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Category: neighborhood

Old School

Old School

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Another morning walk, this time noticing who has those little plastic-wrapped packages at the end of their driveways every morning. Neighbors on either side and across the street. Not the quorum it used to be but a small and mighty band.

It’s our daily delivery of dead tree pulp, finely ground and rolled and imprinted with the latest follies of humankind.

Yes, we could scan the news on our iPads, iPhones or laptops. We could flip on the car radio and hear about the scandals and theories in the secure bubble of our automobiles. We could curl up in an easy chair with a cup of milky sweet Earl Gray and watch CNN. Or we could get the news (or what algorithms have deigned would delight us) from a Facebook feed.

On the other hand … we could unwrap the newspaper from its protective sheath, take it on the bus with us. We could dive into it as if into a cool, slow-moving stream. Could let the information and opinions it offers take us in directions we never could have imagined. Could wind up informed and inspired and enraged and smeared with ink.

But that’s only if we’re old school. Which so few of us are anymore. Hard copy? Dead trees? You betcha. I’m old school and proud. You’ll have to pry my print paper out of my cold, dead hands.

(Jon S. Creative Commons, from WNPR)

New Favorite Walk

New Favorite Walk

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I’d spotted a little street the other day on my way home from the Four Mile Run Trail. It promised shade and walkability, so I decided to explore it yesterday.

I checked a map before heading out and noticed curved streets, a park and a neighborhood named Aurora Hills. That was all the encouragement it took.

 Heading west on 23rd Street I found what seemed to be the area’s old commercial center, where you might drop off dry-cleaning or get breakfast in a diner. A few blocks later I passed churches and shade trees and homes that looked like what you’d find on a small town Main Street.

I turned left on South Ives, meandered over to Hayes, 26th and eventually Fort Scott. There was a steep climb up to a park, where I turned around and headed back the way I’d come.

A wonderful neighborhood, with houses tucked up into the hillside, steep approaches and a serene ambiance. I could have been a million miles from Crystal City. But 15 minutes later I was right back in it.

I’ve just discovered my new favorite walk.

Rows of Sharon

Rows of Sharon

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The Rose of Sharon is blooming now beside the driveway. The dark green plant is covered with plump, white, rose-like blooms. But it’s not my Rose of Sharon I want to write about — but a row of these plants that line a yard a block away from here.

I know the history of these small trees, know why they bloom where they do. The corner house is the home of “the faithful jogger.” Don’t know his real name, only that my children used to call him that years ago because every day, at least once a day and regardless of weather, he could be seen running up and down Folkstone Drive. He never seemed very happy, had a plodding gait — I always imagined he had taken up the practice for his health. All of which is beside the point except to illustrate the man’s persistence. He doesn’t give up easily.

And he didn’t give up when three years in a row bad wind or ice storms took down his split rail fence. Twice he built it up again. In fact, he was always one of the first people out clearing debris. Then a few days later, more fencing would appear.

This last time was different. Instead of planks he planted rows of spindly Rose of Sharon trees, the smallest, slightest stock, barely more than sticks in the ground. There were many of them, though, and I could see his plan — to create a green and living border, to make a fence that would bend but not break.

It’s been years now since those trees went into the ground, and years since he last jogged down our suburban lane. But those once-spindly trees are filling out into a proper, flowery border. They have matured to beauty and to fullness. And when I saw them the other day, I saw not just what they are but what they were, what they have become.

This is what happens when you walk a place; when you know not just its stories but its back stories as well.

A Grisly Discovery

A Grisly Discovery

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I woke up this morning to the news that human bones had been found alongside a trail in my neighborhood. A walker noticed the bones on Sunday, called police, and yesterday the remains were tested and found to be human. That’s all we know for now.

I walk those trails all the time. We all do. Copper sniffs seemingly every tree and bush. Apparently he missed a spot.

The police have asked anyone with information to call. Here’s what I’d like to say: This is our safe, snug little corner of the world. Please let there be some logical and non-scary explanation for this. Please let our woods remain the quiet sanctuary they have always been. Please don’t let this happen here.

Walking Lake Anne

Walking Lake Anne

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The other day, looking for some adventure, I ambled around Reston’s Lake Anne. I started at the landmark Heron House, the
16-story condominium building that was the epicenter of Robert Simon’s bold bid
for urban density in suburbia. Lake Anne Plaza doesn’t feel very urban today — or
very dense for that matter — but I know it’s a work in progress. I find a path that hugs the lake, cross a little bridge and walk past town houses adorned with native plants, witty sculptures and small fountains.

