A Walker in the Suburbs

“We’ll be harvesting soon,” said our Colmar hostess. “It’s very early this year so we’re in a state.” It’s hard to imagine this poised, multilingual woman as anything but calm and pleasant, but running a winery and a hostelry could test anyone’s mettle.

Her words confirmed what we’ve noticed on our wanderings: the grapes seem ripe and ready to pick. It’s been a hot, dry summer in the Alsace. And though our contact with the region’s famed wines has been limited, I can tell how delicious they are by watching others imbibe.

The best part of wine country for me has been discovering the Sentier Viticole, the Wine Trail. Grapes growing, hikers hiking, bikers biking — a jumble of motion and activity and joy. I wish I could have hiked forever, but that’s not very practical, is it? Moderation in all things, except, perhaps, moderation.

I loved fairytales when I was young, read them incessantly, then read them aloud to my children later on. Now I’m in Alsace, where the villages seem to have stepped right out of a fairy tale.

One village in particular, Riquewihr, is said to have been the inspiration for the animated version of “Beauty and the Beast,” which was played plenty at my house when the girls were growing up.

Set aside for the moment the 21st-century tourists who crowd this shot and imagine Belle dancing through the streets saying “Bonjour, hello, how is your family?” It’s almost a dead replica, n’est-ce pas?

It’s one of the most famous houses in the country, and I saw it yesterday, visiting on a day befitting a home perched on top of a waterfall. It poured as we drove to the house, sprinkled while we were inside, and rained again on the way back.

Apparently, Fallingwater has also been called Leakingwater, so often does the bedrock sweat and the moisture pool. Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed Fallingwater, told its owners that drips and drops are what you get with organic architecture. “Use buckets,” he told the Kaufmann family.

I suppose when you consort with a genius, you learn to be tolerant. The Kaufmann family donated the house to a conservancy in 1963, making it possible for millions of people to experience this national treasure.

What I noticed most was the sound of the place, the peaceful patter of water slipping over stone. Or maybe it was just the rain.

In years past, Garrett County has been an oasis of mountain coolness, even when the weather is hot back home. This year, the humidity is here, too. No problem, though, because there are all sorts of water bodies to help you deal with it.

In addition to Deep Creek Lake, the big kahuna, there are smaller ponds, including the one at Herrington Manor State Park, the most kid-friendly we’ve found. We headed there yesterday.

While it wasn’t the spun-sugar sand of Siesta Key, there was still a beach for digging and making sand castles, and the kiddos spent hours in the lake. Meanwhile, the adults (or at least this adult) tucked herself away in the shade and watched the scene unfold.

There was plenty of people-watching, mostly keeping my eyes on the grandchildren, who paddled and dove and got rides on a float from their oldest cousin. Their glee was more than worth the price of admission.

(These weren’t my grandkids — I’m relieved to say — but they express the possibilities of this place)

I understand why the landscapes of our birth and upbringing feel comfortable and right. What I don’t understand is how places we find much later in life feel just the same way. Garrett County, Maryland is one of those places for me.

I felt it yesterday when I drove here from Virginia, in and out of torrential rain. I felt it when I finally got close and saw the mountains rising from the mist.

I feel it now, when I’m itching to take my usual walk that skirts a cove of Deep Creek Lake. It’s more than affinity. It’s as if I’ve known this place from another lifetime. Maybe this week I’ll understand it better. I’ll certainly try.

Though my body is back in Virginia my mind is still at the beach with the sea and the shorebirds … and even with the wrack. Described as the ocean’s bathtub ring, wrack is the flotsam the waves drag in, the seaweed, driftwood, even the marine animals.

I took this picture the year my Florida visit coincided with the Red Tide, when fish were routinely washing up on shore, victims of an algae bloom that was no picnic for humans either. But the wrack is always present, usually without dead fish. In fact, the wrack nourishes marine creatures. It lingers at the high tide line, where I sidestep it when walking.

A sign about wrack at the beach entrance told me of its importance, that it not only feeds shorebirds but collects sand and births dunes. It’s where the ocean meets the land. I approach it with new respect. It’s not the wrack of wrack and ruin, of decay and destruction. It’s a sign of life.

Gulf: part of an ocean that extends into land. A deep chasm, an abyss. A wide gap.

For a week I walked the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. I moved to its tides, trod sand beaten by its motion, found shells tossed by its waves.

Now I’m facing another gulf, the kind that yawns between vacations and regular life. No more palm trees and ocean breezes. No more living outside of time.

The jet’s descent left my ears so clogged that the world has been muffled and distorted since I arrived home last night. Until I walked outside and heard the cicadas this morning. Their clatter and racket pierced even my blunted hearing. They bridged the gap between vacation and real life. Listening to them, I knew I was home.

Last October, Hurricane Milton made landfall on Siesta Key, Florida, where I’ve vacationed for more than a dozen years. It sent storm water surging into bars and bungalows. Its 120-mile-an-hour winds downed trees, caused power outages and opened a pass that had been closed for 40 years.

It also reconfigured the beach, which is why visitors flock to this barrier island. Although accounts I’ve read say the damage was not as horrific as originally feared, I notice the difference as I walk the strand. There are channels where none existed before and rivulets to jump. My beach ambles require detours.

On the other hand, there’s a lagoon that’s made the place more fun. Now instead of swimming only in pool water, I can paddle around in a saltwater pond.

A door closed, a window opened? Something like that.

(Visitors enjoy Siesta Key’s most beloved attraction: the sunset.)

I do it at yoga, at bedtime, or whenever a fragrant flower is under my nose. But I breathe most deeply when I’m near the ocean, which I am now.

“Florida in July?” some people say. “Really?” But the heat seldom bothers me. And since our weather has been devilishly hot and humid for weeks, it’s even more of a moot point than usual.

At home, there’s no ocean air to breathe, no palm trees to ogle, no big sky to contemplate. Here there are all of these. Here it’s easy to breathe deeply. I’ve been doing it a lot since I arrived.

No matter how often it happens, I never learn. Even though the radio has gone silent and the house is dark, I flick the switch, expecting light. No air-conditioning, of course, but I’ll use a fan. Nope! Fans need electricity, too.

It lasted only six hours, but it was the third power outage here since February. Once again, it reminds me how thin is the layer of civilization, how quickly it all comes tumbling down.

I’ll admit I’ve been spoiled living in this land of buried power lines. It has lulled me into a false sense of security. Maybe the neighbors are right. They bought a generator years ago, and its whir rubs salt in the wound. But it would take many more outages to justify the expense. Better to do without, to learn (and relearn) the lesson, to be reminded of how powerless we really are.

(Though our trees were spared, wind gusts at Dulles reached 66 mph and some homes were without power 24 hours later.)