Yesterday’s walk took me through the woods to another street in the neighborhood, one I seldom visit. It held novelty and a sense of escape. It also held something I haven’t seen in a while: mud.
Though we’ve had rain through the warm months, we’ve been in drought conditions until recently. The water table has been low and the soil parched. Drops that fell were quickly absorbed. But now there’s a bit of water flowing through the creek and soggy patches on the trail.
I thought about wearing hiking boots, but since my walk was only partially in the woods, I decided against them. My tennis shoes would have to do. And they did. But not without detours. And tiptoeing. And searching for the high, dry ground.
A muddy trail is good for the earth, but it makes walking more complicated.
Something in the air this morning said fall. I’m not sure what it was, a thinner atmosphere, a brisker breeze, the few leaves that have fallen making a collage on the driveway.
In springtime, change starts at the top of the trees and works its way down. I look up to see where things stand.
In autumn, it’s the reverse. I look down at the path, the pavement, to notice the acorns, whole and crunched, the scrim of leaf-meal that collects along the trail.
It’s kind of like “spring ahead, fall back,” only in directions instead of time. “Spring up, fall down.” Something like that.
It was 25 years ago, that day. My children can remember it. That day is their November 22, 1963. My oldest grandson interviewed his mother recently for a high-school class: tell me what you remember about September 11th. It has become part of history.
But for those of us who remember it, September 11th is not history; it is lived experience — a cloudless blue sky and the roar of fighter jets, the landline phone ringing, voices asking, is everyone OK?
Tom hiked out of D.C., one of a stream of commuters pouring over the bridge past a burning Pentagon. My brother in New York City glimpsed a plane flying bizarrely low along the Hudson as he entered the subway on his way to work. When he emerged, the North Tower was on fire.
But for most of us, September 11th was a series of televised images: the gaping holes, the licks of flame, the cloud of dust. It wasn’t just grief or sadness but a strange new feeling of tenderness I had for this country, for our lost innocence. I knew then that we would never be the same. We all did. But did we have any idea just how different we would become?
The heels were worn but the shoes were still comfortable, so I decided to repair them. A friend directed me to an environmental clothes cleaners with a shoe repair business on the side. When I walked in with my peep-toe pumps I was met before I even reached the counter. “The man who repaired shoes for us, he died,” said the clerk.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I told myself. A few years ago, I’d had a sandal strap repaired at a little hole-in-the-wall place in the mall, barely bigger than a closet. I parked in the large, scarcely used lot, entered the sad, empty mall, and found the cubbyhole. A grate was closed and a sign posted. “I am sorry, but I am closed. Please call me if I still have your shoes.”
Two strikes now, but for some reason (naiveté?) I was confident I could still locate a cobbler. I did some googling and found a phone number for a man named George on Route 29. Not exactly my neighborhood, so I called first to make sure he was there. A booming voice answered the phone. “Yes, I am George,” he said, “and I am here. The guys with the websites, they are closed.”
Two days later, I drove to George’s place. It was bustling. While George worked in the back, clad in a no-nonsense black apron, customers entered to drop off and pick up their footwear. George took one look at my shoes and shook his head. “No way I can repair these,” he said. “I don’t have the material for it.”
“But I’m willing to spend some money because I like these shoes so much,” I pressed.
“I’m sorry,” George replied. “I won’t take on a job if I know the customer won’t be satisfied in the end.”
I couldn’t argue with that. George knew his limits. He had mastered the art of saying no. I wish I could say the same for myself. Maybe it’s easier for a cobbler than a writer.
I slunk out of George’s with my banged-up pumps, drove home and threw them in the trash … photographing one first, just for the record.
In the garden, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans are fading, but on the deck the marigolds are still going strong. They bob their bright orange heads and beg to be pinched when they’re beyond their prime.
After I touch them I inhale my fingers and revel in their distinctive aroma. It’s a scent that keeps the pests away … which means I should probably have them all over the yard.
The sight and scent of marigolds reminds me of a particular autumn, my first year teaching high school English. I had no car so took a subway north from Evanston to a commuter bus. There were marigolds growing near the bus stop even in the cooler northern Illinois October.
