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Category: place

Urban Campfire

Urban Campfire

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It’s been a while since I sat around a campfire, but I did last night … in the middle of D.C. That it was part of a professional association meeting, that it was around a fire pit, that the occasional helicopter chugged overhead, didn’t seem to matter.

We were outside, the food was terrific, and the darkness and the crackling wood invited, if not ghost stories, at least some tales of journalistic hijinks and derring-do.

When I returned last evening I kept smelling something familiar, something comforting. It was the aroma of wood smoke in my hair. 

My Town?

My Town?

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Yesterday, I took an impromptu walk down the Mount Vernon Trail, starting at Gravelly Point. Planes were swooping in low to land, so low that the wind from their passing ruffled the leaves of trees in their path. An enthusiastic group of plane-spotters lined up at the end of the park, practically on the runway, to wave and cheer as the 737s soared above them.

The magic of the walk was in the mingling of the low-tech — the quiet lap of river water against the shore — with the high — the roar of jet engines making their final approach to National.

And then there was the beauty of the path and the District viewed at three miles per hour. The red maples still flaming, a graceful weeping willow, geese sluicing into river water before landing in a puddle under the I-395 overpass.

I hated to leave the scene: the Washington Monument rising ethereal on the other bank, the graceful arch of the Memorial Bridge, and, in the distance, the spires of Georgetown’s Healy Hall. It’s my town, if I want — and walk — it to be.

Suspect

Suspect

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Most of my walks are in the suburbs these days, which makes sense given the title of this blog, but when I commuted downtown, a fair number of my forays were in the city. This allowed for more constant comparisons between the urban and suburban stroll.

One of the major differences is that in the city we walk to get somewhere, but in the suburbs we walk to walk — because there are few errands we can run on shank’s mare. For that reason, the long-distance suburban walker, the one who dares hoof it along a major road, can be suspect. This is true for people of all races. 

In his book The Lost Art of Walking, Geoff Nicholson tells the story of a well-dressed man stopped by a sheriff’s patrol car on the one-mile walk to his office in Los Angeles County.  It was on “a completely empty stretch of suburban sidewalk, at midday,” the man explained, and he was dressed in a coat and tie when he was ordered to identify himself and explain where he was going. “As a pedestrian,” the man said, “I was suspect.”

According to his definition (minus the coat and tie), I’m suspect, too.  

Many Worlds

Many Worlds

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Yesterday there was a drive and some errands that reminded me how many worlds exist inside this one world we call home. 

There was a body shop with country music blaring and an American flag flying and a mechanic named JJ who pronounced the bill — “that will be nine thousand dollars” — before grinning and saying he was just kidding. 

There was a hole-in-the-wall eatery with goat meat and fou-fou and a woman wearing a colorful West African print in bright yellow. 

And in between these places were parkways of green, the home of our first president, and the Potomac River flashing bright outside the car window, its bridges arching gracefully over the waves.

It’s a big world out there. How good it is to be reminded of it. 

Hopeful Signs

Hopeful Signs

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For years I rose early and left the house, then drove 20 minutes to the Metro station, where I boarded the train that took me to an office in the city.

A couple days ago, I made my first Metro trip of the year… of the year! And this, of course, in the eleventh of twelve months. What to say, other than once again how much the pandemic has upended our lives.

This week I rode in during evening rush hour but the train was only half full, and I felt myself strangely longing for the bustle of evening at the Vienna station. 

There were hopeful signs, though, new stations that will open next week as part of the Silver Line, and the crazy fact that even though my return train was emptier than the one heading into town … I ran into two people I knew. 

Royal Lake

Royal Lake

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This week, the fall colors lured us out, and Claire and Rory and I (well, Rory was being worn by her mama) hiked around Royal Lake, only 30 minutes from here but a place I’d never seen. 

What a discovery! The two-mile trail winds through woods and open meadow and skirts a small dam. We saw ducks and geese in the lake and turtles sunning themselves on a log. 

And then there were the breathtaking colors: The brilliant scarlet of the maples, the glow-from-within orange of the American beech and the sunny yellows of the tulip tree. 

We had a flurry of excitement at the end of our walk, including a car that wouldn’t start. But what lingers in my mind now is the beauty of the stroll … and of the company. 

Far Away and Close at Hand

Far Away and Close at Hand

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Since witnessing sunrise on the beach last week I’ve been thinking how nice it is to have a view of the horizon. It doesn’t have to be the Atlantic through a scrim of dune grass. I’d welcome any view that took me out of tangled green. 

Be careful what you wish for, though, I tell myself. Spending time in bare, flat places makes me realize how soothing is the company of trees, how subtle but important is the rise and fall of the land on which we find ourselves.

How lovely it would be to have it both ways, to have the openness of the horizon and the coziness of trees — the greensward and the den, the faraway and the close-at-hand. It just occurred to me that I grew up in such a place, the natural savannah land of central Kentucky, the Bluegrass. No wonder I want it all.

(The sun slants low over the Osage orange trees on Pisgah Pike in Woodford County, Kentucky.) 

The Archive

The Archive

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I’ve been working on a writing project that has me dipping into the archive of posts I’ve been accumulating for years. I recently fished out one I wrote about a local historian who gave tours of the area and, for comic but also historical effect, passed around a 12-pound cannonball.

I found another about a two-room schoolhouse at a crossroads near here. It’s been named to the Virginia Landmarks Register, thanks to the efforts of those who love and want to preserve it.

And then there was the post about buying last year’s Christmas tree not from the oh-so-chi-chi place west of here that charges you a fortune to cut down their firs but from a small lot and a native Virginian, a place I’ll be frequenting this year, too.

These and other local efforts have made the quality of life here so much better than it would be otherwise. And I can thank the blog — and the walking that inspired it — for many of these discoveries. 

(The Vale Schoolhouse, now on the Virginia Landmarks Registry.)

The Sandwich Trail

The Sandwich Trail

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You might call it the Sandwich Trail: a route that begins in forest, exits on the other side of the neighborhood for a mile of striding down a prettier-than-average suburban lane, then dips back into parkland again before returning. 

In the language of sandwiches, the woods is the “bread” and the long stretch of pavement in the middle is its filling. 

In the woods section I notice dry stream beds, new plank bridges, a path I thought I’d lost. In the pavement part I see houses with new siding, a massive and magical rubber tree, boulders in a garden.

Two parts trees and beaten-dirt trail, one part easy striding along a less-traveled road. A sumptuous repast. 

Moon Over Wolf Trap

Moon Over Wolf Trap

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A last gasp of summer, an outdoor concert at Wolf Trap, where cellist Yo-Yo Ma and clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera played together like … beans and rice, which they explained briefly before they played are their nicknames for each other. These names also showed up as titles for movements in the piece they performed, which D’Rivera composed. 

At Wolf Trap it’s never just about the music but the experience: picnicking on the lawn, waiting for the performance and the darkness. 

Last night a pale waxing moon appeared just as the hall was filling up, and as the players tuned (so different to see the National Symphony in its shirtsleeves), the moon rose and brightened. By the time we left, sated with the music and the evening, it was high in the sky, lighting us home.