark slant beneath them. They will come this way, will empty and pass. And then ... the sun will come out again.

Shell Art

If rocks and shells could talk, these would laugh, whistle and shout. Look at us, they'd say. Someone has picked us up off the beach, spiffed us up, cast us as heroes in a crazy beach novel.

Here we are telling a joke:

Here we are sharing a tale:

We have no idea why we were willed into being, what our creator has in mind for us. But for now, we are alive and transformed on this Gulf Coast beach.

Dipping my Toes

The sounds I heard outside this morning didn't make sense. Were the taps and creaks from errant branches, from the building warming in the tropical sun? Only when I looked out the window did I see the rain.

It doesn't matter; I have plenty to do inside as well as out. I brought books and notes and half-finished essays. Brain food. Things to think about and read.

A trip to the beach rests the body and the mind. So I sleep more, worry less (or try to!) and ignore weather reports. How long will it rain? The clouds are dark, but I see some blue. Did the storm break the humidity?

Only one way to find out. I'll finish this post and my morning pages, then dip my toes into the day.

Grounding

I had no sooner written about Japanese forest bathing than I read about "grounding," which is ... walking outside barefoot. Grounding, also known as "earthing," is a way of touching base with the essentials. Those who favor it say that it might help prevent chronic diseases, and research shows that it can improve sleep and lower stress.

Sounds touchy-feely (in more ways than one!) ... and yet, consider this: One theory that explains the positive effect of grounding is that earth's negative charge neutralizes the free radicals that can damage our cells. Antioxidants not from fruits and vegetables but from the earth itself.

And then there is the circadian rhythm aspect of grounding, the fact that touching ground can help regulate our autonomic nervous system, our breathing out and our breathing in.

The article in the Washington Post explaining this research ended with suggestions: Walk barefoot on ground or sand (something I'll be doing in a few minutes, as a matter of fact!). Garden in the earth, or even lean against a tree trunk.

We are only beginning to understand how connected we are to the natural world around us.

Tropical Morning

Here a rustling in the brush means a lizard not a squirrel. And the birds are different, too, though they still rub their beaks clean against a dead tree limb in that quick one-two way, just as the birds do at home, as birds do everywhere, I guess. 

There’s a loud clattering behind the palms. A lizard, too? Or maybe a squirrel after all. Maybe there is more familiar here than it first appears.

I’m sitting by the pool before 8 a.m., writing these words. A dove coos. Birds tweet. Air conditioners hum. The sounds of a tropical morning.

I'm looking at a tall banana tree now, at a big leaf in the process of shredding. A plant that bends  but does not break. Palm trees don't crash to the ground in a tropical storm. They sway but stay rooted. That would be different, not having to worry about the great oaks falling.

Would I tire of the sameness here? Maybe ... or maybe not.

Giant Exhale

Arriving at the beach brings a giant exhale. Here is the hotel where it always is, the bikers and walkers, the crowd outside the ice cream parlor. Here is the tropical air, the palm trees swaying, the lizards darting.

The rhythm of the surf is the rhythm of life. To walk beside it is to feel alive again, tasting salt spray and dodging sea birds. Finding my pace beside the waves, advancing as they retreat.

This time of day I'd be settling into my desk for the day, opening files, penciling in priorities, gearing up for our Monday morning meeting.

But not this Monday. Today is the first day of a week without days, without beginnings and endings. I'll tell time by the slant of sun on water, hunger by a growl in the stomach.

I brought a journal and books, bathing suits and sun screen.

What more do you need?

Two Thousand Five Hundred

We come now to one of those round numbers I like to celebrate. This one is 2, 500.  I've written two thousand and five hundred posts since February 7, 2010.

I began A Walker in the Suburbs during a blizzard. Now I sit outside on the deck, stealing a few minutes from my paid writing day, watching hummingbirds dive-bomb the feeder and listening to cicadas as they pulse with crescendoing sound.

Copper lies nearby at the top of the deck stairs, ever alert, gunning for the squirrel who dares to invade his turf. A gentle breeze ripples the bamboo leaves and the new buds on the rambling rose, which has come back to life as quickly as it appeared to die.

I have no idea why the rose dropped its leaves and no idea how it's growing them back, but it's a lovely metaphor for persistence and renewal, two principles of Walker in the Suburbs ... which I will put to use as I write the next 2,500 posts.

