Doing Nothing

A day that comes but once every four years ought to be celebrated. We ought to do things on this day that we do on no other. What could this be?

For me, it would be to do ... nothing.

Copper is quite good at it. I could learn from him.

Picturing Food

I'm not one to photograph the food I eat, though I know for some it has become second nature, what passes for a blessing in this secular age. And isn't there a similarity, after all?

When we photograph, we pay attention. We study the subject, frame it, seek the best angle. And isn't this a type of gratitude, an attentiveness that elevates the meal from just a quick downing of protein and carbohydrates into a ritual?

Maybe this takes it a bit too far. But picturing our food means we preserve it, means that long after I've eaten and digested these greens, they live on in memory.

A Clutch of Keys

From a neighbor, we've received a windfall of dubious utility and uncertain origin: a clutch of keys — if that's the best collective noun to use for them.

Some are for doors, some are for clocks. All are antiques. They hail from an era when keys were king. No plastic card, no fob, no key code. These are the real thing, known as bit or barrel keys, Wikipedia informs me. They're the kind of keys that belong on a big ring, the kind of keys zealously guarded by housekeepers or superintendents.

Before I began this blog I would not have photographed these keys sitting on the counter. They would have been just another pile of stuff. But now I see the illustrative potential of things, find myself stopping to admire the kooky wall art in the lobby of my building (see yesterday's illustration) or to snap picture of leaf shadows on siding.

It's a new way of seeing ... and yesterday, I saw these keys.

The Plague

And so it begins. The averted handshake at this morning's Ash Wednesday service. The shunning on Metro of anyone who's coughing or sniffling. The headlines and newscasts and public health warnings.

It will worsen, no doubt. There will be closures and restrictions, dire predictions. There will be confusion and panic. Truth will be elusive.

It's no less than what other eras have had to bear, but for us it will be novel (in more ways than one).  Because we were raised with vaccines not quarantines.

I'm reminded of the ending of one of my favorite novels, Albert Camus' The Plague:

He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city. 

Virtual Vacation

Time for a virtual vacation. Today I'm heading to Florida, where I go every summer to walk the beach, inhale the sea air, and watch dune grass swaying in the breeze.

I'm thinking about how sultry it is there, and how I always intend to do more writing than I actually do — but how it works out anyway. Because the trip is always an inspiration and a restorative, much longed for, much appreciated.

It's still months away but already I can feel a warm breeze on my face and the fine white sand between my toes. One of the best things about a virtual vacation is that it can happen whenever you want it to! And for me, it's happening ... right ... now.

Shortcuts

Walkers in the suburbs may look serene and zen-like as they trod the paths and sidewalks, but underneath it all, they're looking out for shortcuts, cut-throughs, a faster way to get from A to Z.

On the surface this makes no sense. Almost by definition, walkers in the suburbs aren't trying to actually get anywhere. They're walking just to walk. So why would they (read me!) want to shorten the trip?

Sometimes for variety. Sometimes because they really are trying to get somewhere (which was the case when I snapped this shot). And sometimes, just for the heck of it.

A shortcut can be a path to adventure.

Ready for its Closeup

The bathroom remodeling project is drawing to a close; the room is almost complete. It's marble and gray, a cool neutral space — one that already puts the rest of the house to shame.

I marvel at its elegance, wonder if we've overdone it, but tell myself, no, this is the first of several projects that will spiff up the old place, make it more livable now and perhaps boost its market value later. I remind myself that this is money earmarked for just such a use. I tell myself to chill out.

Mostly, I tell myself to wait for the first ceremonial soak, perhaps as soon as tonight, though that may be overly optimistic. To wait for the warm water that I can slide into, up to my shoulders. To wait for the room to be finished and polished and gussied up — ready, like these lights here, for its closeup.

By George!

It's the birth anniversary of our first president, and I went in search of his words, thinking they might shed some light on the craziness of our current politics.

Here is an excerpt from his farewell address — in one paragraph a plea for peace and harmony, in the next a desire for forgiveness, and finally a request for a well-earned rest.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 

...

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Dropping In

Yesterday my brother Drew surprised us by stopping by the house on his way home from an appointment. We chatted, nibbled on cookies and caught up. It turned an otherwise ordinary evening into a delight.

First, there is the wonderful reality that he now lives close enough to do such a thing. But more than that, I realized how much I relish a custom that has vanished to the extent that even its replacement (calling someone on the phone without texting them first) is on the way out.

In the old days, dropping in was how you stayed in touch, the original face time. As someone on the shy/introverted end of the sociability scale, this sometimes gave me fits. I once lived in a mountaintop community where people not only dropped by but walked right into your house unannounced. While that was taking things a bit too far, I'd rather have that than no dropping in at all.

(One home I dropped in on a few years ago.)

