A Walker in the Suburbs

The fireworks are over, the flags are packed away, but the patriotic melodies remain. One in particular. Every other band seemed to play it as they marched past us, and I heard it Sunday in church as well. So today I did a little research.

English Professor Katherine Bates wrote the words to “America the Beautiful” during a trip to Colorado the summer of 1893. She was inspired by the “spacious skies” of the west and the “amber waves” of grain she saw out her train window. But the words came to her in a flash of inspiration atop Pikes Peak, where there’s a plaque to commemorate the poem. Bates rushed back to the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs to write the words down.

Church organist Samuel Ward was moved to write the hymn that would later be paired with Bates’ poem when he was riding the ferry from Coney Island to New York City. He asked a fellow passenger if he could jot down the notes on the man’s shirt cuff, so full of the music was he, so eager to capture the melody before it left his head.

Two artists, two inspired moments — and two frantic and ultimately successful efforts to capture the muse before it flew away. The words and music were published together in 1910 as “America the
Beautiful.” Since then there have been many attempts to gain national
hymn or even national anthem status for this song, none successful. All I
can say is, it has my vote.

A new month, a new leaf. I’ll take any excuse to clear the slate, to see the world with fresh eyes.

As if to prepare for this adventure I had one of those classic insecurity dreams last night. As usual it involved a piano recital I’m expected to play. No rehearsal, of course. Just a last-minute request that I play a difficult piece on stage with no preparation. There’s no way to escape the performance. Humiliation is inevitable.

Last night’s saga had a funny twist. There was sheet music; I wasn’t expected to play from memory. But the score was inflated, like one of those puffy books children can take in the bathtub. That’s strange, I thought, but at least the plump pages will be easier for the page-turner to turn. And by the way, where is that page turner? I woke up before I could find him, but I woke up to realize that — yes, bliss! — I am not playing a recital tonight.

I may have several publications to write and edit, meals to cook and a house to clean for company — but I do not, absolutely do not — have to play the piano before an audience of strangers.

July is looking good.

Still life at dawn. It’s happening as I type these words.

While I think and pause, fingers above the keys, the morning proceeds as it always does.

Writing imposes order on chaos — or it often seems that way. But nothing can compare to the order of the day, to the reliability of the silent house, the roiling tea kettle, the first birds, the shapes emerging from darkness.

Dad would be 92 today; it’s the second May 12th we’ve had since he’s been gone.

Looking for a picture to post, I came up with this one. Dad with his brother Kenneth, who was 12 years older and a model to Dad in many ways. Uncle Kenneth took a teenaged Dad on a trip out West in 1938. They saw Mt. Rushmore — before it was completed.

Sons of an itinerant minister and one-time railroad man, these boys got the traveling gene. Between the two of them they racked up most of the 50 (then 48) states and many countries. They even traveled together as adults, visiting London and Paris and Copenhagen.

I like to think of them together now, faces young and unlined, smiling in some heavenly version of a selfie, about to jet off to a place that none of us still-living folks can even imagine.

The rain left us a dozen shades of green and a thousand spent petals. They fell from the dogwood and the cherry and the forget-me-not. They mingled with the new grass.

Here they are, the raw material of spring, cast aside now that that they’ve done their job. The essence of the season, its molecular structure. Or, to be painterly, is dabs of color, its brush strokes.

Looking at them now I see their glory and their transience. It is the oldest story of all, but one we never stop telling. Beauty is born, beauty reigns, beauty dies.

You could look at their odds, their post positions, the strength and slenderness of their ankles. You could analyze their blood lines, their dams and sires. You could travel the circuit, see them run at Aqueduct and Keeneland and Santa Anita.

Or you could dispense with the horse and put your money on the jockeys or trainers. You could check out their records, regimens and philosophies. You could, if you were serious, attend a morning workout, at least at some of the tracks. You could rise early and see the horses and riders flying down the backstretch in relative silence, without the distraction of a crowd.

Then again you could cast all these practicalities aside. You could learn the color of the jockey’s silks and base your pick on that. You could read the list of contenders and choose solely on the name: Carpe Diem, Upstart. You could, if you want (and I know for a fact this has happened) wager solely on the strength of a dream you had the night before.

The point is, if there was a winning formula, someone would have found it long ago. These colts will do what they will. As for me, I’m pulling for the gray horse, Frosted. It’s just that simple.

(Just don’t bet on these horses; they ain’t going anywhere!)

I write from home this morning, not always a given these days. What I see as I look at the French doors is a reflection of the piano light, the only one I flipped on this morning.

If I were to sit here long enough I would see that light, and the open music book (Schumann, “Forest Scenes”) it illuminates, fade away. In its place, the cloudy day outside.

It’s not unlike a church at night, stained glass windows gleaming into the void. Dark on the inside without the sun to flood through them.

From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. we see ourselves; from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. we see the world. At this time of year  an equal measure of both. 

Yesterday I drove Celia to campus after a quick Easter visit. We left before dawn and I was back in my home office as the work day started.

A drive that early seems almost not to have happened. As the hours passed, as I wrote and edited and answered e-mails, snatches of those highway moments  slipped into my brain unbidden, like the vaporous trails of dreams scarcely remembered upon waking.

Was I really just rounding the curve after the split? Did I zoom over the Patuxent River, which I vow to explore more thoroughly every time I cross it? Was that lumbering car trailer alongside me for far too much of the way? The tunnel, the straightaway, the toll booth? Yes, yes and yes.

But by nightfall those early hours had left a weariness in my bones. The morning drive was real, for sure. Today, just the usual jaunt on Metro, a much tamer way to start the day.

(This is not the road to Baltimore.)

I’ve always loved birds but have never wanted to be a bird watcher, someone in sensible shorts
with binoculars around the neck. As I’ve learned more about Ira Gabrielson and the extensive bird lists he kept throughout his life, though, I’ve begun jotting down the birds I see at the winter feeder.

It’s easy to spot the cardinals, bluebirds and jays, and the Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds has helped me identify the others. The black-and-white-striped bird with a red-streaked head, the one that clings expertly to the deck pilaster, is a hairy woodpecker. But wait, there’s another, smaller bird, quite similar but without the red streak. I consult the bible. Ah, I see, it’s a female hairy woodpecker.

There was another bird that had me stumped until yesterday. A sweet little thing with a gray body and white breast that enjoys both the thistle and the other feed. At first I thought nuthatch, then a vireo. Yesterday, with the bible’s help, I solved the mystery. It’s a junco. Of course. I had identified juncos a couple years ago but had forgotten some key details.

I’m a long way from scientific. Will never spend hours in the muck waiting for a glimpse of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. But I am starting to pay closer attention to our feathered friends. Am I a bird watcher yet? I hope not. Just call me a bird noticer.


(Bluebird enjoying the suet block.)

Almost March, and winter shows no signs of waning. I look for signs of spring, but buds are tight-furled, crocus biding their time.

I find a place in the mind whee I can be warm and free. Where I can walk for hours without tiring. Where I can be myself.

I feel the sun on my skin and the sand between my toes. I savor the freedom of the beach, its great gift, that it calls us to be who we are, no layers, no pretenses. It scours us clean and leaves us open to sound and light — and always, above all, to possibilities.