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Long Walk in the Big City

Long Walk in the Big City

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Yesterday I took a long walk in the big city. I started in the theater district, made my way south and west to pick up the High Line, which is now available at 34th Street!  From there (where I snapped this picture and then very quickly ran out of charge), I strolled to Gansevoort Street, then down Jane to the West Side Highway and over to the long, skinny park that runs along the Hudson.

The sun was flirting with us, in and out from the clouds. At times it seemed as if it would pour. But it didn’t (until today), so I had five blissful hours of ambling.

It’s really the whole package that does it to me here in the city. It’s the energy of the people and the place. It’s all the hundreds of details — from the grumpy Penn Station employee yelling at a woman who could hardly lug her suitcase (“Why did you pack so much?”) to the crazy wedding parade I found myself swept up in at the end of the day (complete with a kazoo band).

It’s good to be here. Life enhancing, as a matter of fact.

Layered

Layered

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An early walk this morning before the true heat sets in. I think about how well I know this place, my regular route, my neighborhood.

I remember when four sycamores were planted in the yard of the yellow house. It seemed such an extravagance at the time, trees already past the spindly stage.

The homeowner has since moved out, but I can see him there at the edge of the yard, surveying the work, his lanky frame not unlike the tall sycamores.

It is what one hopes for in a neighborhood, that it be layered with memories and associations, so much more than a suburban streetscape. A living, breathing record of life.

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.

Bus Warrior

Bus Warrior

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A new job, a new routine, a new commute. After a couple of long, miserable slogs on Metro, I tried a bus that whisks me from a parking lot in Reston to a stop five minutes from my new office. It will be a godsend — if I can figure out the parking.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about D.C. traffic and commuting, it’s that every shortcut has already been found, every new route tried. It hasn’t been designated the second worst traffic city in the nation (bested only by L.A., I believe) for nothing!

But so far I can say this: the bus is a fundamentally different way to travel. It moves you through space above ground, for one thing. I see the white stones of Arlington in military precision. I see the Washington monument looming in the distance when we stop at the Pentagon.

Connections are clearer, the way road leads to road. It’s a good way to begin a new chapter, seeing more clearly, perched high above the fray. Not road warrior but bus warrior.

 

Wonder

Wonder

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The office is almost cleaned out. The farewells are almost said. My work at Georgetown Law is almost done. So I took the afternoon off to see the Wonder exhibit at the Renwick.

I saw shapes, materials and colors that delighted and amused. Insect art, for example:

Or a 150-year-old cedar, hollowed, re-imagined and reconstituted:

And light everywhere, light touching polyester thread to create an indoor rainbow:

For many years I was paid by the word, so “one picture is worth a thousand words” is not a phrase I like to use. But there are exceptions:

Leaving the Hood

Leaving the Hood

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I’m not just leaving a job on Friday; I’m leaving a neighborhood — a lively, jangling, grand and varied neighborhood. A neighborhood where the U. S. Capitol and the city’s  largest homeless shelter are both within strolling distance. A neighborhood of posh eateries and soup kitchens. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed getting to know, so walks to and from Metro are taking on a special poignancy these days.

I trudge up the escalator at Judiciary Square into a jostling, careening space. Crowds of workers move in and out of the courts building. A homeless woman smokes or naps on a stone bench. Express newspaper hawkers call out a cheery good morning.

Across the street is First Trinity Lutheran Church, with a sign advertising its Bible study. A few steps away are the trees and railings where scarves were draped last January 6. There is the light I always try to catch, the one crossing Third Street.

The bridge across the highway offers a sliver view of the Capitol Dome. And then there is the construction site, as workers continue to roof I-395 so they can build a neighborhood on top. I’ll miss seeing the completion of that project.

Soon I’m walking down the alley that leads to my office, a backdoor approach that’s always been my preference. I like slipping into places, like slipping out of them, too.

Sweet Adelines

Sweet Adelines

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There are more physically demanding jobs, to be sure. Digging ditches comes immediately to mind. But going through Mom’s letters and papers and jewelry was a different kind of hard. And at the end of the day we were all in need of a stiff drink and a good meal.

It was snowing, sleeting, raining and hailing yesterday, but we went out anyway, into a hopping downtown Lexington Friday night. After the drinks, the appetizer and the entrees, we were …. serenaded.

Turns out we were sitting right next to dozen or so Sweet Adelines. When I heard the pitch pipe, I knew we were in for a treat. Don’t know the name of the song, but it was sublime four-part harmony, barbershop quartet-style, and delivered with a flourish. These ladies could sing! When they finished, the whole restaurant erupted in applause.

It was a cheerful reminder that life offers more than grief and duty. It offers joy, as well.

(The cat did not join us, but she has good taste in beer.)

Sadness, Shared

Sadness, Shared

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It’s a rainy day here, a work-plus-travel day for me as my sister and  I drive out to Kentucky together to go through our parents’ things.

This is a sad duty, one our brother has borne pretty much alone, so it’s time for us to pitch in.

Already I”m imagining the house again without our parents in it. The sofa where Mom and I would  sit and talk, glasses of iced tea on the coffee table in front of us. The chair against which Dad would lean his cane — a cane with a padded handle that he loved and to which he affixed one of those giveaway address labels you get in the mail.

Thinking of the cane, thinking of the emptiness, thinking of how thankful I am not to have to do this alone. It’s sadness, shared.

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect

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Yesterday I threw caution to the winds and took my usual route around the Capitol. I thought about what happened there two days before — but walked anyway. It is, of course, what we have to do, which is nothing. Not alter our course in the slightest.

The reward: a picture-perfect almost-April day. Trees just greening on the Mall. Tulips in the Botanic Garden. The sinuous curves of the Indian Museum outlined against blue sky. And in that sky, twin contrails.

Everywhere I looked, everything I saw, spoke of possibility and fresh starts. Winter is truly over; spring has just begun.