You’d think I would know what it was, but when I heard the pop last night in the car, my first thought was that it was coming from the radio.
Instead, it was coming from the fireworks that were exploding off to my left, filling the night sky with light as I drove north toward home.
I could only catch glimpses of the display, but they were a perfect appetizer for tonight’s full-course meal.
Watching the light fade last night, I see leaves grow indistinct, dark masses without color.
Searching for bats, I see blurred forms cut through the darkness, visible only when they cross a patch of still-blue sky.
As sunlight vanishes, fireflies rouse themselves from the ground, blink and twinkle as they flutter their way to the treetops.
Closer to where I’m sitting, the deck lights snap to attention. They’ve been storing sunlight all day and now release it.
Two types of night light on an early July evening.
A library becomes a sanctuary, its shelves and kiosks like the rooms and closets of home, familiar and well-worn.
Sometimes, worn enough to need a facelift, which is what’s happening at my library now.
The Reston Regional branch of the Fairfax County Library system shut down on Saturday. But I couldn’t let it close without a final look.
I was there on Friday, wandering through the stacks, checking out a book, glimpsing the old place one more time before it’s transformed.
I’ve been reading Oliver Sacks’ Everything in its Place: First Loves and Last Tales, a posthumous collection of essays by a master of that form. That he was a master of so much else — neurology, weightlifting, chemistry — ripples out from every page.
Sacks loved to swim, to walk in botanical gardens, to study ferns in Central Park, and the book contains short chapters on these topics and many more, easy explorations in the personal essay form. They move from the particular to the general, are informal and discursive.
Sacks is most well-known for his book Awakenings, which chronicles his treatment of patients with a rare sleeping sickness, people who had missed whole decades of life then woke up and found themselves once again in the land of the living.
Awake is how I feel after reading the work of this scientist and writer, gone almost 10 years but alive to me now thanks to this final, exhilarating collection.
(Sacks’ signature courtesy Wikipedia)
A late walk, not timed for sunset but finding it anyway. There at the end of the street, the end of the neighborhood, the end of the day.
The newspaper headline caught my eye: “Your Socks are Showing Your Age.” The accompanying photo shows two people who both look young to me, one wearing ankle socks barely visible above their shoes and the other wearing crew socks.
Apparently, Gen Z is embracing the sort of tall, dorky socks that everyone wanted to leave behind two decades ago, the kind you see on old guys mowing the lawn. Young folks now sport crew socks with sneakers and even with high heels. Take that, Millennials, they say as they flaunt their now-trendy tube socks.
How old do you have to be before you start seeing fashion as a game? Not very. The youngest Millennials are turning 30.
As a walker in the suburbs, it only figures that I would have an opinion on socks. They are, after all, the interface between foot and shoe. A well-fitting pair puts a bounce in my step; an ill-fitting pair drives me crazy. With socks, as with so much of life, the best approach is one of moderation: neither too high nor too low is the recipe for happiness.
(Photo from Wikipedia’s page on Socks and sandals, considered a “fashion faux pas” in some places)
There is no clear trail around Lake Audubon. There are twists and turns, hidden paths and a bridge it took me years to find.
But yesterday the pieces all fell together, the landscapes and the streetscapes. There were wooded straightaways and sunny patches. There was neighborhood walking — perfect for ogling lakeside houses I’d love to live in — and forest glades with dappled shade.
I saw anglers, paddle-boarders and dog-walkers. Everyone was up to something, and I was covering ground. The weekend torpor had vanished with the breeze.
(Banana trees along the lake. Yes, bananas grow in Fairfax County.)
Something shifted overnight. It won’t last long, so I’d better write fast. A cool breeze is blowing in from the west, bending the bamboo that fringes the deck, and thin clouds are scuttling through a blue sky.
There is movement and gladness in the air, and the lazy trills of birdsong.
Colors look brighter, and there are plenty of them, especially in the back garden.
I’d like to sit here and keep describing it all, but I’d better walk now, before it goes away.
(Two young walkers enjoying a cool breeze a few weeks ago. Photo: CCC)
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a heat wave in the Eastern United States, with temperatures of 100 degrees, which will feel warmer with the humidity.
The chances are you have heard, though, because the weather folks have been beating the drum about this since Monday. Through lovely cool mornings and passable afternoons, we’re heard about heat domes, hydration and cooling centers.
It’s not just a different kind of weather these days; it’s a different kind of weather report.
(One of the hotter places I’ve visited recently: the Alcazar in Seville, Spain.)
I was stopped on my morning walk by a friendly neighbor. He rolled down his car window and asked, “Are you missing a Christmas tree ornament?” It’s almost July. Tree trimmings are not on my mind. I uttered something noncommittal.
“Because we found one in front of your house, near where you might have left the tree for pickup. It was sticking out of the dirt there. A rocking horse?”
Well yes, there was a rocking horse ornament, metal with a looped string to attach it. Could it have escaped my multiple searches through the fir branches in early January?
It could — and it did. The ornament has, uh, weathered, shall we say. It looks like something from the 18th century, not the late 20th. But now it’s home again, thanks to a kind neighbor.
