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The Visited Place

The Visited Place

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In his book Horizon, the late Barry Lopez talks about his fascination with the life of the British explorer Captain James Cook. Though Lopez admits that Cook’s adventures did not always bode well for indigenous people (and it was indigenous people who took Cook’s life, in Hawaii, in 1779), Lopez does not demonize the man.  Cook explored the east coast of Australia, continental Antarctica and Hawaii, all the while, Lopez believes, remaining “quietly but profoundly conflicted about the consequences of his work.” 

He tells us that Cook’s nautical charts were so detailed that his work allowed humans “to picture the entire planet, the whole of it at once, a sense of open space that, in the centuries of Western exploration before him, had eluded us. After Cook, the old cartographer’s admissions of ignorance, ‘Here Be Dragons,’ disappeared from the perimeter of world maps.”

The best way to appreciate the places Cook visited was to visit them himself, Lopez says. In fact, the best way to take in any place is not with photographs or written descriptions, but by being in the place itself. Lopez was in a better position than most to make that happen.  

“Each place on Earth goes deep. Some vestige of the old, now seemingly eclipsed place is always there to be had. The immensity of the mutable sea before me at Cape Foulweather, the faint barking of the sea lions in the air, the nearly impenetrable (surviving) groves of stout Sitka spruce behind me, the moss-bound creeks, the flocks of mew gulls circling schools of anchovies just offshore, the pummeling winds and crashing surf of late-winter storms—it’s all still there.”

(A map of Cook’s three voyages, courtesy Wikipedia)

A New Beginning

A New Beginning

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It’s cold in Washington, D.C., today, the kind of cold that befits an inauguration. The chill seriousness of a new beginning. I woke up early, feeling a thrill of excitement. It’s a big day for this tired, battered country. 

Yes, we are divided, more than ever in my lifetime. We are hurting and angry, feeling like the bad news will never end. We are justifiably nervous about laying all this on the shoulders of a 78-year-old man. 

But it’s not just his shoulders that will bear the burden. I hope he will call on all of us to share it with him. 

One speech will not heal the nation — nor will one administration. It took us years to get to this point, and it will take us years to move past it. But at least, today, we can begin.

Lopez and Place

Lopez and Place

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I learned earlier this week that the author Barry Lopez died on Christmas Day. I’ve only read one book by Lopez, but it made quite an an impression. 

Lopez’s masterpiece Arctic Dreams is sometimes called a travel book. But as many critics have noted, it’s much more than that. “Arctic Dreams is a book about the Arctic North in the way that Moby Dick is a novel about whales,” the critic Michiko Kakutani wrote.

For me, Arctic Dreams was one of the first books that awakened an appreciation of writing about place. Since then, I’ve come to love the words of Annie Dillard, Henry Beston, John Graves, Aldo Leopold and many more. I’ve come to realize the power of writing about where we are rooted, of paying attention to the trees and animals and vistas that sanctify a city, a seashore, a ranch, a farm, a home. 

Lopez died of complications from prostate cancer, but according to his wife, his ailments intensified after wildfires destroyed his house in Oregon last September. He lost all his original manuscripts and a lifetime of artifacts. Most of all, I thought as I read his obituary … he lost his place. 

(Photo: Brian Schaller/Wikimedia)

Assault on the Capitol

Assault on the Capitol

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For 10 years I worked less than half a mile from the U.S. Capitol. On my lunch hour, I often walked around the place. I could have been pulling my hair out over page proofs, but as soon as I left my office on First Street and rounded the corner onto New Jersey Avenue, a calmness would descend upon me. 

It was partly the walking itself, tonic and narcotic that it always is. But it was also the fact that I, a kid from Kentucky, could spend 30 minutes strolling around such an august building and grounds. What people from all over the world traveled to see, I could include in a quick desk break. 

I was thinking of these walks yesterday when an angry mob stormed the Capitol and interrupted the people’s business. Like most Americans I watched with a lump in my throat and a sickness in my soul. That our dear country, represented by that building, should be so defiled and shamed! 

While knowing the Capitol may have made me sadder in the short-run, it’s brought some comfort as the hours have passed. I’ve imagined the route often since yesterday: the tall, labeled trees, the broad plaza on the east side, the marble steps, the fine magnolias. 

I walked, therefore I knew, and I knew, therefore I loved. That love is sustaining me now. 

