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Category: landscape

Crushed Shells

Crushed Shells

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Just out on the deck for a moment this unseasonably warm morning, I find that some of the shells I’d laid out on a glass-top table have been scattered and crushed. This is not the end of the world — I should have put them away months ago. But they looked so pretty on the table, a natural collage, that I left them there way too long.

As I gathered them again to slip into a cup, I marveled at their tiny whorls and notches, at the beauty of their architecture, which is born of practicality. And I couldn’t help but think of their collector, a young girl who was trying to earn a few coins from us on the beach in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. She had a shy pride about her, and an eagerness. Once she knew we were willing to pay for shells she took off for almost half an hour, combing through the tide pools looking for the loveliest specimens.

Now I’m thinking of her face when she opened her hands and showed us her collection. Some of the shells may be gone, but that memory has not faded at all.

Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars

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It was warmer this morning than the last few days, high 40s. Reason to pull on tights, sweatshirt and reflective vest, grab the flashlight and take a pre-dawn walk.

The crescent moon was out, the one that lets you see a faint image of the rest of the orb, like an eyeball pulsing beneath an almost-closed lid.

But that’s not what caught my attention. It was the stars.

I noticed them on the return, when I felt comfortable enough in the dark to look up. And there they were, so far away, so bright, so essential. I took a mental snapshot, have them with me now in the fluorescent-lit office, where I’ve found a quiet, unlit corner to write these words, to try and see stars again.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Backward Glance

Backward Glance

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A couple days ago on a walk around the block, I came across the end of a beach volleyball game in Crystal City. Couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the sand. To heck with the game, it’s the sand I love, the sand I crave. So, on this last day of summer … a backward glance at this summer’s beaches.

I had my Florida beach fix in August, days of sun and surf with tropical breezes and breathtaking sunsets.

And then, I took in a bonus beach in Bangladesh. Cox’s Bazar is the longest natural beach in the world., and we managed to find a spare hour to visit it despite our crammed-full schedule.

I’m thinking of it now, the width and the breadth of it, the people and animals we met: a young girl selling shells, a labor trafficking victim who’d gotten a new start in life as a photographer, a merchant hawking pearls, a yellow dog.

It was a different kind of beach experience, no towels or chairs, no umbrellas, no skimpy suits. It was a rock-strewn beach with dark, hard-packed sand. But it was glorious just the same.

Ascending Descenders

Ascending Descenders

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The late musicologist Karl Haas, who I still remember fondly from his radio show “Adventures in Good Music,” once had a program about “ascending descenders” or something of the sort. He may not have used that term, but his point was to celebrate the impact wrought from notes that descend in pitch but elevate in intensity.

I see the same process at work in the foliage of south Florida. Yes, palm fronds arch up and over in graceful arcs. Though their new growth shoots ever heavenward, they have an earthbound quality, too. Same with the long stringy stems (botanists would know what to call these things) that are perhaps the beginnings of a new branch.

In thinking about the foliage and the music I see a common theme: a celebration of life as it is, the ups, the downs, the beginnings and the ends. Recognizing the nobility in all of it.

Beach Walkers

Beach Walkers

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Beach walkers are purposeful creatures, and when you hit the strand early, as I did today, you see them in droves: arms pumping, shoulders squared, feet clad in tennis shoes or serious sandals. I fit right in.

For the beach walker, the ocean is a backdrop, the sand a soft cushion for our plantar-fasciitis-prone heels. No shell will tempt us from our mission, which is to make it from the old jetty to the first (blue) lifeguard chair before being overcome by tropical heat and humidity.

But even the most driven of beach walkers can’t ignore gulf waters lapping, shore birds peeping, the glorious mixture that is life where land meets sea.

The Light, Again

The Light, Again

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I stopped walking this morning long enough to take this shot.

“I almost did the same thing,” said a neighbor, running past me in the opposite direction. The light would have slanted in a bit lower through the tress when he passed this tunnel of green.

Not that I’m complaining about the angle I got to see. Seeing light pour through the trees first thing in the morning reminds me that there is more on heaven and earth than we can ever comprehend. We’re lucky if we have eyes to see and a lens to capture. But the light is there for us even if we don’t.

Blue Sky Day

Blue Sky Day

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It was a blue sky day at the bay, a day spent with my brother and sister. This meant we could talk about Dad, and his habit of standing at the threshold of a doorway, stretching out his arms and saying, “Look at that, not a cloud in the sky.”

We joked that had Dad turned around, he might have noticed looming thunderheads. But he didn’t turn around; he ignored the clouds. He kept his gaze resolutely blue-skyward. An excellent trait — until you’re caught unprepared in a sudden downpour.

No matter, we loved him — and we carried umbrellas, learned to look for and deal with the rain and clouds and gloom.

Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a blue-sky day when one is given to us.  And one was, yesterday — a glorious day.

Meadow Trail

Meadow Trail

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Walking from a parking lot to the library this weekend I cut through an empty lot bursting with bloom. There were buttercups and daisies and plentiful purple self-heal. There was a shaggy, shrubby intensity to the overgrowth, a bursting-at-the-seams quality that is the soul of June and the soul of any meadow worth its salt.

A narrow path crossed the flowery expanse, just wide enough for foot fall, with tenacious roots that clawed their way across the dusty dirt. It was mid-afternoon of the hottest day yet this season, and the meadow lacked even a stick of shade.

I was in the epicenter of summer, a buzzing, blazing bounty of growth and color and aroma. I had places to go and errands to run — was expecting nothing more than a shortcut, a quick trot from A to B. I found instead a destination, a place of beauty and peace.

View from a Ramada

View from a Ramada

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Driving from Tombstone to Bisbee last week the wideness of the West really hit me. Not the wildness but the wideness. The openness. It’s what I crave when I’m here in Virginia.

But when I was there, I felt exposed. Where were the trees, the hollows; where could I sit quietly and take in all this grandeur?

If shade does not come naturally, then it must be created. And so it is. At the Desert Museum I learned a new meaning for the word “ramada.” In the Southwest, a ramada is a open shelter, a roof with no walls. Made of reeds or brush or wood, it is the native’s way of putting a layer between themselves and the sun.

I snapped this shot from a ramada in Tucson. It gave me a frame, a vantage point — a cool, sequestered way to take in the day.

Opportunities for Awe

Opportunities for Awe

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Yesterday’s walk took me along a Reston trail. It was late afternoon, balmy and blooming, with crows cawing in the swamp.

I thought about the name of this blog, “A Walker in the Suburbs.” I thought about how if you didn’t know my suburb, you might envision streets of sameness, void of nature and texture.

You might not imagine this immersion in a natural world: stream gurgling, peepers peeping, smell of loam in the air. You might discount the opportunities for awe.