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As the Light Allows

As the Light Allows

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As the days lengthen I notice new landmarks on my evening walks through Arlington. Yesterday’s “find” was discovering the Virginia Square Metro Station. I looked to the left, and there it was. Not that I was ready to ride the rails. I pushed on to the Ballston Station. But it was nice to know it was there.

My first walk on this route was late last year. I barely made it to Court House before the street lights came on. And by Clarendon it was completely dark, so I hopped on a Metro there.

I got lost on my next two forays to the neighborhood. First I swung too far to the north, the next time too far to the south. I was looking for the middle way.

It took the brighter afternoons of early spring to reveal it. Fairfax Drive, the street I was looking for, looks like a parking lot when you enter from the east. It’s only when you stroll a few yards beyond the entry way that you see it blossom into a road. This is not something I could discern in darkness or even in dusk; full daylight was required.

I like discovering this neighborhood little by little, as the light allows.

Flowers, Real and Imagined

Flowers, Real and Imagined

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Here in Crystal City, folks are trying hard. Brightly patterned skins have gone over the gray stone buildings, blank walls have sprout faux gardens, while not far away a sheltered cherry tree breaks into early bloom.

A colleague thinks we’re trying to lure Amazon’s HQ2, and that may be the case.

But all the paint and netting in the world can’t camouflage the button-downed corporate soul of this place. The only thing that does that for me are the people. At lunchtime on a warm day, the place is full of life. Pale office workers play ping-pong or corn hole. Smokers linger longer in front of buildings. Bikers and runners mingle on the sidewalks.

So if paint and netting bring out the people, then bring them on!

Recipe for Improvement

Recipe for Improvement

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The strolls through Arlington are becoming commonplace. Some days I walk two Metro stops up the line, others four. Last night it was two, and when I descended into the tunnel I could see a train coming. I was “lucky.” There had been a switch problem earlier and trains had been single-tracking most of the evening. The next train was due in 16 minutes (a lengthy interval at rush hour even for this dysfunctional system).

Can I do justice to the inward groan that greets a packed-full subway car at the end of a long day? Inward howl is more like it. A clown car’s worth of people piled out at Clarendon, but still it was shoulder to shoulder. But what’s this? I spied a tiny space, enough for me to step in and find a pole to hang onto. At least I had only six stops left. Many riders had been sardined in there for double, triple that.

It was one of those days, major cuts proposed to the State Department and Department of Agriculture, cuts that will no doubt never be enacted but which underline the difficulties of living here. Remind me again … oh, yeah, I work here, we work here. And now the girls work here, too.

Only one thing to do: Get home as quickly as possible and change into comfy clothes … then do something to make the world go away:
make dinner
hang out in the kitchen
bounce on the trampoline
write in my journal
watch the Olympics
talk on the phone
read a good book
hug Copper

… And hope tomorrow (today) is a little bit better!

New Walk, Continued

New Walk, Continued

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The new walk is becoming a habit, the perfect way to unwind at the end of the day. I jump off the bus at one Metro stop, but walk two more stops up the road before boarding a train. The key word is “up.”

It’s about a mile from Rosslyn Metro to Clarendon Metro, but that doesn’t include the elevation gain, a number I’ve yet to locate but which feels mighty big when you’re hoofing it with a laptop at the end of a long workday.

One might be tempted to lag behind, like this little guy. But this little guy does not realize that Le Pain Quotidien is only a few blocks away — and that their crusty baguettes can be gone by 5:45. Nothing like a little French bread to put a skip in your step.

Though I fantasize about townhouses I pass along the way (so cute, so close in!), my walk leads not to a quaint bungalow — but a subway platform.  Not always as crowded as this one, I’m happy to say. But a subway platform just the same.

The Shutdown Walk

The Shutdown Walk

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It’s hard to live in our nation’s capital without drinking our nation’s Kool-Aid. And right now, the flavor is shutdown. The will-it-happen, won’t-it-happen discussion has given way to talk of how it will happen. Shutting down the government is not unlike steering a huge ocean liner. One doesn’t start or stop quickly.

Since there’s one government employee and one dependent-on-government employee in this house — to say nothing of a government-employee daughter a few miles away — this matters in an immediate way.

