A Walker in the Suburbs

The very idea of it seems far-fetched. It is too early for spring, too early for a break. But break time is is, at least for the student part of my life. 

There was no class Tuesday evening, though I prepared for it anyway since my break, which starts today, will get me home just in time for Tuesday class next week. 

Because as it turns out, I am taking a “spring break,” though one I wish I wasn’t. I’m heading out today to Kentucky for my cousin’s memorial service: a talented man gone far too soon. 

The trip will have its share of sadness, then, but also its share of joy, visiting with family I don’t often see. A break in many senses of that word: a road trip, a respite, a departure from the ordinary. 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlock

Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight

Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Today we explored the oldest stand of old-growth forest in Maryland, a place of deep shade and filtered light. The destination was Swallow Falls but the journey was also an attraction: a hike through pines and hemlocks more than 300 years old.

I imagined what these trees have seen, the ancient twinning of their root systems. Being in their company made me want to talk softly, to concentrate only on breathing the air they purify, on striding beneath their canopy.

The quick and surprising death of our parakeet Bart on Wednesday brings to mind this quotation from Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, can they reason? nor, can they talk? but, can they suffer?”

The poor bird never seemed as chipper as his cage mate, Alfie, and back in March, I feared Bart was on his last legs. But he perked up and lived several more months to nibble and climb and spar with Alfie.

There was little clue to what ailed him, but I hope his suffering was brief. It certainly seemed that way. 

Now Alfie is left alone in the cage. He’s outlived two other budgies, and we’ll look soon for a new bird to join him. 

Birds are creatures of air and movement and song. And that’s the way I’d like to remember Bart. 

(Bart in a recent photo shoot.)

Yesterday was a train trip up from Portland to Seattle. Today, we fly east with the prevailing westerlies. Which means that, at least theoretically, it will take an hour less to return than it did to arrive. 

I’m heading back to Virginia with 10 days of dirty laundry, five new books, a passel of memories and plenty of inspiration for the days ahead. 

The best trips never stop giving. 

Who can say why it happens? The wind howls but seems dignified in its cry. A bank of clouds in the west pushes morning light into unexpected corners of the sky. Dawn purples the east and the rest of the firmament follows suit. It is strange but wonderful.

There is more, of course: the content of my dreams, already faded. The tang of the air. The promise of sweet, milky tea. Knowing that if I look out the back window at 10 I may see a fat red fox trotting across the yard. 

Whatever the elements I enjoy the result: the morning as benediction. 

This is the time of year when amateur singers around the world gather in church sanctuaries and basements to belt out “For Unto Us a Child is Born,” “His Yoke is Easy” and other choruses from Handel’s “Messiah.” 

This year, you can probably find some Zoom version, but that won’t do the trick, not with this piece of music. Beyond the loss of life and livelihood, which is of course what we mourn the most, one of the pandemic’s other great casualties is how it has banished group singing.

Singing aloud is one of life’s great joys, and doing it with others a great joy heightened. But that pleasure has been denied us since early last spring, when we learned that singing spreads the virus more efficiently than almost anything else. 

There are many ironies here, including this one: that an activity that helps us banish our troubles is not here for us when we need it most. 

I don’t know about other once-a-year choristers, but this one will be singing the Hallelujah Chorus aloud anyway. It will be in my house, the stereo cranked up high.  It will be fervent and spine-tingling. But I will be doing it … alone.  

One of the joys and hassles of a long-lived blog like this one is that I sometimes repeat myself. I feel relatively certain I’ve written of “Roses in December” (ah yes, there it is!), so I must find a new title for this one. How about “A Rose in December.” (The change is duly made.)

Having settled on a title now, then what about the meaning. I’m happy to announce that it’s a straightforward one today — the joy of seeing this bloom so late in the season, of feeling that it’s a slap in the face to subfreezing overnights and brisk western breezes. 

And yes, it brings back the long ago memory of a walled garden and its promise of warmth. But it is also a joy in and of itself. 

This year’s rose, no doubt fueled by a wet spring and moderate summer, has supplied me with blossoms from May to December. I’ve taken a rose to my just-born granddaughter and her mother in late October and could have given one to my November 30th-birthday daughter, had I the ability to ship it across the country. But that, alas, is beyond my power. 

One thing I know about these roses is how delicate they are, how fragile to the touch. They, like so much else in life, are better off the less they are disturbed. 

It’s easy to be morose when the great trees fall, as indeed they have done, over and over and over again. 

But when they come down, they free up a spot of sky. 

I snapped this shot yesterday, returning from a walk in what I’ve now come to think of as tree-falling weather: rain-saturated ground with a stiff wind from the west. 

This empty sky used to be filled with a tall tree. Not it’s open, free, giving us all a patch of blue.*

(*Writing this reminds me of the lovely film by that name, a 1965 flick staring Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters. One worth watching.)

A few days ago it was announced that Lord & Taylor is going out of business, shuttering the 38 brick-and-mortar stores it owns, holding sales in person and online, then closing its doors forever. 

It already shut down its flagship Fifth Avenue store, whose windows would delight me every Christmas when I lived in the city, and whose shop clerks always seemed to know a little more about their merchandise than your average retail worker. At almost 200 years of age, Lord & Taylor is the oldest department store in the country.

For some time I have felt sad entering my local Lord & Taylor. It has been emptier than the rest of the mall, its days more numbered. I knew it wasn’t long for this world, but I continued to shop there because its goods were quality and its demeanor was dignified. 

But soon it will be gone, following Hecht’s and Woodward and Lothrop (D.C. area stores) and Wolfe-Wile, Purcell’s, Stewart’s and Lazarus (Lexington, Kentucky-area stores) and hundreds of others across this land. 

What went wrong? Just about everything, but most of all the boxes that “smile.” I wonder how long we’ll be smiling when all the department stores are gone.

It’s the kind of day I’d like to bottle, to store it up for a cold gray March morning. The humidity has broken and the breeze is blowing in a different season. It’s still solidly summer, but with a hint of the autumn to come.

It is, in short, too glorious a morning to rush through … so I took my time on this morning’s walk.  I eschewed my usual fast pace for a more leisurely stroll. I looked up more often, found a big fat cloud to keep in my sights, enjoyed the view of the Blue Ridge I can see from the top of West Ox Road.

And on the way home, I ogled the three new houses that have shot up in the development across the road, noted all their windows, wondered how you will get to them since their backs are to the street. 

Idle thoughts for a lovely morning, a morning just now turning to afternoon.