Children need roots and wings, says one adage. They need the security of home and family and the confidence and freedom to fly away from it.
It occurs to me today, riffing on this, that what I need now is headspace and legroom.
Headspace so I can vanish into a world of my own creation, beyond home, family and work.
Legroom because as much as I need the mental space, I crave physical movement, too.
It’s freedom I’m after, both literal and metaphorical.
It’s the first post of the season that I’m writing on the deck before leaving for work. It’s warm enough to sit out here in shirtsleeves, a delicious reversal from months of chilly mornings.
The windows were open so I woke this morning to the slap of the newspaper on the driveway. An almost full moon was setting as I left the house.
It’s a different kind of day when I have a chance to walk before work — more expansive, softer around the edges, routine on the run.
So even though I should be leaving now, I take another sip of tea, linger a little longer with the birdsong and the faraway traffic noise. In a moment I’ll get up, shoulder my bag, leave the house, drive to Metro.
But not yet.
Nothing makes a mother happier than to know her grown children are hanging out together, chatting in the evenings after work, caring. That’s the way I feel, and I remember Mom feeling that way, too. What’s amazing is how the practice carries on through time, even when the parents are gone.
My brothers and sister and I spend holidays together when we can, check up on each other, chat in the evenings after work. And we care. The caring is not without a price, but it’s always worth it.
My parents gave us many gifts — optimism, resilience, a love of ideas — but best of all was the gift of each other, a fact we would have found shocking as squabbling kids in the back of a hot station wagon.
I write this today because it’s Ellen’s birthday, as good a day as any to say how lucky I am to have a sister, how I can’t imagine going through life without one.
(Ellen and I have given each of our daughters two sisters!)
A few months ago a high school friend called to tell me that the Central Kentucky Youth Symphony Orchestra was celebrating its 70th anniversary with a reunion concert May 20 and all alumni were invited to play. I knew in an instant that I would do everything I could to be there. The CKYSO made adolescence bearable. It introduced me to a group of people whose idea of a good time was listening to Wagner’s Liebestod on a Saturday night.
The only problem: I haven’t played a the string bass since I was in high school. I had to find one (actually two, because I’ll be flying to Kentucky for the concert), then … I had to start practicing.
I accomplished one of those missions before I went to Asia and the other 10 days ago when I found a bass to rent here and somehow got it home in a small sedan. Since then I’ve been practicing whenever I can, trying to get the notes in my fingers again.
To relearn an instrument after decades away from it is a humbling experience. I forgot how much effort it takes to stretch my left hand into position and still hold up the instrument. To give you an idea just how remedial a bass student I am: I had to Google the string intervals. (The string bass is unique among stringed instruments; it’s tuned in fourths — E, A, D and G — instead of fifths.)
But after more than a week at it, the positions and scales are coming back and I’m learning how much to tighten the bow (not as much as I was the first few days — the poor thing was starting to pop some hairs).
Now I just have to learn the bass parts for Stravinsky’s Firebird and Verdi’s Aida. To be continued …
I can’t let April slip away without a nod to Virginia bluebells. I went to see my favorite patch of them last week.
Yesterday Suzanne and I went for a walk after work. It was a lovely spring afternoon, just begging to be strolled through.
We started at my office in Crystal City, and quickly angled onto the Mount Vernon Trail, dodging the high-speed through bikes on the narrower connector path. We had to talk a little louder when we got to Gravelly Point, where jets roared overhead from take-off at National Airport.
But by Memorial Bridge the air was soft and quiet. The fresh green weeping willow branches shimmered in the lowering sun.
Mostly, we talked. But sometimes we marveled, too. Washington has its monster traffic jams, but it has marvelous foot paths, too. And yesterday I felt like we were on all of them.
We walked for hours. So this morning, curious, I looked up the distance.
Seven miles. You could have fooled me. It didn’t feel an inch more than five.
Today has been set aside for office cleanup, and I’ve worn jeans for the occasion. But it occurs to me that the tidying up I most need to do is not tangible but virtual. And for this, most any attire will do.
I seldom delete email. I spent 20 minutes yesterday looking for a document that’s nowhere to be found. Is it on my desktop? Dd I accidentally save it in a strange file? Global computer searches have yielded no trace. But while I was looking for it I shuddered at the disarray I found.
This is the way digital cleanup happens for me: a search and rescue mission.
Meanwhile, I don’t want these jeans to go to waste. I’ll find some real files to toss somewhere!
I started at Winrock two years ago today. It may have seemed an odd choice given my previous jobs in print journalism. But it’s the words that matter, I decided, not the medium in which they’re read. As for the autonomy of my reporting, I’ve decided that very few of us can say we’re not beholden to someone or something, whether it be editors, advertisers or management.
Any job change requires soul searching, asking what really matters. And what matters for me is the work itself, the pace and the breadth of it, what it stands for. This organization has its heart in the right place. I believe in its goals and mission.
More than that, this work is perfect for the easily bored. At Winrock I have a huge canvas on which to paint. I’ve interviewed old and young, farmers and bank executives, solar technicians and victims of human trafficking. I write stories and talking points, ad copy and op-eds.
I usually write without byline and most of my output ends up online. But in the end, it’s the stories that matter — that, and the writing of them.
A book group friend recommended this book, the tale of a young man who walked across America and listened to the voices of vagabonds and preachers, beauticians and firefighters.
Andrew Forsthoefel was newly graduated from Middlebury College when he decided to make the journey. “Everyone of us has an extraordinary story worth hearing, and I’m walking the country to listen,” he wrote on his travel blog at the beginning of the trip.
Admitting it might sound contrived, but resolved to do it anyway, Forsthoefel quickly gained my trust when he told the story of his leave-taking. His mother was worried but brave. She acts like I hope I would if one of my children announced she was walking across the country. The picture she snaps of her son walking down the train tracks behind their house in Pennsylvania is priceless. It’s the picture of a young adult doing his own thing, back turned to the camera, arms outstretched as if to say, enough, I’m done, catch ‘ya later.
Needless to say, he survives the trip — and gets a book contract, to boot. He only just reached Georgia, so I imagine I’ll have more to say about Walking to Listen.
Let me close for today with a passage about walking:
The walking itself was slowly become my home, or something like it. It was the only constant, the connective thread that tied everything together.
(Photo: Courtesy Bloomsbury Press)
After two bounce-less months, I finally ordered a new trampoline last Sunday. Two days later, there were three boxes sitting outside the garage when I got home from work.
They were heavy and compact, a tidy package.
After a few days in the garage and hours of labor yesterday, the three boxes have become — a trampoline.
Limbs and branches from last month’s storms may still litter the landscape, but in one important way, the backyard is back in business. Once again, the lady has a tramp.
