Lesson of the Bridge

Lesson of the Bridge

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Speaking of waters running freely, I had a chance Friday to walk across the Key Bridge, which spans the Potomac River, connecting Georgetown with Roslyn. I was carrying about 25 pounds of books on my back, the bounty of my recent trip to the Lauinger Library.

It was hot, and I was overdressed. It was the end of a long day. But walking Key Bridge is always an adventure, and I was glad to be doing it again.

What I had forgotten — what I always forget — is that walking Key Bridge is scary, especially for me heading south, without the distraction of the Hilltop looming ahead.

As always on the bridge, cars are zooming toward me and waters are swirling beneath me. There is no way out but forward.

I think, in the end, that’s why I keep walking Key Bridge. It reminds me that putting one foot in front of the other is often all we can do.

Soggy?

Soggy?

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I wake to an office window splattered by raindrops. The world beyond looks like an impressionist painting. My phone tells me we received .8 inches of rain yesterday.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Northern Virginia is no longer in drought. And yet, on a woods walk over the weekend, I noticed that one bellwether creek on my route remains dry.

I’ll believe we’re out of drought when Little Difficult Run flows freely, as it used to do in the old days.

It’s the evidence we see with our own eyes — and feel with our skin — that makes the difference.

(The soggiest photo I could find is one I snapped from a window while touring the Yorkshire Dales last May.)

The Analog World

The Analog World

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A library book has arrived and I will pick it up today. I contemplate the quaintness of this concept. Knowledge between two covers. Information not available online. A book I can’t access digitally but must travel through space to retrieve.

I consider the practicalities. I will tack this onto another errand. I’ll check out other books, too. Why waste a trip on just one tome? I will bring a backpack and an umbrella. I may also stop at a bakery near campus that sells exquisite baguettes made with flour imported from France. I hope to return home with sustenance for mind and body.

The analog world — it used to be all there was. Now it can feel like a sideshow.

(The only surviving original copy of Beowulf, photographed at the British Library in May.)

Now We Are Six

Now We Are Six

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Today, in honor of our grandson’s birthday, I’ll reprint the poem I’ve loved since my own children turned six.

When I was One

I had just begun.

When I was Two

I was barely new.

When I was Three

I was hardly me.

When I was Four

I was not much more.

When I was Five

I was coming alive.

But now I am Six.

I’m as clever as clever.

I think I’ll be six now

Forever and ever.

Poem and art by A. A. Milne

Night of Shooting Stars

Night of Shooting Stars

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Tonight we await the Perseid Meteor showers and I remember 2020, the year I watched them with Celia on the trampoline.

She and I talked of many things, including the baby her sister was expecting, who showed up right on schedule the next day, our first grandchild. After that, Celia moved to Seattle, where she’s lived happily with her husband ever since.

I’m a lucky mom to have two of my grown daughters nearby. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the one who lives on the other side of the country. Sometimes she seems as far away as those specks of light streaking across the sky.

But then I remember the conversation we had that special night, or any number of other times we’ve visited here or there, chatted for hours on the phone, or otherwise shrunk the miles. Those times are like meteor showers, spectacular light shows that boost my sense of wonder, that remind me how good it is to be alive.

(No great star shots. Last month’s full moon is the best I can do.)

A Riddle

A Riddle

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What stands and runs but does not walk? This riddle came to me on today’s stroll through Franklin Farm. Riddles do not usually come to me, whether I’m moving or stationary, so I’m eager to share this one.

The answer (groan) is water. Water stands — I saw proof of that today as I jumped over puddles. And water runs — in streams and faucets, rivers and sewers. But water never walks.

It certainly seems to, though. Water that flows at a slower pace, a turgid and murky creek, for instance, certainly seems to be walking rather than running.

I doubt the concept of walking water will catch on, though. It’s a little too close to walking on water and its many connotations. So for now, it will remain … just a riddle.

(A river carved through brown hills in Pomeroy, Washington, shot from the air in October 2018.)

A Walker in Tysons

A Walker in Tysons

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When I found myself with dilated eyes and time to kill before driving home, I did what all curious walkers do: explored the area. In this case, the area included one of the largest malls in the U.S. There was just one hitch: reaching the place on foot.

The Tysons Corner area is not pedestrian friendly. It may become more so in time — or at least that’s the hope. The Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority (WMATA) put four stations in the Tysons area when it was routing the Silver Line in a bid to make the neighborhood more walkable. But it will take more than that, I’m afraid.

It will take more weirdos like me, people willing to stroll across 10 lanes of traffic on a broiling-hot afternoon. At least there was a crosswalk.

(This is not a pretty picture, but that’s the point.)

Half Hidden

Half Hidden

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A violet by a mossy stone/Half hidden from the eye!/Fair as a star, when only one/Is shining in the sky.

On a late walk a few evenings ago, I left by the back gate and was stopped in my tracks by a pale pink flower lying on the leaf litter, a thing of beauty I would not have seen had I not walked that route.

I stooped down and picked it up, tried to right it, found a stick to bolster the top-heavy plant. I didn’t know what it was at first — a friend eventually figured out that it was a spider lily — but that didn’t matter.

It was a beautiful object tucked away, blooming only for itself and whoever might see it. Showy enough for a grand garden but decorating the woods instead.

Most of us know people like that, don’t we? Wordsworth did. The violet he describes is a metaphor for Lucy, a maid who “dwelt among the untrodden ways.”

In the words of another British writer, George Eliot, “Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing.”

But these women, these people, these flowers — they bloom anyway. They may be half hidden, but (and maybe because of this) they are completely themselves.

Walker’s High

Walker’s High

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I’m just back from a Reston trails walk. It was good to have a change of scene after days of hoofing it through the neighborhood.

Not that I have anything against my neighborhood. It’s bucolic, as suburban subdivisions go, but it’s limited. I march up and down one major thoroughfare.

When I walk the Reston trails I meander along the Glade Creek, or circle Lake Newport. I cross bridges, trudge up hills and down. I explore any side trails that look appealing. A walk becomes an adventure.

Or least that’s the way it seems at the time. Maybe it’s just the walkers high.

My Hands

My Hands

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The headline reads “Hands are the new frontier of antiaging,” and once I moved beyond the missing hyphen — most would write “anti-aging” — I dipped into the article itself, learning of new treatments for wrinkled hands. One beauty connoisseur says she treats her hands as she does her face, including chemical peels and microneedling.

My hands are — to mix metaphors and body parts — my Achilles heel. The combination of sun damage, an active life, and well, let’s just call it carelessness, have made my hands look older than the rest of me.

But … I love my hands, crone-like though they may be. I appreciate their years of service, their willingness to type a blog post, chop celery, or pound through Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude.

I appreciate the fact that they are the only part of me that is tan anymore. Because even though I wear long sleeves and long pants to avoid sun exposure, I still bare my hands, slathered in sunscreen, of course.

If I knew in my 20s what I know now, I would have sunbathed less and worn driving gloves. But other than that, I’m happy with my choices. I wouldn’t trade my imperfect hands for the newest, plumpest models on the market.

(Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s The Beloved, photographed at the Tate Britain, May 25, 2026.)