A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday, when the late light was slanting and the air was still, I went out for a quick stroll. We passed the steep driveway, the signpost Copper always has to sniff.  We turned left, toward Fox Mill Road. I had barely reached the corner when the differences overwhelmed me.

The roads are wide, the cars have too few passengers. All around me is space, order. There is no trash, no fine red dust between my toes. No woodsmoke, no hazy sun low on the horizon.

Instead there is this world I know. At once the same and different — because I see with altered eyes.

I’m writing this post standing up. More and more often it’s the way I like to be, to write, to edit. A tall desk, a place to lean, the words flowing out (am I just imagining this?) a tad more freely.

There’s a reason for this, probably age related, though I’d just as soon not think about that. Sciatica, a pain that starts in the back, rolls down the legs, makes sitting uncomfortable.

Though pushed to stand by necessity, I find it has other charms, keeps me a little more alert, a little more aware of the world around me. It’s an observation-stimulant. I’m more vigilant, not quite as easy in my skin.

And of course, the vantage point can’t be beat. When I’m standing up, I can see farther down the road.

A momentary meditation on glare, on slanting sun and how it blinds us not with darkness but with light. Too much of a good thing, then, or a good thing misdirected. Put this light behind us and we have tall shadows, a crisp sense of possibility.

Shine it in our face, though, and everything else fades away, the colors in the sky, the outlines of the buildings; even the stoplights hide their true colors. Ironic and telling, this inability to see what’s right in front of us. It’s easy to draw parallels.

Most of my walk is due east, but finally, at the end, I turn north. I’m relieved. It’s colder without the sun, but now I can see.

Though I’m sitting at a desk staring at a screen, in my mind’s eye I’m surveying clouds. I’m lying on a deck chair, as I did on Saturday. My hands are laced behind my head, and I’m marveling at the puffy cumulus clouds that float across an impossibly blue sky.

Maybe I was just short on imagination that day, but I spied no particular shapes. No castles, dogs or sinister faces. I saw just the clouds themselves, and that was enough. I looked at them for what felt like hours but was only minutes. Still, it was long enough to get lost in their alabaster swirls, their tufted promises; to swim recklessly from one to the other across the fathomless blue.

The clouds were both companionable and regal. Looking at them long enough I wondered what it would be like to be a part of them. It would mean I’d be drenched, of course, but if by some miracle I could remain dry, and I could fly without fear to the outermost thin trails of cirrus, what would the green world look like underneath? How verdant? How insignificant? How much like home?

Photo: Weather report.com