Vienna Waits For You

Vienna Waits For You

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Yesterday, for the first time since March 12, I drove to the Vienna Metro Station. Though assured that the money I’d had taken from my paycheck would remain on the flex account charge card past year’s end, I wasn’t going to test it out. I needed the funds from the credit card to be on the Metro card — and drove there to make the transfer.

It was my first trip to Vienna Metro in nine months, and I relished the old twists and turns of the drive there: Fox Mill to Vale to Hunter Mill to Chain Bridge to Old Courthouse to Sutton and on to the station. 

The lighting was all wrong, of course. I usually did this leg of the commute in darkness or early morning shadows. And the traffic was much lighter, as it is most everywhere most all of the time.

But once there, it was not at all like the Vienna Metro Station I know.  I found myself improbably alone, like the survivor of a nuclear apocalypse. There were no cabs idling, no buskers singing, no harried commuters rushing to and fro. The place was as lonesome as a schoolyard in summer.

Here was a place I knew like the back of my hand. Here was a round-trip I took most work days in my former life. It was a place and a practice that changed abruptly last spring. And I doubt it will ever be the same. 

Christ the King

Christ the King

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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. 

The Deck Desk

The Deck Desk

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For the last many months my desk has been a glass-topped table on the deck. It’s where I’ve scattered my notebook and planner, where I’ve carefully placed my laptop and phone after wiping the glass to remove even the tiniest drop of dew. 

It’s a table that gives me a front-row seat on the natural world. Squirrels and chipmunks scamper a few feet away from me, searching for acorns. Cherry tomatoes still cling to the vine. The hanging basket of New Guinea impatiens has thinned and browned, but there are still enough bright flowers to remind me of summer.

Even as the leaves turn from green to yellow — and power tool sounds from lawnmowers to leaf blowers — I sit here still. This is my workplace, my deck desk.

What’s Eating Folkstone?

What’s Eating Folkstone?

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Neighbors are buzzing. Theories abound. But no one has yet figured out why great swaths of lawn are being rooted up, ripped through and turn asunder. No one is quite sure what’s eating Folkstone. 

Is it that eight-point buck that’s been cruising the woods near here, pawing the ground in a show of virility as he partakes of our impatiens? Or could it be an errant bear, chunking up before winter comes.

The most believable theory is that hungry skunks or raccoons are tearing through the grass looking for grubs. Once they sniff them out, they paw through the dirt until they’ve eaten their fill. 

It’s hard to overstate just how bad a lawn looks after they’re finished with it. The photo above just hints at the damage. But stay tuned for more evidence soon. The latest plan: to install a remote camera.

Magic Beans

Magic Beans

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Yesterday, at the end of a busy workday, there was a wee little knock at the door. I didn’t hear it at first due to Copper’s loud response. And since he barks often when given the front yard to survey, I assumed it was more of the same. Turns out it was one of our new neighbors, age 8, doing some door-to-door sales. 

“Would you like to buy some magic beans?” she said, holding out a handful of small acorns for me to see. “Only a dollar for four.”

“Ah, only a dollar for four,” I said, stalling for time. 

With the poise of a true saleswoman, she rushed in when I hesitated. “Or, I can make it five for a dollar,” she quickly added.

“Hmmmm,” I said. “Well, I think I will buy only four this time. Let me go get you the dollar.”

She was ecstatic when I returned, as was her sidekick, one of the three precious boys who lives across the street and who was apparently going to share in the proceeds of this incredibly savvy scheme of selling something that is piling up all around us. 

With everyone working at home these days, this budding entrepreneur will have plenty of customers. I can’t wait to see what she’ll offer next: maybe a special on autumn leaves. 

Recess at Home

Recess at Home

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Fairfax County may be holding virtual classes, but there is no such thing as virtual recess. That is being held in backyards, on street corners and in cul-de-sacs across the area. 

For those of us lucky enough to work out of our homes, lunchtime and recess happen outside our windows, where a fleet of bicycles and a chorus of young voices serenade us during our humdrum workdays. There are scooters and chalk art, shovels and buckets, games with their own sets of rules that we adults can never fathom. There is childhood on full display.

I’m not so far removed from child rearing that I don’t appreciate what’s going on here. All romanticizing of recess aside, parents of young children must be pulling their hair out. 

All the more reason to smile when youthful exuberance spills out onto the streets. Or at least that’s how I’m feeling now. It’s not quite time for recess yet.