A Walker in the Suburbs

This weekend I bought a lampshade. It’s for the big standing lamp in the living room, an ancient item rejiggered. “Bring your old shade with you,” said the sign in the store, as I made my way over to what seemed an impossibly large array of shades.

Of course I didn’t do this. I had measurements, but I’d forgotten how many styles of lampshades there are: the empire, hexagon, bell, drum or pagoda. I spent close to a half an hour in that shop, lifting shades from their spot on the shelf, measuring the top diameter and the bottom diameter, the height from base to crown.

The one I finally chose lacks the old-world lines of its predecessor, but it fits and its lining is secure — unlike the old shade with its renegade lining.  And when I turned on the lamp yesterday — not at night but in the afternoon, thanks to our return to standard time — I was glad to be entering this season of early darkness with well-filtered illumination.

“There’s an old Mexican adage,” the doctor said. “The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the arena.” He admitted he could find no confirmation of this saying or its lineage, but it’s something he thinks about when he talks to patients and families. “It’s something I try to keep in mind,” he said.

What he meant was that it’s easy to say you want no extreme measures taken at the end of life when you’re not at the end of life. But when death is pawing the ground in front of you, when it’s charging right at you, when it’s close enough that you can spy its wild-looking eyes, its flared nostrils — well, that’s another matter.

“Yes,” he said. “I try to keep that in mind.”

And now I’m keeping it in mind, too.

I drove in from the east today, a feeling I always liken to being on the other side of the looking glass — or the rainbow.

And as if on cue, the few drops sprinkling us on the vast, parking lot of a D.C. highway did whatever it is they must do to form a rainbow. And we work-weary, week-weary commuters were treated to a celestial show.

In the Bible, God sends Noah a rainbow as a token of His promise never again to destroy the world by water. But I took today’s rainbow as a reminder that there are forces beyond the ones we see and hear that will have their way with us.

Sometimes they batter us, sometimes they buoy us. But they are always there.

Yesterday the law school where I work lost a dear and long-treasured colleague. My office was responsible for pulling together the announcements of her death and building the In Memoriam page to record the notes that began pouring in the moment people heard of her passing.

This morning I was reading these lovely tributes. Over and over again they testify to what matters in life: the care and concern for others. This was a woman who touched everyone who knew her. She was always there with a laugh or a roll of the eyes. She was not smooth and perfect; she could be as frazzled as the rest of us. But she kept on trying until the end.

I notice that the comments come from a complete strata of the place: from the childcare center and  the board of visitors, from the library and the accounts office, from the student life people and the professors.

When someone this good goes (and long, long before her time; she was only 45), there is a huge void. And in the void there is a reminder: This is how to live your life.

Yesterday’s walk took me past a couple of ponds. One of them sports a new fountain, a spray of water that gives the old farm pond an aura of glamour and glitz.

But the explanation is far more humble. It’s to aerate the lagoon, to make it healthy, to remove the green slime that fouls the waters of the murky pond next door.

Airflow is not only healthy for humans; it’s good for water, too. So even though I preferred the pond in its still state, I’m glad to see it’s looking clear and scum-free.

Bubbles matter. Flow matters. For ponds and for people, too.

A late start for me today, and a late start for school in Fairfax County this year. September 8 is as late as it ever can be. But it’s happening soon. I know this not from the clock or the calendar but from the rumble on the street.

They’re baaack. The big yellow buses. I just saw two of them roll down the road behind the house and another one has been parked on a neighborhood side street for the last week and a half.

How can school buses still incite stomach-curdling anxiety after all these years?

Must be powerful, this back-to-school dread, even though once the first day or two was behind me I always enjoyed the back-to-school earnestness of September. I think it’s not just the start of school but the end of summer that the buses signify. The end of late nights and freedom. The beginning of tight shoes and regimentation.

But … the shoes had to be tight in the beginning or they’d be too loose later on. And the days had to be regimented or we’d all be a bunch of uneducated hooligans. So as much as I hate to say this …  They’re baaack — and it’s about time!


(Big yellow bus from the inside. Courtesy Wikipedia.)

All through this crazy week, as I read page proofs, wrote proposals, attended meetings and planned a panel, the rose bud was swelling, opening, preparing to bloom.

I came out on the deck this morning, still exhausted from a string of challenging days, and almost gasped when I saw the flower.

What I was doing suddenly seemed so unimportant. This is what really matters. That soil, water and light can come together to send forth this one perfect flower.

When there’s no time to stretch my legs for real I take a mental stroll. A trail that vanishes through a stand of  oak, passage to another world of fern and creek. I imagine an opening at the end of a field, slip through a curtain of branches. Sometimes the trail curves back upon itself, leads nowhere.  That’s when I’m feeling especially stressed.

Other times it opens onto a placid woodland, and my heart beats more slowly even though I’m standing in a crowded Metro car or about to lead a panel (which I will this afternoon). I conjure up favorite trails,  follow their sections from beginning to end: the entry, broad and leafy; the fair-weather crossing over Difficult Run; the confusing stretch where I sometimes get lost; the final burst of boardwalk put there by another devoted woods walker.

Then I realize that the calmness of the woods walk can be called back to mind any time, can be imbibed like a last-minute hit of caffeine or cup of chamomile. It’s my secret weapon. I’ll be using it today.

It’s still dark when I wake now, and it remains that way almost until I leave the house about 6. Early darkness can be such a comfort — a cover, a foil, a way to keep the eyes half closed until the destination is reached. Pools of light like mirrors but tree shadows barely emerging.

On the other hand, I know what this early darkness bodes. Fall and then winter. Cold winds, snow and ice. Crunching down the driveway at 6 a.m.

So let’s just linger here a while. It’s still summer, though heat and humidity are abating. A few tomatoes linger on the vines and the cicadas are singing their songs.

A morning walk without music. Earphones left behind. Open to bird song and cricket chirp and the dull roar of faraway cars.

It reminded me of an orchestra tuning, the chorus of jays, cardinals and sparrows. From the woods came the cackle of a pileated woodpecker, its cry like an inland seagull and the rat-a-tat of its beak against tree trunk providing the percussion.

There was no plan to the sounds, no organization, but they were harmonious just the same, like meadow colors that never clash, like lily pads that dot a placid pond.  The improbable harmony of nature.