Driving In

Every so often, I drive to the office rather than taking Metro. Whenever I do, I'm amazed at how easy it is to get here. Public transportation turns a journey into a series of segments — the drive to the Metro, the Orange Line ride to Rosslyn, changing to the Blue Line for the five stops to Crystal City, then the walk from the Metro Station to the office.

On the other hand, driving in is all of a piece. Yes, there are directions to follow; there is merging, passing and the usual frustrations of life behind the wheel. But in terms of steps taken, it's simple.

Why don't I do it all the time, you wonder. Because I can't, at least not easily.  The most direct route charges solo drivers up to $50 for the privilege of traveling nine miles on pockmarked roads. So unless I have a passenger, or the high-occupancy vehicle restrictions are lifted, I take Metro.

This is good for my carbon footprint, but bad for the only bottom line that really matters in the end —  time spent.

As I was strolling to the office from the parking garage this morning, I noticed how close it is to what will be our new office location. That may be incentive enough to drive in the long-way around (which is possible). Maybe that will be my treat to myself for the next year or two. A bit more simplicity, and, in the end, a lot more time.

Lasting Impressions

Remembering where I was this time last year, zooming through the streets of Phnom Penh in a tuk-tuk, about to leave for the eastern part of the country, where I would have a strange and unforgettable experience with bats.

The trips I've taken the last few years will never leave me. Though the reporting I've done has long since been turned into articles, the impressions it left will always be part of my writing.

They come in especially handy when I need to remind myself that the world is much larger than my little corner of it. The last few days I've been remembering a woman who seemed the incarnation of sadness. She had been trafficked, beaten and abused. Through a series of remarkable occurrences she found her way back home. But the poverty she returned to was so severe — her kids ate rice and roasted rat because that's all they had — that it wouldn't surprise me to learn she'd once again taken her chances with a job offer abroad.

She was a beautiful woman whose children hugged her tenderly. They seemed to know what she had done for them. How could they not?

February Flowers

I photographed these daffodils on February 7. They were sheltered by a brick wall and no doubt blooming early because of it. But yesterday, I noticed that my own daffodil shoots are plumped with buds — and they're not sheltered at all.

The winter jasmine has been out since January,  the early spring buttercups for at least two weeks and I just spied a Lenten rose. I wrote about snowdrops a while ago; they've been blooming almost a month now.

If spring continues unabated we'll have a three-month-long procession of bloom, starting with the shyest white crocus and leading up to the gaudiest pink Kwanzan cherry. It's the other side of global warming — an early spring. And right now, I'm feeling grateful for it. 

Food Palace

For the last couple of years I've shopped for food at a discount grocery chain where prices are low and brands are simple: basically there's one. This means there's limited selection, and I like it this way. There's no need to deliberate, so I save time and energy.

A couple days ago I found myself in the antithesis of this grocery store. I found myself in a Food Palace. There were a dozen types of pate, mushrooms so exotic I'd never heard of them and a bakery to die for. It was chaotic and amusing. I was often bewildered. But the mushrooms were delicious when sautéed in butter — and I tore into the chewy but tender Tuscan pane on the way home.

It was as if the food choices I've eschewed these last two years had gathered around and started taunting me. See what you've been missing, they said.  Look at this richness, this bounty.

I looked, I appreciated. But the very next day I went back to my discount grocer.

Celebrating Neighbors

Research has proven that our moods may be lifted higher by a random conversation than by all the cajoling of a close loved one. If this is true — and I have anecdotal evidence that it is — neighbors are likely some of its greatest practitioners.

Neighbors are the ones we bump into while picking up the newspaper at the mailbox (regrettably, while wearing a bathrobe some mornings). The ones we grumble with during the fall raking season. And they are the ones whose banter may unwittingly set our day on a upward course. 

We were lucky enough to fall into a group of neighbors all relatively new to the neighborhood when we moved in. Most had young children, many had chosen this neighborhood for the big backyards and nearby woods. In a region I always thought would be transient, this neighborhood has been remarkably stable. It's a place where people notice, where people care.

Last night we said farewell to some of our oldest, dearest neighbors. Though I'm sad to lose them, the send-off was such a celebration of neighborliness that I'm left not with sadness, but with joy.

(A Virginia neighborhood from the air.)

Acoustic

How to catalog the sounds of the walk I took this morning? The crunch of stiffened grass, the swish of my parka as I strolled through the chill. The pounding of my feet on frozen ground.

It's been for the most part a warm, gray, sodden winter. But today it's blue skies and brisk air.

Most of all, it's the music of the a frosty morning.

Many Loves

On a day dedicated to love, I think of my people and of love's many faces. Of romantic love and parental love, the love of friends.

I think about the love we have for those who are gone, and the love we have for animals. The love we have for place, for movement, for moving through space, which I celebrate on these pages.

