A Georgetown walk can be full of stops and starts. Crowds bustle and churn. Sidewalks narrow and buckle. Cars jockey for spaces.
This is one of the oldest parts of D.C., and it does not always hum to a modern pace. You can’t drive fast here; the four-way stops see to that. And you can’t walk fast here, either — at least not on a crowded Sunday afternoon.
But if you hit a lull, and the gods are with you, you can at least stroll. And if you do, this is what you see:
Our parakeets live in a world of sound cues. Even in the dark of early morning, even with their cage covered, they wake to the sounds of the day.
A pair of creaky knees coming down the stairs. The jingle of a dog’s collar. The squeak of the back door as the dog is let out. The early wild birds waking with plaintive chirps.
And then there are the water noises: the filling of the kettle, the tea water coming to a boil.
I often keep them covered for a while because they’re so noisy, but they know when the day begins. They don’t doubt or second-guess themselves.
If only I could say the same.
(Sid and Dominique in 2012. Rest in peace, Sid, gone almost a year now. Instead of Sid there is … Alfie. And he’s another story altogether.)
First, it was the elephants. Then it was the clowns. Turns out, there was a good reason to feel sorry for the circus.
These are the final days of the Ringing Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Its last performances are in May, and the last ones here are next week.
I’ve never been a circus fanatic but there’s something so sad about the end of this tradition. I know, it’s kinda creepy and the opposite of PC. But it was a big deal before the advent of continual palm-held entertainment, something that linked the generations: my parents went, they took us and then they took my kids.
I wondered in my last circus post if this institution would be around in 20 years. I was off by 18. In little more than a month, it will be the end for the Greatest Show on Earth.
Now that we’re in Daylight Savings Time, I can bounce on the trampoline in the daylight, not the darkness. It’s more inhibiting, true. With tree cover still nonexistent this time of year, I have to keep my trampoline dancing moves to a minimum lest neighbors think I’m crazier than they already think I am.
But what daytime bouncing lacks in concealment it makes up for in scenery.
As Copper ran around the yard squeaking his new yellow day-glow ball, I was treated to clear skies, a slow drain of color and finally … this view.
What a way to leave the day!
Today is the birthday of the poet Billy Collins, the Writers Almanac informs me, and in the brief bio it supplied, I learn that Collins approaches revision carefully. “Revision can grind a good impulse to dust,” he says.
Collins is not one of my faves, but he’s right about this. How often have I taken a halfway decent idea and beaten the life out of it. Not because I want to, but because I can’t move forward. It’s easier to futz around with the words already on the page than to plow ahead and add some new ones.
It’s in part to sidestep this tendency that I started A Walker in the Suburbs. Jot an idea down quickly, first thing in the morning, then leave it alone. Tomorrow, get up and do the same thing. In time there will be a little ouevre of sorts, a bunch of new shoots green and growing.
Of course, I break this rule all the time. But I break it less here than I do otherwise. So here’s to delicate revision – and the restraint it takes to practice it!
These days I take walks whenever and wherever I can find them. On busy days, around the block is all I have time and space for. Yesterday was one of those days.
I pushed open the heavy glass door, slipped on my sunglasses and turned right at the Cosi Restaurant to reach the service road.
Usually it’s quiet back there but yesterday there was enough traffic to keep me on my toes, skirting puddles while steering clear of delivery trucks.
At the end of the block there’s a fitness park, which is where I snapped this photo. Many of flowering trees took a hit in last week’s frigid weather. About half of Washington’s famed cherry blossoms were nipped, the first time this has happened in the trees’ century-old history.
But this little guy survived. And seeing him there with a background of blue made me feel like it was truly spring, not just March 20.
It was a short walk. But it was enough.
Dad has been gone three years now, which is in itself an explanation for how one lives through loss — the speedy passage of time means the years without those we love fly faster than we originally suppose they would.
Thinking of Dad so much yesterday as I decked myself out in blue to watch the University of Kentucky Wildcats in post-season play. It was a tight game, which required much yelling at the screen. I’m typically a quiet viewer, someone who sniffles quietly into a tissue at a tearjerker. But all restraint crumbles when I watch U.K. basketball.
I learned from Dad that a game be watched as enthusiastically as it’s played. So if Wichita State sunk a basket, I sighed — loudly. And if U.K. claimed a three-pointer, I shouted. And when the boys in blue pulled out a three-point victory at the end, I whooped and hollered.
It’s the way Dad would have watched the game. And I was watching for him.
This year the Bishop of Arlington has granted the diocese a dispensation from the usual Lenten Friday abstinence from meat so that Irish Catholics can enjoy their corned beef. There’s a slight catch. You’re supposed to undertake a work of charity or act of comparable penance some other time to make up for it.
Fair enough. But it’s one of those cringe-worthy Catholic moments. Will we really be judged on such details? Yes, obedience is important, but what about the spirit of the law?
I think I’ll forego meat just for the heck of it. But the Bailey’s — I’ll have a sip of that, thank you very much!
(Photo: allrecipes.com)
It was blustery and cold yesterday, and the planes were taking the alternate runway to Dulles, something they only do in the heartiest of breezes, and which sends them right over our neighborhood. I felt like walking but the howling wind and jet noise was unsettling.
Still, the story I was writing was emerging slowly, if at all, and I was feeling that familiar knot at the base of my skull. It was time for a stroll.
The first few minutes were tough — I purposely walked into the wind at the beginning so I’d walk away from it at the end — but once I acclimated I immediately felt the relief that only being outside can bring.
The jets that seemed a menace from inside the house were great gliding gods when I saw them from the street. Dulles handles many international flights, so I imagined where these planes were coming from, the far-flung places — Bangkok and Seoul and Rio and Paris. Maybe they held people who had never been to the U.S. before. I imagined their excitement as the jets prepared to land.
Suddenly I wasn’t just out of my house — I was out of the mindset I’d had when I started. It was a welcome change.
These crocus hold their heads above the snow. Don’t forget to breathe, they tell each other. Spring will soon be here.
These lavender flowers tell me all I need to know about staying the course. And their spiky green leaves are the exclamation points to this crazy season.
It’s still Sprinter, the new hybrid we’re pioneering this year. One day winter, one day spring.
The crocus have the right idea, I think. They turn perseverance into art.