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West of the Mississippi

West of the Mississippi

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I’ll spend most of this week in Arkansas, a place that was briefly my home decades ago and is the official headquarters of my employer. It’s a work trip through and through, but it’s also a change of scene, and will put me somewhere I enjoy being … west of the Mississippi.

Crossing the Big Muddy has always been a milestone in the long drives west. The river doesn’t evenly bisect the continent, but the spirit of the country changes on the west side of the river. It loosens its shoulders, drawls a little more. It’s friendlier, too.

I’m hoping this touch of the west will rub off on me a little while I’m there. Will slow me down and loosen my shoulders, too.

My First Owl

My First Owl

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The call came a little after 7 p.m. The owls are here, my friend said. Come and see them.

I’d heard about the owls last summer, how they would swoop and hoot in the woods and common lands of our neighborhood. I can hear them too, sometimes, always from across the street or down a house or two. Never close enough to see.

But last night I went right over, binoculars in hand. And there they were, two owlets and their mother. The babies sounded like catbirds, with a mewling hiss of a cry. They were hunkered down in one tree while their mother flew about searching for food.

Though they were almost as big as their parents (because a fourth owl showed up eventually, and we assumed it was the father), the babies relied on their mother for food. And she was working hard to supply it. Another neighbor wandered by and said he’d seen the mother bring the babies a bird to eat. Owls eat other birds? Yes, says the World of Owls site I consulted, birds as well as insects, rodents, amphibians and fish.

I’d never seen an owl until last night  — and then I saw four at once (though only one is pictured above, and from far away). But they looked so familiar, just like the pictures, like caricatures of themselves, which is to say feathered and big-eyed and, of course, wise.

Newly Mown

Newly Mown

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An unusual Thursday working at home, but other than that, fairly typical. On my walk this morning I was hit with a wave of gratitude for the relative normalcy of my life. Not that everything is perfect, only that it’s for the most part blessedly normal.

I often feel this way when I trudge through my leafy neighborhood and see the newly mown lawns, the neatly coiled hoses, the freshly mulched trees. With one or two exceptions, the people who live here care about their property; they paint their shutters and put their trash out: Mondays for garbage, Tuesdays for recycling, Wednesdays for sticks and lawn clippings.

When we first moved here I thought the tidiness was a sign of suburban OCD.  But now it seems proof of increased property values. Something — or someone — has changed. I think it’s me!

Good Things Coming?

Good Things Coming?

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My punctual and reliable Arlington bus must now make a time-consuming detour to avoid construction in my work neighborhood. You can’t walk a block without hearing jack-hammers or the truck back-up sound. Amazon’s HQ2 is already making its presence known in the dusty streets, the demolition, even the scaffolding.

Having lived for five years in New York City, I consider myself a scaffolding expert. Not in the sense of knowing how to construct it, but in the sense of knowing how to walk beneath it, which used to be… gingerly.

With all due respect to Big Apple scaffolding, the Crystal City version is cleaner, sturdier — and kinder on the eyes and the feet.

In New York, I felt as if I was taking my life in my own hands to walk in a dark tunnel beneath a contraption of wood and metal. But the pedestrian walkway I take now is open and bright. It even has motivational phrases on the walls: Good Things Coming, it says.

Let’s hope.

Fortunate Day

Fortunate Day

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I was waking up slowly when the sound of a falling branch catapulted me into full consciousness. It’s a hazard of living in the midst of a waning suburban forest, a place where the old oaks have outlived their three score and ten.

This time we seem to have been spared. It was either a branch from the common land, or a smaller limb off the tree in our yard that’s already slated for demolition next time the tree guy comes around.

But the swoosh and thud did serve as a rousing alarm. It got me up and into the morning, where I took a delicious amble through humid air and young birds doing that little looping fly that is so endearing.

A day that begins with an early walk, no matter how one comes by it, is a fortunate day indeed.

The Detour

The Detour

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They’re working on Fox Mill Road, the quasi thoroughfare, quasi byway that links me to Metro and beyond. Conveniently, the detour starts just beyond my neighborhood, so at least for now the way home and back is clear. What isn’t convenient is that the detour runs right through my neighborhood.

Which meant that last night wasn’t the best evening to go for a post-dinner stroll. Still, that’s what I did — complete with headlamp and reflective vest.