For that reason marigolds have traditionally carried a hint of melancholy or at least of anxiety. (The first year of teaching is not for the faint of heart.) But I seem to have broken that spell this year. This summer, I finally see marigolds for what they are, a cheerful flower that brightens the days.
I first heard the phrase “motion is lotion” from a physical therapist. I took to it right away. Movement matters. It can heal body, mind and spirit. The more you move, the more easily you move. I believe this. Most walkers do.
The expression pops into mind especially after a new exercise routine or enthusiastic weeding session leaves me stiff and sore. That was the case this morning, as I hobbled out of bed into my running tights and t-shirt to do the neighborhood loop with an ever-loosening gait.
My eyes have healed and I’ve no more excuses to skip the grunt work of exercising: the planks and poses that pit body weight against gravity. I went up against the weeds over the weekend, too. They have run rampant lately.
All of which means I needed the lotion that comes from motion. Come to think of it, I should get up and move a little more right now.
(Walkers in York, England, get some lotion from their motion.)
As we celebrate Labor Day I’m thinking about work, what it means, how it changes as we grow older. Last week, I penned an appreciation of the writer Wendell Berry, who died a week ago. I proposed the piece, wrote it quickly, and the editor turned it around in hours.
It was the sort of thing that happened all the time when I was part of a magazine staff or a communications team, but it doesn’t happen that way much anymore. The pieces I’m assigned usually have generous deadlines, as do my papers for school. Writing is much more of a solo occupation than it used to be, and this has made me think about the part of paying work I miss most: collegiality.
I remind myself that even if I was part of a magazine staff again, I would likely be writing and editing from this desk in my upstairs office. I worked at home for years, quite happily. But one of the reasons I became part of a magazine staff again was for the people.
Do we underestimate the people part of labor? Kind colleagues can make a difficult job bearable, while snide, backbiting ones can make each day a prison.
When we talk of labor, I think we often concentrate on the tasks at hand, items on a to-do list, the headwind of the working life. Good colleagues are the tailwind. They help us glide through the labors of life.
(Colleagues, friends and bystanders on a work trip to Bangladesh.)
A walk yesterday in air so thick I felt wrapped in cotton wool. One of my favorite trails has become less shady as trees have aged and toppled. It’s the perennial story here as the old giants teeter and fall, the ones in our yard like losing old friends.
I thought yesterday on my walk that the path I used to think of as mostly shady is now partly sunny. Our backyard is like that, too. More patchwork than monotone.
Nothing wrong with this. It’s just a matter of shifting focus and expectations. It’s a loss … but also a gain.
Wendell Berry, the poet of place and placedness, Kentucky’s native son, died August 31st at the age of 92.
“I can’t believe it,” I told my brother Phillip, who called from Kentucky to share the news. “I was just thinking about him.” Phillip said he had just been thinking about him, too.
I imagine many people felt that way. Once you knew Wendell Berry and his work you thought about him often. He was an American original.
Berry taught Phillip freshman English at the University of Kentucky. “I don’t think he much liked my writing,” Phillip said.
I never studied with Berry. But I did study his writing. In fact, just last week I was thumbing through one of this books, Home Economics. And after hearing of his death I re-read one of my favorite Berry essays, “A Native Hill.”
As I begin the thesis-writing year of my academic program, I’m turning once again to Berry, who was both a walker and a philosopher. He, more than most contemporary writers, articulated the delicate but indelible bonds between people and place, and especially, between writers and place. Rest in peace, Wendell Berry.
A Wall Street Journalheadline caught my eye: “The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Getting Away.” This time last year I wasaway — with a week of travel left before our return. This year, a different to-do list for late summer.
But the research must be right, because it matches my lived experience. Of course travel improves mental health. How could it not? It keeps us on our toes. It provides opportunities for awe. It allows us to be ourselves in a way few other activities can.
Traveling can be as simple as driving somewhere without GPS assistance … or as complicated as a monthlong foray overseas.
What matters most, I think, is being in uncharted territory. You are on a subway that may or may not take you to Heathrow Airport. Your garret room is up four flights of rickety Alsatian stairs. It seems as if there is nothing you want to eat in all of Portugal.
So what? Life happens. And travel reminds us that it does. It’s not just good for the mind. It’s good for the soul.
