A Walker in the Suburbs

The road from Kentucky to Virginia (or from Virginia to Kentucky, for that matter) is by no means  flat. It crosses a major mountain range, of course, so you don’t choose whether to drive through mountains, only how you will do it.

For much of the route the altitude shifts are buffered by the grade restrictions of the U.S. interstate system. In other words, nothing too extreme. If your car is powerful enough and you’re in a hurry, you may not realize how high you’re climbing.

This got me thinking about the gradual ascent, the steady accretion of duties, the daily growth of a child that’s invisible to you until she sees distant relatives who say, “How much you’ve grown!”

So much happens to us slowly, invisibly, without our permission. It’s probably better that way.

A walk yesterday along the mall was a study in shapes. The National Museum of the American Indian loomed before me, its curved stone walls a link to the mesas and pueblos of our native past.

Beside it was a straight sidewalk, the stricture into which the native past was placed. We, the inhabitants of the 21st century, we live with them both.

Closest to the surface is the straight line, the crossroads, the grid. But underneath its order are the curved paths of our past. The deer trails and the wagon train trails, the old roads that wound among hills and ridges.

I walked yesterday along the straight path, but I kept my eyes trained on the curves.

Photo: visitingdc.com

Yesterday I drove down a street I’d never driven before. I turned right instead of going straight, and I was in … the country.

In many parts of Fairfax County there are vestiges of the old mixed in with the new. My first view to the left was a green field and a barn, a scene I pass every day but from another angle and therefore completely altered. It made me think about the scale of times past, houses closer together and right on the road, as if leaning in to tell secrets.

The lane narrowed as I drove until, at the end, I could scarcely turn the car around. With each leg of the passage, I felt myself being drawn further back into Oakton’s past. It wasn’t a bad trip.

Our road west begins with Route 66. Not the “Route 66” of “Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino,” lines from the song Nat King Cole made popular, the song we sang as kids when we were heading to California the first time. And not the “Route 66” of the iconic 1960s television show, with its haunting theme song. And not the real Route 66, the road that wound through red rock canyons and high pine forests, a road mostly bypassed now but not forgotten.

Our Route 66 runs from D.C. to Front Royal. It passes through Vienna and Oakton and Fair Oaks and Gainesville and Manassas. From it you can reach Great Meadow or Skyline Drive. And rather than seeing the Rockies at its western horizon you can spot the subtle line of the Blue Ridge. Route 66 is our road west. It is a short interstate, and often clogged with traffic. But from its crowded lanes the road west begins. We will take this direction any way we can.

One more post on driving and rites of passage. What ended the other day when Celia got her license was — symbolically at least — my almost 23-year-old job as chauffeur. There is a time in a family’s life when it seems like driving is all you do. Our county is large and congested, and our children have been involved in band, orchestra, cross-country, track, cello lessons, clarinet lessons, voice lessons, ballet, tap and hip-hop, video camp, modeling camp, Girl Scouts, swimming, horseback riding, basketball, volleyball, soccer, rugby, religious education, diocesan work camp, tutoring, academic enrichment programs, volunteering at food banks, jobs in places far away from home and much, much more that I have (blissfully) forgotten.

For a time we did all this driving in our small Saab sedan (which I eulogized in a post in August 2010). It was almost like one of those circus cars where an impossibly large number of clowns clamber out. Somehow we could fit three children, a cello and a string bass in this one vehicle.

Then we switched (reluctantly) to the van, and our official carpooling life began. Because I haven’t even discussed all the other children we’ve driven, all the funny conversations I’ve overheard, the times my heart has been lightened (and yes, the times it has sunk) because of something revealed to me in the car.

The automobile has been an extension of our family kitchen, a part of the house we take with us wherever we go. The girls and I have had serious talks on these drives, have gotten to know each other better during them, and have had a lot of laughs together during them, too.

So even though I won’t miss the rush hour traffic, the last minute dashes to school (and I’ll probably still make some of those), I will miss all the chaos and the fun and the complete indispensability of my role as chauffeur. It is one time you know — beyond all doubts and second-guesses — that you are needed.