(Photo of the St. Louis Arch, "Gateway to the West," by Suzanne Abo)

Forest Bathing

Shinrin yoku — Japanese for forest bathing — is the practice of immersing one's self in a forest or other natural environment to relieve stress. Practitioners walk slowly through the woods, marveling at the shades of green.They aren't there to bike down a hill or hike up a mountain. The journey is their destination. It is enough simply to be outside, to inhale the scent of pine.

I like the imagery involved, the idea that one can slide into a forest as if into a tub of warm water.  That its beauty will surround and calm and lift up.

A walk in the suburbs is not always a bath in the forest. It's too fast, too purposeful. Often, there are no forests involved.

But even the briefest and most cursory stroll works its magic. I leave the house with fists clenched, brow furrowed. I return renewed and refreshed, reminded that we are not just creatures of rooms and screens. That after all, we are born of earth and will return to it, that every visit there is going home.

Science and Miracles

"We are not sure if this was a miracle, a science or what," wrote the Thai Navy seals of the rescue they had just brought about. I would say the recovery of the 12 boys and their coach from a Thai cave  was all of the above, first the miracle, then the science, then a mishmash of both.

That the world's attention could be riveted on those 13 unfortunate people, that help could flow in from all corners of the globe, is in itself miraculous. We've gotten used to these stories, a little girl falls down a well and we will move heaven and earth to retrieve her, that the wonder of it all, that one story so captures our imaginations that it leaps out from every other shred of news, can be overlooked. But it is a wonder.

And then there was the technical cooperation required to mount the rescue, the assembling of people and equipment, the science part, the daring escape. I think about my own limited caving experiences — crawling between two large slabs of rock in the dark, the beam of my headlamp on pocked stone, thinking all the while what it would be like to be pinned between them. No wonder we marshaled every bit of expertise we could to help the youngsters.

And finally, there is the communal joy that is bigger than politics, bigger than soccer, bigger than national pride. That's miraculous too.

(Photo: Wikipedia) 

On the Way Home

We file out in khaki and denim, in summer cottons and linens. Battalions of commuters on the march, back from our first day after long weekends and festive 4ths. Back to the artificial chill of the D.C. cubicle. Back to the train and the bus, to waiting in the swelter.

Leaving Vienna yesterday, I spot a happy Metro employee. He's wearing short sleeves, bounces when he walks. The trashcan he pushes has wheels and makes a sound on the tile floor not unlike a train clacking on its rails. He walks against a sea of commuters.

We are the tired ones, worn out from our office jobs, from moving the mouse, from having the meeting. He looks fit and happy and ready to go.

I hear his clickety-clack as I move out of the station, into the early evening, and my car. I want to compare our lives but I have no way to do so. He is moving one way, we are moving the other. That's the story.

Long Drive

The long drive begins like any other: settling into the seat, snapping on the belt, adjusting the mirror. And for the first few hours, it feels like any other, too: staring at the road, flipping through a newspaper (only if you're not driving!), munching on cereal or pretzels.

But the long drive quickly asserts itself in the mind and body. An exit that would normally herald a resting place is just a milepost, barely a quarter of the way into the trip. The hopeful slant of morning sun quickly fades into the desolate phantom-puddled pavement of mid-afternoon. And as darkness falls you are still far from home.

The long drive is made bearable by good company, by podcasts — and, of course, by snacks. Cereal in the morning, pretzels in the afternoon, an apple, a Snapple and Fresh Mint Tic Tacs, which prop open even the heaviest of eyelids.

The best part of the long drive is the final few feet, pulling into the driveway, hearing Copper bark, knowing a bed — a familiar bed — is waiting upstairs.

Far-Flung

In St. Louis for a family wedding, I find myself thinking about place, about generations placed and unplaced, about the difference it makes.

Families that began in Indiana and Kentucky spread to Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin — and I'm probably forgetting a few.

It was bound to happen when transportation became supersonic and communication became instantaneous, but do texts, calls and jet planes fill in for the shout down the street, for Sunday visits?

People leave for college, for jobs, for opportunities, for fresh starts. It's how we've live now.

It's just changed us, that's all.

