A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday I trudged over snow banks to reach the main street in the neighborhood, which was plowed and salted down to pure pavement.

It was just above freezing and last night’s black ice had melted, so I had the confidence to run/walk my usual loop. Along the way I strode through sprinkles of salt crystals and the occasional glob of sand. My feet thrilled at their rough grip, at the surety of resistance, knowing that they were not going to slide out from under me.

Ah, friction! How overlooked you are, how simple but how necessary. How seldom we celebrate your presence, the way you connect us (people and animals) with the tangible world.

Given a chance, our eyes may stray to the slick, shiny surface.  It glitters, it attracts. But what thrills us most is the dull, the solid, that which keeps us in place in a tilting world.

The library wants its book back so I’m returning In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing and the Mysteries of Love by Joseph Luzzi. But not before noting a few passages here. One is this:

“When he [Dante] accepted that he would never return to Florence he figured that he did not have to keep writing the books that other people wanted; he would write the books — the book, actually — that he alone believed in.”

That book, of course, was The Divine Comedy.

Another passage:

“That is the real magical thinking of grief. That other life that death throws you into — the one you wanted nothing to do with — is actually one you can build upon. For it contains the gifts that the person who loved you left behind.”

As I continue to live “that other life,” a life without Mom, I’m finding that the gifts of words and writing, the gifts she gave me, bring comfort and courage. It’s not quite as tidy as it sounds here, but it’s close enough.

For the most part this has been a warm, muddy winter. The backyard is a squishy, soggy mess, and the sections of living room floor not covered by carpets bear little brown doggy paw prints that must be constantly wiped up.

The warmish winter means that gloves spend more time in pockets and skin stays less chapped. It means that I’m not pummeled by bitter winds or enervated by long commutes in sub-freezing cold. I like these things.

But now that temps are in the teens and 20s, I’m remembering that there are advantages to seasonable cold. For instance, the ground is frozen. I can throw Copper the ball and neither one of us needs to wipe our feet when we come in.

And backing down the driveway past the two other cars is no longer an obstacle course — because there is a strip of frozen ground on either side that gives me more leeway than I usually have. It’s the winter shoulder. And I’m glad it’s here.


(We’re not quite as frozen as the photo above would have you believe — not yet!)

As the temperatures plummet, my pace picks up. I don’t walk from parking lot to Metro and Metro to office, I run. It’s not the most dignified way to move from place to place, but it’s how I travel in sub-freezing weather.

The body is a furnace, something I discovered when I lived in New York, a walkers’ paradise. I wore a long black coat then, the warmest coat I’ve ever owned, toastier than any down jacket or fleece. But the coat was heavy. Putting it on was like suiting up for battle, which in a way it was.

So every workday morning I slipped into battle gear and made my way from 94th and Central Park West to 45th and Park Avenue, right near Grand Central Station. In 10 blocks I would be warming up, and by the time I reached the Plaza I might have to loosen my scarf.

I didn’t run those 50-plus blocks, but I kept up a brisk pace. It was a surefire antidote to cold — and now that I think back on it — pretty much everything else, too.

Having the piano tuned is a cause for celebration. And what better way to celebrate than playing the darn thing. This is a practical as well as an artistic matter. It doesn’t stay in tune long, my poor old spinet.

So I sat down last night and started with what I last played — “The Messiah.” Picked out the tenor part for “Every Valley,” but found it a bit passe. So I dug deeper for some Bach, pounded out the first prelude, then the second fugue.

Emboldened that I could still read the notes (long-term memory is a wonderful thing!), I pressed on, ending the session with a few tunes from the Gershwin songbook.

By this point, the feeling had entered my fingers again, that proprioception that tells me my index finger is about to strike F sharp and my pinkie is hovering over E natural — and if I want the melody to sing out, I’d better work that pinkie.

They used to call it “touch.” Maybe they still do. It’s what turns notes into music. I got a bit of it back  last night.

On Saturday I found myself alone in the house with Claire’s laundry. She wanted to run out while it was in process, so I took over while she was gone.

Laundry is not a task I mind. In fact, folding it can be vaguely Zen-like: the warmth of towels hot from the dryer, the scent of fabric-softener sheets rising from them.  And, because it had been so long since I folded my middle girl’s shirts and tights and sweaters, I savored this chance to help her out. I noted with pleasure how well she had begun the task, the carefully sorted piles of darks and lights.

I couldn’t help but think back to a time when I was washing and drying her baby clothes, the little gowns and onesies, many of them hand-me-downs. How long ago that was, yet how close it seemed. How strong is the chain of caring that passes from heart to hand.

For the last load I threw in a t-shirt and sweatshirt of my own, and before she left that night, Claire handed them to me — clean and fragrant.

She had folded my clothes just as I folded hers. It may not be the circle of life, nothing that grandiose. Let’s just call it the circle of laundry.

It’s the first of the year, time of arrivals and departures, of the two-faced Janus, looking back into the past and forward into the future.

Here in the office there are also arrivals and departures. Some are joyful, others less so. I think about a couple of people who will be moving to our suite before retirement. These changes fall into the “not with a bang but a whimper” category. People close to quitting who, if they’d had their druthers, may not have chosen to spend their final months here.

We can’t all go out on a high note. Which is why I’ve been thinking about trajectories lately, what kinds of movements matter. I’ve seen enough of the work world, with its accolades and its disappointments, to put my faith in a less visible measure.

It’s the spiritual trajectory that matters most, I think, the one that takes into account all our efforts and attempts, the dollar we slip into a beggar’s hand, the colleague we forgive, the child we comfort — and the times we fail to do these things, too. The journey that underlies all others, our passage through the passages of life.

First days back after long vacations are never easy. Mine involved an overwhelming amount of work, a long and tedious commute and, just for an extra dollop of misery, the coldest temps we’ve had all winter. It was 13 this morning with a brisk wind making it feel more frigid.

But as I was pushing my way out of the Metro Station yesterday, a young man tapped me on the shoulder. He was holding the necklace that I thought until that moment was around my neck. It’s a special one because Claire gave it to me, and it must have slipped off as I tightened my scarf. He didn’t have to do that. The pendant could easily have been picked up and pocketed.

As I was putting the necklace away last night, thrilled to have it safely home, I next reached up to take off my earrings and discovered … one of them was missing too. That was less concerning. The necklace is more important; it’s an even trade, I said to myself.

But this morning as I was putting on my coat, the missing earring showed up, too. It must have gotten caught in the collar.

You might think that I would be wearing no jewelry at all today. But you would be wrong. Once again, I’m casting my fate to the winds and to the good intentions of those around around me. It’s a risk worth taking!

When faced with a few days of uninterrupted time I sometimes panic. I take a walk, go to the movies, make a call.

Distraction is my currency. I live with it; sometimes on it (sad to say). And the prospect of giving it up is enough to make me create unnecessary distractions of my own.

The job, the commute, the tasks of daily living — these are necessary. Endless tidying and Googling are not.

But eventually I come around, assisted by a pen and paper, an empty screen, a good book.

That is what happened yesterday into today. I read a book (more on that in a future post). I wrote pages in my journal — enough to complete one blank book, so that (I admit a tad sheepishly and obsessively) I could begin a new one on January 1. And I still had time to spend in idle thought.

It’s a quiet way to see in the new year, quiet and necessary.