A walk this morning before the rain moved in: tall grasses swaying, leaf piles growing. I love to walk in Lexington because, at least where I stroll, no two houses are alike.
Chinquapin oak leaves litter brick sidewalks, and a ground cover I’m not familiar with froths around the base of a tree.
The variations are a feast for the eye and a balm for the brain.
I drove to Kentucky yesterday, following the new route through the mountains. For the first few hours, I took in the late-fall color on the gleaming hillsides. But by early afternoon, I had driven into the predicted cold front.
Dark clouds gathered above the huge windmills, and strong gusts sent leaves swirling and scudding across the highway. The rain started when I was at about 3,000 feet, lightly at first, then heavier by the time I reached the interstate.
It was not the bucolic drive I had in August, when I stopped to admire the mountain views. This was a no-nonsense-just-get-me-there kind of trip.
And it worked. I pulled into the driveway just as the last light was draining from the sky.
When 19th-century statesman Henry Clay needed a respite from his life as the “Great Compromiser,” he retreated to the shady groves of Ashland, his Kentucky estate. There, as the sign tells us, he walked the trails of his beloved farm, using them for “tranquil contemplation” of the issues at hand.
For Clay, as for many of us, walking and thinking went hand in hand. Maybe these strolls reinvigorated the legislator after the rigors of rough-and-tumble politics. Maybe they inspired some of his signature moves.
But even if they didn’t, the paths Clay created remain for current-day walkers to explore. When I strolled them two weeks ago, I felt the hush of the giant oaks and sycamores. They stilled my buzzing brain.
A day’s drive out, a day’s drive back and three days in my hometown leave me in a state of addled contentment now that I’m back home. Throw in some nostalgia and amazement — from visiting with folks I haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years (numbers we toss around as we used to the single digits) — and you have a lovely way to end the summer.
Or is it ending? It will be 90 again today, the cicadas are crescendoing and the humidity is creeping up as I write this post on the deck.
Given the opportunity, I’d probably keep traveling and keep sweltering another month or two, but September is almost here — September with its call to purpose and purchase. It’s time to harvest what I’ve sown.
(Joe Pye weed in a Jessamine County, Kentucky, field)
This morning, I walked across Kentucky. Not the 370 miles from Ashland to Paducah, or the 180 miles from Covington to Williamsburg. But the two miles around the Kentucky Arboretum trail, which promises to compress all seven of the state’s geographical regions into one stroll.
I saw conifers representing the Appalachian Plateau, dogwood and coffeetree for the Knobs and tall grasses for the Pennyrile Region.
The Bluegrass Region, where Lexington is located, is the most extensive, with bur and chinquapin oaks, several types of ash tree and outcroppings of shaggy limestone.
Ambling through the Arboretum warmed me up, wore me out and educated me, too. After just one visit I can tell it will be one of my regular hometown routes.
There was Woodland Park with its baseball diamonds and picnic tables, then my old place on Lafayette, the first of several former houses I would visit today (the others I drove by rather than walked past).
I ambled down South Hanover and Fincastle, letting my mind wander, fantasizing what it would be like to live in some of these places, the grand brick colonials, the charming round-doored tudors.
Till I reached Ashland itself, the home of 19-century statesman Henry Clay, which stopped my reveries in their tracks. Ashland with its shaded walks and formal garden. Ashland with its historic pedigree and bountiful acreage. Even in fantasy, Ashland is out of my league.
The climb started as soon as I exited Interstate 81. The flat land became scarcer, the tree tunnels more abundant. My little car felt the difference but handled it better than I’d hoped.
The first stretch was road I’ve known and driven for years, Routes 33 and 55, which I wrote about years ago. But instead of chugging through Moorefield and Seneca Rocks, I cruised the top of the ridge along Highway 48, which I learned today is part of the Appalachian Development Highway System’s as yet incomplete Corridor H. (Sounds more like a UFO site than a federal roads project.)
Incomplete might be seen as a disadvantage, given the two-lane stretches in between the four, but not when it takes you to places like this, a pull-off viewing spot I almost missed since it had no sign or build-up. What I found were mountains beyond mountains, Queen Anne’s lace and bumblebees, the quiet of a land out of time.
In the waning days of summer, I sandwich in one more trip — this one back to Lexington for my high school reunion. It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen most of these folks and three years since I’ve been in my hometown, a record I don’t want to duplicate.
I’ve written about trips to Kentucky since I started this blog, describing the drive there and the drive home — even my old high school building makes a cameo appearance.
There’s a reason for this, of course. It’s because once you’ve grown up in a place like Lexington, it never leaves you. It’s why, even though I’ve lived in this dear house for decades, raised my children here and treasure it beyond measure … when I go to Lexington, I still say “going home.”
Today is the feast day of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical year. But for me, Christ the King will always be, first and foremost, a school — “CKS,” my earliest alma mater, the place where I learned to read and write, where I got my first crushes on boys, where I arrived most days with a knot in my stomach.
It was not a feel-good place; most parochial schools were not in those days. It was a bar of Ivory soap and a rough towel, just the basics. There were no counselors, no social workers. If the nuns were unhappy with you, they weren’t above grabbing you by the arm and giving it a firm squeeze.
I remember the scent of wet rubber boots in the cloak room on a rainy day, the smell of vomit and of the detergent used to clean it (I wasn’t the only one who arrived at school with a knot in my stomach). I remember chalk dust and the way the nuns would tuck their arms up their voluminous sleeves, the clicking of the rosary beads they wore clipped to the side of their habits.
A few years ago, when I was visiting Lexington, I went back to Christ the King, strode through the halls, peeked into the classrooms, wandered through the lunchroom, which was where I tried out for cheerleader in seventh grade. “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, All for Christ the King, stand up and holler.”
Eight years is a long time to spend in a place, especially when those years are your sixth through 13th. Those years throw long shadows; I walk in them still.
Though the heat and humidity are building here, for the last few days it’s felt like Blackberry Winter, which is what I grew up hearing an early summer cold snap called. Curious about this expression, I just learned from the Farmer’s Almanac that it’s primarily a southern term used to describe a bout of chilly weather that happens when the blackberries bloom.
There are lots of words like this in my lexicon, though I’m not pulling others up right this minute, language that harkens back to the deep roots of my Kentucky childhood. These turns of phrase created a world view that was part lore, part poetry and only a small part reality. For instance, I recall few blackberry blooms in my neck of the woods. It’s only since I’ve lived in Virginia that I’ve been aware of when the blackberries bloom, which is, interestingly enough, right about now!
As for the weather, it won’t be cool much longer. Already the heat and humidity are building, the rain that fell yesterday becoming steam that rises from the lawn, aromatic and ever-so-slightly suffocating, too.