Grading Copper

Such is the nature of our times that not only do we receive "Service Feedback" emails from the dog sitting outfit caring for Copper and the parakeets, but the emails also contain photos.

These give me a taste of the current childcare scene, of nanny cams and hidden cameras. The general atmosphere of surveillance that overlays this line of work. It's a little bit about checking up on and a lot about missing.

Yesterday's email was a surprise, as was Copper's "grade" of "B," which though "Very Good" was not, obviously, good enough. I'm assuming he missed an "A" because he was "a bit testy" during breakfast.

Did the sitter hover too close to his food bowl? Was blood drawn?

I'm hoping the answers to these questions are "no" and "no." And I was relived that this morning's email contained an "A+" rating. Copper "was more interested in snuggles than food." He's lonely, poor guy. But at least he's behaving himself.

(Photo: Becky's Pet Care)

A Day, a Diary

I found an old journal in the back room of my parents' old house, my grandfather Cassidy's diary from 1940. This is my father's father, who I never knew; he died before I was born. He was a Nazarene preacher, and much of this diary records his prayer habits and the texts he preached from.

On this day, 78 years ago, the tent was in or near Clinton, Illinois, and his sermon came from 2 Samuel 25-28:

“I pray you, forgive the trespass of your handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord an enduring house; because my lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil has not been found in you all your days."

Many days began with reading and praying. There were walks, helping friends cut wood, marveling at the beauty of the day.

My grandfather followed his calling even though his family, my father then a young man, were far away. I'm not sure what they lived on, how they made it. But somehow, they did.

The world is a different place now, but the pages in this diary are as crisp and clear as the day he wrote them. At the bottom of each page, a quotation. This one is from Emerson: "Give me insight into today, and you may have the antique and future worlds."

Yankee Doodle Dandy Day

In honor of Independence Day,  I'm running a post from July 7, 2010. I wrote it shortly after Mom and I watched the movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy." That was Mom's way to celebrate the 4th. And today I'm thinking about her ... and even further back, to the time of George M. Cohan, a time of innocence and optimism.

A return to innocence may be a stretch ... but on this July 4, 2018, I'm pulling for a return to optimism:

Here's the post, slightly edited:

The firecrackers aren't yet snapping and the flags aren't yet flapping. What I'm thinking of is James Cagney as George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." I can't stop humming "It's a Grand Old Flag," "Over There" or "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." And I can't forget the sight of that powerful little man going into one of his tap-dancing riffs. He is the essence of jaunty, of sticking out one's chin and plunging into life. Was our country ever that innocent and optimistic? I replay the final scene of that movie, Cagney dancing down the steps of the White House after telling his life story to President Roosevelt, and I think yes, maybe it was.

Traffic Calming

At first I didn't know what was happening to one of my main commuting routes to Metro. There were big trucks and construction crews and the beeping and honking and disruption that comes with them.

There were detours, too, new ones each week, it seemed like. One day we would all be driving on the left side of the road; the next week we'd all be driving on the right.

At some point, though, the point of this became clear. There was no repaving in the works, no new road or ramp. Instead, there was a traffic calming island — a roundabout to nowhere — being installed. This was all about slowing us down, "calming" us.

I noticed today that the little roundabout is even being landscaped. There's a baby tree and some plantings to make us even calmer as we add a few more minutes to our lengthy commutes, as we slow down enough to navigate the thing, then immediately speed up as we pass it.

The traffic may be calmer (though I doubt it), but the drivers (at least this one) are not!

Natural Cool

We leapt from a rainy June to a sizzling July, and are now measuring the heat index instead of the precipitation.  On my slow walks this weekend I sought the relative cool of the shady stretches that line Folkstone Drive.

Is there any cool better than natural cool? I know what the air conditioning devotees will say. Of course there is. It's the cranked-down chill of a 72-degree office or living room. And don't get me wrong. On days when the mercury climbs toward 100, it's mighty nice to step inside a well-chilled house.

But there is also something to be said for the deep woods, for ferns waving in a slight breeze, for soil that is still a bit moist from last month's downpours, for a creek gurgling in the distance.

For sections of road where tree branches lace overhead and spread their shade to the pavement below. For old houses with thick walls flanked by tall oaks.

There is something to be said for natural cool.