In the distance, I hear the clang of
a metal ladder as it’s leaned against a house. Someone is painting. I stroll
along South Shore Drive, steel blue water winking between the trees, and imagine what it must be like to live beside a lake, to take a daily measure
of its moods and colors. From the looks of the canoes and kayaks
along the shore, this lake is not just observed; it is experienced.

Before
long I’m at the far end of Lake Anne — and Wiehle Avenue, which I thought was
farther east. Foot travel often surprises me this way, showing me connections
that car travel cannot. As I swing around to the
northern shore, I catch a whiff of simmering grains and the sharp-sweet scent
of cinnamon. Rice pudding? My stomach rumbles, and I walk faster, back to my car. It’s never far away in
the suburbs.
Wedding Day

Wedding Day

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There’s something in the air. Last weekend I learned of two engagements. Today I know of two weddings. One, a colleague’s, is downtown. The other is across the street. Literally. 
All week long the dust has been flying. The gardeners delivered mulch, the tent people delivered a tent (one something like this), and other rental outfits dropped off chairs and tables and a porta-potty (which I’ve heard through the grapevine is a deluxe model).
It’s the wedding of our neighbor’s father — not an event one usually associates with a parent, but delightful when it happens. 
We neighbors have the smallest of supporting roles: We will put up with the parking and the noise. We will medicate our dogs if necessary. And we will send silent cheers their way. 
I may not feel this way tomorrow morning, but right now I can say: It’s good to have a wedding in the ‘hood.
(Photo: Fairytaletentsandevents.com)
Waist-High Weeds

Waist-High Weeds

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I found my neighbor, Teresa, weeding in the woods. “It’s Japanese stiltgrass,” she said, “and the only way to get rid of it is to pull it up.”

Tell me about it. I’ve been pulling it up all summer, but have never felt sufficiently ahead in my own yard to take on the common land.

But Teresa has. And does. She and her husband, David, often take a bag along on their walks to pick up trash in the neighborhood.

I do not bag and neither do I weed. Instead, I ponder the stiltgrass as I walk, notice the height of it, waist-high in spots, think about this wild vegetation taking over the woods, the fields, the yards.

It’s a green wave, a green sea, rolling ever forward. We can try to stem its tide, but we are powerless in its wake.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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The older woman was driving slowly, opening her window as she rolled to a stop. She probably needed directions, I figured, so I walked up to the car.

But no, she was shaking her head and wagging her finger even before she spoke.  “You’re going to make yourself sick out here. It’s too hot to be walking,” she said. “Take care of yourself.” And that was all. I nodded and smiled, mumbled something like, “It’s hot today, isn’t it?” She closed her window and drove away.

And I had just been thinking what a pleasant day it was. High humidity, yes, but breezy and bearable. So I steadied my pace a little, thinking again about the time of day (yes, it was 1 p.m. — not the best time to be out) and the simple neighborliness I’d just witnessed. In all my years of walking through the neighborhood, this was the first such interaction I’d had.

Suddenly, I was feeling all warm inside. And it wasn’t from the walking.

Long Evenings

Long Evenings

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After dinner, almost dark — I work in a quick walk around the neighborhood. The sounds of the day mingle with those of the night. I hear a catbird settling in a maple tree, and, at the same moment, a chorus of crickets from a hedge beside the road.

The peepers are gone now but tree frogs are already serenading us. Wind chimes and soft music waft across the street from our neighbors with a front porch.

In a few weeks the pool will be open and the sun setting even later. Long evenings soothe and invigorate. We can live without them — don’t we prove it every winter? — but it was hard last night to imagine how we do.

On Broadway

On Broadway

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The tune has been in my head the last few days. The tune is there because I was there. On Broadway, that is. Not the part George Benson sings about, not the place where “the neon lights are bright.” Not Times Square Broadway.

I’m talking Upper West Side Broadway. Corner grocers, vacuum cleaner stores, coffee shops. There was a time when I lived there that if I ran out of paper and had to run down to the tiny stationary store to buy some, I hesitated. I would have been on deadline then (I was always on deadline that year) and I knew I would run into at least a couple of people I knew on the way there and back. Could I afford the time to buy the paper and chat with the friends?

The answer, always, was yes.  I had lived there for a few months. And when I walked down Broadway I knew people. I didn’t need neon lights.

Saturday, during my 21-hour visit to Manhattan, I had time to walk from 114th to 77th Street. The sun was bright, the air was warm, the pedestrians were of every size, shape and color.  I didn’t know people to talk to along the way. But I had left one good friend at 113th Street and met another at 77th. My feet flew down the pavement. There was energy and street life. It was good to be back on Broadway.