A Walker in the Suburbs

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.)

We head home today, down the northeast corridor on an Amtrak train. This after travel in a van, taxi, hired car, rental car, commuter train and subway.

The transportation has been as varied as the trip itself, which has featured a wedding, hikes through farms and conservation lands, and lots of visiting. We’ve seen sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews and cousins, wonderful friends and adorable doggies.

It’s the kind of travel I’m seeking now, which is not just about rekindling adventures … but renewing relationships.

It was home for almost two years, and I loved it for the light that poured in the windows and the hill across the street. We were lingering at the bottom of the steep driveway when its owner drove up.

“Sorry we’re standing here, but we used to live in your house,” I said.

“You lived here?” he asked, amazed. When we said yes, he invited us inside to look around.

For the next 20 minutes we chatted with the current occupant of our long-ago home. We walked inside and up the stairs, saw the new patio and the old fireplace. He asked us questions: was there a wall here? a door there?

I couldn’t stop thinking of the young couple who rented the house, the baby born to them there (now a young mother herself) and all the wonderful people who lived nearby. So often I imagine the rooms and contours of our old house. To see the real thing was a strange and wondrous experience.

I took dozens of picture-postcard photos yesterday. The sun was finally shining and we were back in a place I loved so long ago. There are hiking trails now and we could walk the whole day, leaving the car parked for 24 blissful hours.

We found the Nashua River Rail Trail and made our way north then south. It felt good to stretch the legs and move through space. Next, we hiked to Barcroft Castle on Gibbet Hill, which burned in 1932, leaving only the pebble-stone walls.

I was looking for the backdrop of the scene in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” where Laurie and Jo break up, which was filmed a mile from my old house. I think I found it, looking west from the castle across the Nashoba Valley toward the mountains of New Hampshire. I share it with you at the top of this post — and just for good measure — below, too.

It was a rainy Saturday in Boston, perfect for inside activities. So we visited the library — not just any library but the Boston Public Library, the first free municipal public library in the country. We walked up the marble stairway, past the lions and into the reading room.

Here were scholars at work, green-shaded lamps and a vaulted ceiling. Here was a temple of knowledge. The library holds 23 million items, I learn from its website, including Mozart’s scores, Shakespeare’s first edition folios and John Adams’s personal library.

The Boston Public Library serves 4 million people a year and millions more online (one of them me). It was the first public library to lend books and the first to offer a children’s room and a branch library.

I took only this one photo of the reading room. Intruding any further would have been a desecration.

It’s been a wet May. Today is too drippy to walk, but a few days ago I slipped between the raindrops and strolled through a moist and fragrant landscape. It was the ordinary world silvered into a new state of being.

Every broad leaf or outstretched bough held on its surface gleaming drops of rainwater. I had fun trying to photograph them. I was never able to capture their freshness or fragility, their glitter or gleam. What seemed like diamonds now look like water spots.

I have no illusions of photographic greatness. But snapshots jog the memory. When I look at the pictures I snapped that damp Thursday, I remember the freshness of the morning, the quicksilver beading of the raindrops, the whole sensory experience of the walk. And that’s the point of it all.

I managed to avoid most of Monday’s news until midday Tuesday, when I braved the cold to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway. I brought it inside, holding it by its edge, as if it might be slightly radioactive, then in a burst of bravery pulled it from its plastic sleeve and took a glance.

My first impression was of a state funeral: the somber expressions, the black clothing. I began to read and felt my blood pressure rising. It was too early in the day to be upset, so I put the newspaper aside.

I accept the results of the 2024 election, the will of the people. I seldom discuss politics in this blog. But for me and for many, there is a very real problem. Well, there are many real problems, but the one I want to mention here is this one: What do I do about the news?

I’m a journalist by trade. For years we had two daily newspapers delivered to the house. We still have one, an indulgence that’s beginning to feel like a flagellation. I believe it is our duty as citizens to be informed about the workings of the country.

As usual, though, the devil is in the details: How informed? And by whom or what? I’ll figure this out eventually, I hope, but for now, all I have is a question: What do I do about the news?

What to do on a snow day? There are the outdoor activities — shoveling, snow sculpting, or just trudging to the end of the block and back. There are the indoor activities: making soup, cleaning closets and curling up on the couch to watch the flakes fall.

And then there is the modern, plugged-in version of a snow day: blogging and spreading the word about my latest book review, which entailed setting up a profile on Blue Sky Social (an X alternative). Yikes! That has taken up more time than I’d like it to this morning.

With that box checked, I plan to sink more deeply into the day, to enjoy all the transformations that snow can bring.

It’s not just that we’ve had little measurable snow these last few years, it’s that for the most part we’ve lacked even the promise of it, that delightful drumbeat of suspense that can accompany a snowstorm.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy blizzards in the past would be to complete all out-of-the-house errands before the first flakes fell, then plop myself down in front of a local news broadcast and watch cheerful reporters decked out in their most stylish parkas and hats, telling us what we could expect.

I’m out of practice in that area. Besides, a new forecasting powerhouse is in town: the Capital Weather Gang, the Washington Post‘s coterie of meteorologists. I think it’s fair to say this crew is pro-snow. Which is not to say their forecasts aren’t accurate; they are usually spot-on, and they cite the models (who knew there were such things?) upon which they’re based.

Still, I detect a barely-restrained glee when there’s white stuff in the forecast. And why not? It’s been a while since we’ve had a good dousing. But from what I’ve read, that may change … soon.

(This snow photo was taken almost five years ago.)