A Walker in the Suburbs

The library wants its book back so I’m returning In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing and the Mysteries of Love by Joseph Luzzi. But not before noting a few passages here. One is this:

“When he [Dante] accepted that he would never return to Florence he figured that he did not have to keep writing the books that other people wanted; he would write the books — the book, actually — that he alone believed in.”

That book, of course, was The Divine Comedy.

Another passage:

“That is the real magical thinking of grief. That other life that death throws you into — the one you wanted nothing to do with — is actually one you can build upon. For it contains the gifts that the person who loved you left behind.”

As I continue to live “that other life,” a life without Mom, I’m finding that the gifts of words and writing, the gifts she gave me, bring comfort and courage. It’s not quite as tidy as it sounds here, but it’s close enough.

For the most part this has been a warm, muddy winter. The backyard is a squishy, soggy mess, and the sections of living room floor not covered by carpets bear little brown doggy paw prints that must be constantly wiped up.

The warmish winter means that gloves spend more time in pockets and skin stays less chapped. It means that I’m not pummeled by bitter winds or enervated by long commutes in sub-freezing cold. I like these things.

But now that temps are in the teens and 20s, I’m remembering that there are advantages to seasonable cold. For instance, the ground is frozen. I can throw Copper the ball and neither one of us needs to wipe our feet when we come in.

And backing down the driveway past the two other cars is no longer an obstacle course — because there is a strip of frozen ground on either side that gives me more leeway than I usually have. It’s the winter shoulder. And I’m glad it’s here.


(We’re not quite as frozen as the photo above would have you believe — not yet!)

As the temperatures plummet, my pace picks up. I don’t walk from parking lot to Metro and Metro to office, I run. It’s not the most dignified way to move from place to place, but it’s how I travel in sub-freezing weather.

The body is a furnace, something I discovered when I lived in New York, a walkers’ paradise. I wore a long black coat then, the warmest coat I’ve ever owned, toastier than any down jacket or fleece. But the coat was heavy. Putting it on was like suiting up for battle, which in a way it was.

So every workday morning I slipped into battle gear and made my way from 94th and Central Park West to 45th and Park Avenue, right near Grand Central Station. In 10 blocks I would be warming up, and by the time I reached the Plaza I might have to loosen my scarf.

I didn’t run those 50-plus blocks, but I kept up a brisk pace. It was a surefire antidote to cold — and now that I think back on it — pretty much everything else, too.

Having the piano tuned is a cause for celebration. And what better way to celebrate than playing the darn thing. This is a practical as well as an artistic matter. It doesn’t stay in tune long, my poor old spinet.

So I sat down last night and started with what I last played — “The Messiah.” Picked out the tenor part for “Every Valley,” but found it a bit passe. So I dug deeper for some Bach, pounded out the first prelude, then the second fugue.

Emboldened that I could still read the notes (long-term memory is a wonderful thing!), I pressed on, ending the session with a few tunes from the Gershwin songbook.

By this point, the feeling had entered my fingers again, that proprioception that tells me my index finger is about to strike F sharp and my pinkie is hovering over E natural — and if I want the melody to sing out, I’d better work that pinkie.

They used to call it “touch.” Maybe they still do. It’s what turns notes into music. I got a bit of it back  last night.