During the last shutdown, in 2013, Congress authorized back pay for furloughed workers. We might not be as lucky this time. In addition to lapsed income, there’s also the uncertainty of the situation, the disruption.

Time for some perspective, which for me means … a stroll. I’m calling it the Shutdown Walk.

Eerie Light

Eerie Light

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I was braced for near darkness when I stepped out of the office yesterday. What I got was far stranger. It was one of those cloudy late afternoons when the light has no discernible source, and it throws you off balance. The low rays are supposed to slant over buildings west of the bus stop — not seep from the north, south and east. Removing this vital cue confuses and unnerves. Is it almost morning or almost night?

Only one thing to do, and that is hurry. Book it to the bus stop, hop in, zoom away. Once to Rosslyn, though, the light was even stranger. Big banks of clouds were forming over the river and the light had a greenish cast. If this is Eastern Standard Time, you can have it. 
Luckily, it was totally dark by the time I arrived above ground at Vienna. No more eerie shimmer. Now just the glare of headlights heading toward me. 
Happy Birthday, WCSP!

Happy Birthday, WCSP!

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On a late walk yesterday I learned it was the 20th anniversary of C-SPAN radio. It began on October 9, 1997, and one of the first interviews aired was with Rep. Jay Johnson (D-Wisc.), who, in addition to representing Wisconsin in the U.S. House of Representatives was also a former disc jockey.

The first time I remember hearing C-SPAN radio was in the car taking Suzanne to a ballet recital at Children’s Hospital in D.C. It was December, 1998, the Clinton impeachment hearings, so the radio station had been on the air for more than a year already. But it was way down there on the left end of the dial (90.1, WCSP FM), and easy to miss if you were doing a quick scan.

What was notable about the timing was that Suzanne and the other members of the Center for Ballet Arts were performing scenes from the “Nutcracker” not just for the children in the hospital but also for then First Lady Hillary Clinton. I imagined what she must be feeling at the time, what it took for her to show up anyway. Turns out, that was just the beginning.

Anyway … driving past the Capitol on the way to the hospital that day gave me one of those “only in D.C.” moments that I’ve never forgotten. But C-SPAN radio with its gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House and Senate makes you feel like you’re always “only in D.C.” — but in a good way.

I’m no policy wonk, but when you can slip in the ear buds of your 10-year-old iPod radio, tune to 90.1 and listen to the Sunday talk shows while you’re walking … well, no secret to why the radio station celebrates two decades (and the television station even more).

Happy Birthday, C-SPAN Radio. Wishing you many happy returns of the day!

(Photo: C-SPAN)

Cloudy

Cloudy

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It is not, as I write this, actually cloudy outside. But it was an hour earlier, when I was walking, and it has been cloudy more than usual this summer.

One thing about the Washington, D.C., weather I’ve always appreciated: It doesn’t mess around with clouds. They are purposeful when they’re here. They quickly disgorge whatever it is they have inside — rain, snow, sleet or hail — then scuttle along to their next destination.

This is the most relentlessly sunny place I’ve ever lived. And though one might sometimes find it tiresome — like a frisky puppy that keeps licking you in the face — I love that about it.

Growing up on the cusp of the Ohio River Valley, I had what I realize was more than average cloudiness. This bummed me out. I remember wishing more than anything that the sun would break through — probably so that I could go outside, slather more baby oil on myself and soak up more harmful UVA and UVB rays.

Now that I think about it, maybe the cloudiness was a gift. Bad for the mood … but better for the skin.

Georgetown Stroll

Georgetown Stroll

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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:

Spanning Worlds

Spanning Worlds

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It was still light when I drove home yesterday, and as I made my way along the parkway the planes rumbled, soared and landed, and the river flowed by as it always does, with the cars flowing beside it, a liquid line of red lights and exhaust fumes.

Still a novice car-commuter, especially on this route, I marveled at the sights before me, as clogged and crowded as they were, marveled because, for all the bother of living here, there is sometimes something so right about it.

I feel it when I drive along the parkway and see Memorial Bridge, its stone arches and masonry as hospitable a welcome as any city could provide.

I think it is the southerness of Washington that speaks to me through this bridge. Or perhaps the in-betweenness. Spanning two worlds.