So many loves we are given. Loves that light the way. Even when we don't see them, they are there.

Team-Work

An email newsletter I edit has a feature we call Team-Work. We decided to use a hyphen, though the word is typically spelled without it. I can't remember now exactly why we did that, except it had something to do with emphasizing the separate nature of those words, the "team" and the "work."

I bring this up today because, perhaps like many of us, I thrive on a mixture of teamwork and solo endeavors. The percentages of the mix depend on many things, including how busy I am and how protective I am of the product in question.

Lately I've realized that I wouldn't make a very good ghostwriter. Though most of what I write now is without a byline, I'm well compensated for it and believe in the institution. In other situations, I enjoy getting credit for what I write. Not exactly teamwork, but there you have it.

Which is why I chose the multicolored rag rug photo to illustrate this post. It reminds me of the power and the beauty that's possible when many become one.

Begin Again

All is calm on the back end of the blog this morning: 3,000 posts, 3,000 published, no drafts. There's a sense of fulfillment and completion. Which means there's a part of me (the tired part!) that wants to say, let's take a break.

But of course, that part of me won't win out. Not because thousands of fans are clamoring for each new post. Hardly! But because life is all about starting over.

So this is a post about doing that, every day. It's time to begin again ... like it always is.

3,000!

A few months ago, when it became apparent that I was closing in on the blog's 3,000th entry about the same time that I would celebrate its 10-year anniversary, I stepped up my posting schedule.

I've always written a post every weekday and usually one on weekends. But once I realized how close these two moments would be I started posting every day.

When I did the math I realized it would be close, really close, but I would be off by four — 2996 posts on February 7, the blog's tenth birthday.

So I had a dilemma. Should I actually post twice a day for several days? How obsessive was I going to be?  Apparently, thankfully ... not enough!

Piecrust Prose

According to the great sage Mary Poppins we should be wary of piecrust promises — easily made, easily broken. I would like to issue another recommendation, mostly for myself, and that is to strive for piecrust prose — to avoid the dry, overly worked and sometimes unsalvageable product that results from too much fussing and instead fashion a more pliable product.

Pie crust dough, as bakers know, must be handled lightly. It isn't kneaded like bread dough, but turned lightly onto a floured board, then rolled, trimmed and tucked gently into a pie pan. Words are like that too. They must be handled lightly enough to fit and sing, but not so much that they lose their juice and joy.

I have been known to belabor the writing process. Words may tumble out joyfully enough in the beginning but I often work the poor things to near oblivion. It was in part to sidestep this tendency that I started A Walker in the Suburbs.

But such is the power of the nemesis that I now have two writing styles: blog-writing and everything else. Instead, I should have just one — and the light touch, the piecrust promise, must apply.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Walking the Way

I picked up Walking the Way, by Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum, because I was browsing the library and liked the title. (It was no doubt the word "walking" that did it.) I almost didn't check it out when I saw the subtitle, 81 Zen Encounters with the Tao Te Ching, which sounded too esoteric for me. But I brought it home anyway — and now may have to buy it, so wise and calming do I find its words.

Walking the Way is a series of reflections on 81 poems from the Tao Te Ching, a book of wisdom and fundamental text for the Chinese religious and philosophical system of Taoism. It is, as the foreword describes, like an "ancient, weathered, solitary pine that exists above the tree line that whistles the tunes of the wind on a high mountain." Reading these words reawakens my desire to meditate, or at least to sit quietly for a while each day.

Here's a passage that speaks to me:

It is easy to fall into the tyranny of doing. The feeling that you should do more is a tyrant worse than any dictator. It will wear you out and bring not just an early demise but the daily death of a thousand stressful cuts. If you do not free yourself from this tyranny you'll die early, or daily, or both.

(Illustration, Wikipedia: Laozi, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching.) 

Shades of Gray

Never fear, dear readers, this blog isn't taking a more salacious turn in its second decade. This post is not about the erotic novel and film "50 Shades of Gray."  It's about what color to paint the bathroom.

The weekend remodeling project is proceeding apace, and by next weekend, we'll need paint. Will it be Abalone or Barren Plain? London Fog or Seattle Mist? Wind's Breath or Cedar Key?

This remains to be seen. I want a warm gray to match the swirls of color in the marble-like porcelain floor and shower tile. But I don't want to ignore the marble vanity top, which is a bit cooler in tone.

Ah, dear, the problems of affluence — in which we are freed from the daily tedium of black and white (what will we eat? where will we sleep?) to contemplate ... the shades of gray.

It's a Decade!

I've been looking forward to this day for months, but in the end it crept up on me. Here it is, though, 10 years since I began this blog on February 7, 2010.

I'm thankful beyond measure that I've been able to press on in this endeavor, even when time and troubles and life itself have thrown roadblocks in the way.