It was busier than a typical Monday evening. I found myself stepping off the road more times than I would like. But even the higher-than-usual car volume couldn’t mar the peaceful evening, couldn’t banish the night sounds, lift the heavy air or blunt the honeysuckle scent that almost overpowered me at the corner.

The walk was my detour, too, a departure from my normal routine, my own diversion from the day.

Good Fortune

Good Fortune

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Though I call this blog A Walker in the Suburbs, my feelings about suburbs are decidedly mixed. I appreciate the greenswards, the sound of spring peepers in the night air, downy woodpeckers at the bird feeder. I chafe at the driving culture, the isolation, the lack of community.

Alice Outwater’s Wild at Heart (mentioned last week, too) is reminding me why the suburbs once seemed like Shangri-La. In the late 19th-century, human waste was stored in cesspits and removed by horse-drawn wagons. The horses that pulled those wagons produced millions of pounds of manure, which collected in the streets.

“In 1900 there were well over 3 million urban horses in the U.S., and those city horses deposited enough manure to breed billions of flies, each one a potential vector for disease,” Outwater writes.

No wonder people moved out of the cities into what must have seemed like heaven. Grass, trees, manure that was manageable. Walking Copper this morning, I reflected on my good fortune.

Foxy Morning

Foxy Morning

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As I begin this post, Copper is barking his head off. And for once, I don’t blame him. He did the same thing yesterday, also for good cause.

The culprit is a plump and prissy red fox, who trots through the neighborhood this time of day as if he owns the place. Today he entered the yard from the west and Copper spied him as he was about to slip through the back fence.

Yesterday was even worse. Before leaving our yard, the fox paused and looked back, as if he was taking the measure of the 30-pound hound yapping on the deck — and found him lacking. Copper may have sensed the scorn. I could swear there was some righteous indignation in his response.

For those who don’t parse his barks as I do, it was just that crazy Copper, waking them up again.  But I know the truth. It was really just … a foxy morning.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Tub Envy

Tub Envy

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You could call it house envy, or even bathroom envy. I prefer to call it tub envy. It’s what I felt when I toured our neighbor’s home during Saturday’s open house.  Their house is directly across the street, and though I had been in it off and on through the years, I had never seen it without furniture and with all its improvements showcased.

The house began its life identical to this one, but the previous owners, Brian and Kathy (who were along for Saturday’s tour), bumped out both the front and the back. This elongated the entrance hall, straightened out the stairway and enlarged the kitchen, allowing for both an island and a door where a window used to be — all lovely additions.

It was the “new” owners, John and Jill (who lived there 14 years, but “new” in Folkstone terms), who re-did the bathrooms and installed the tub-to-die-for. This photo doesn’t do it justice; it fails to capture the length and depth of it, the way the light pours in through the windows. I didn’t climb into the tub (though I was tempted!) but I could tell that you’d be able to soak in there and look at the tree branches waving in the wind or at clouds scudding across the sky.

So even though I coveted the empty basement with the picture window, the tall kitchen cabinets, the cheerful tile backsplash and countless other features, it’s the tub I want the most.

Tub envy. I’m not proud of it. But I have it something fierce.

Hanami

Hanami

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I just happened upon the ranger talk at the Tidal Basin last evening at 6 p.m. I’d decided to see the cherry blossoms after work, and then, impulsively, walked counterclockwise instead of the other way around. And there, at the FDR Memorial, was a green-suited ranger with a Smokey the Bear hat.

He was speaking of L’Enfant when I arrived, but went on from there to cover the flood of 1881, the creation of the Tidal Basin and the ugly construction-site look of the land around it at the turn of the 19th century. He described National Geographic writer Eliza Scidmore’s 24-year campaign to plant Japanese cherry trees around the basin, a quest that finally took root, so to speak, when President Taft’s wife, Helen, became interested in the project. (The lantern above commemorates the spot where Taft planted one of the first cherry trees.)

There are other twists and turns to this story and how cherry trees came to dominate the landscape around the Washington and Lincoln monuments. But my favorite part of the talk came when the ranger talked about the Japanese custom of hanami or “flower viewing” of the sakura or cherry blossoms.

The sakura represents a “short life, well-lived,” the ranger said, and for that reason was revered by both samurai warriors and kamikaze pilots. Hanami celebrates the fleetingness of the blossoms, the beauty that is ours just for a moment — and more lovely because of it.