A Walker in the Suburbs is not fashionable, it's not slick. It's just a few words every day. But it's a place to collect my thoughts, and it reminds me that if you stick with a project, in the end you have a body of work. As you can see from my first post (linked and pasted below) that's all I ever wanted.

February 7, 2010

Blue skies today and people are stirring again. I went out early with the camera to capture the trees covered in white. Already the high branches are bare, blown clean of snow, springlike with swollen buds. The fir trees look like models from a miniature of the North Pole, their snowy covering like sugar icing. It’s colder today, about 15 when I woke up, and every so often a breeze blows the snow off the trees and creates a whirl of white, a brief flicker of snow fog. I think back two days ago to those first flakes in the Target parking lot. From those first flakes this white world was wrought. The snow has clung to every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow, crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words.

(Thanks to Celia for her wonderful congratulations sign!) 

Dearest Freshness

I noticed yesterday morning that the witch hazel had begun to bloom, and by mid-afternoon I caught a glimpse of two male cardinals in the tree. Of all the perches they could choose, they picked the ones closest to spring.

By the time I trained my camera on them, one had flown away. The symmetry of the shot was gone. But you can get a taste of it here.

There's the splash of yellow flowers amidst gray limbs; the dab of red from the bird. It was a hopeful scene on a solemn day, a sign there is a "dearest freshness deep down things," as Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote.  I'm clinging to it now.

ISO Good Books

Sometimes when the world doesn't seem quite right, I realize it's because I'm not reading a good book. I might be flipping through a volume I picked up at the library or trudging through a tome that's been on my nightstand too long, but I'm not caught up with a new idea, not taking notes on the little slips of paper that pass for bookmarks in my reading life.

Instead I'm reading the newspaper on public transportation and falling asleep too quickly when I read in bed.

What to do? Usually I turn to book lists I've kept, the recommendations of others, or even Goodreads — although I am suspicious of any booklist which also tries to sell me lipstick.

One thing I know: This book-less state won't last long. Soon enough I will be halfway through something I can't put down. And once again, all will be right with the world.

There's an App for That

This morning I heard on the radio what I thought was a victory speech from my favorite candidate (or at least the candidate who would be my favorite if this was an ordinary election season). It was a hopeful, aspirational speech and held within it the promise of true change, both political and generational.

But before I could get too carried away I switched to the station carrying news headlines — and learned there was no clear winner yet in Iowa. The new app that had been heralded only a few days before, the technology that was to make the results more robust and trustworthy ... was not working.

So the speech I heard was not only hopeful in terms of our nation's future — but hopeful in terms of a victory that has not yet (and may not) happen.

As Alice would say, things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

Early Spring?

With all the excitement over Palindrome Day (!) yesterday, I forgot to check in with Punxutawney Phil. I just looked and learned that, not surprisingly, he predicts an early spring.

The impatient buds on the witch hazel and the two-inch daffodil shoots have brought me to much the same conclusion. We've barely had any snow this year — not that I'm complaining. I will be perfectly happy with "winter lite."

An earlier spring gives me more chances to amble the paved paths and trails, more opportunities to hoof it up Wilson Avenue through Arlington on the way home from work. An earlier spring means more joy all around.

Which is why I won't say anything more about it. Don't want to tempt fate ...

Happy Palindrome Day!

Today's date — 02-02-2020 — is not only a palindrome; it is a palindrome of all palindromes. One that applies in all date formats (whether month or day goes first).

According to those in the know, the last time there was such a day (11/11/1111) was 909 (itself a palindrome) years ago. And the next time it will come again is 101 (palindrome) years from now, 12/12/2121.

To make it even more special, today is the 33rd day of the year, and there are 333 more to go.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Waking Up

This is A Walker's second guest post. As with the February 1, 2019 entry, it's by my mother — this year on the occasion of her 94th birthday. Mom was a natural, as these words will show. Happy Birthday, Mom! This one's for (and by) you. 

She woke to the early morning sun and stretched her arms and legs as usual, happy she could still do this. Maybe this meant she wasn't really old. Maybe 80 was just some mystical number she had to use to mark the passing of the years. If she could still move her arms and legs as before, maybe she was just the same as she had always been, just a little wiser.

She smiled as she reached back in her memory to other mornings, other stretches. Winter mornings when she was five years old, living in one of the three houses her family had lived in on Woodland Avenue, waking to the sun as she had done today. She remembered stretching her limbs in much the same way as now.

But then she remembered how she finished that stretch with a hard, childish motion before she put her tiny feet on the cold floor and ran to the gas stove that would warm not only her feet but her whole body. Soon Aunt Mayme and Aunt Beedie would know that she was awake and one of them would come to put their arms around her and warm her in a way no gas stove ever could.