A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday I volunteered to hold the new dean’s phone, keys, pens and other valuables in my purse while our photographer took his picture outside. This was all fine until it was time to retrieve the items. The blackberry was easy — it was right on top — the keys I fished out eventually, but to find his pens required taking everything out of my purse. This was embarrassing. I have lots of tissues in my purse. The dean was exceptionally polite and understanding and took it all with good humor. This bodes well for the future. But it feeds into every female-digging-around-in-her-handbag stereotype there is. I vow to clean up my act. You never know when your purse may be called to duty!

Says one mourning dove to another: “You’re plump and cute; Let’s get married.” Or at least that’s what I thought he said, though his words came out a bit garbled, more like like “Oooh eee, oooh, oooh, oooh.” We watched this pair yesterday afternoon and I just saw them this morning as they continued their courtship dance on our deck railing.

Mourning doves like our house. Maybe it’s the silvery weathered wood, which makes them think they’re in the forest. Or maybe the railing is the right height for them. Or maybe they know that bird lovers live inside. We’ve had dove families here before. One year we watched babies take flight. They toddled along the planks, then spread their wings and soared to a nearby bough. As we stood earthbound, holding our breath, they became creatures of the air.

This morning I opened up our new dishwasher after its inaugural run and found scoured bowls, gleaming glasses, spotless plates. All of this accomplished not by my hand but by the miraculous innards of our new machine. Six months of washing dishes by hand has made me appreciate what I used to greet with a shrug. And I’ve made a new resolution: no more pre-rinse. The dishes go in dirty and come out clean. That’s the deal we made.

But we’ve made another deal, too, a more subtle one. Using a dishwasher again saves time. What will I do with this windfall? It can’t involve another machine. It must be pure activity. Read more, write more, walk more, declutter more. Labor saved.

On the longest day of the year I went swimming after dinner. I did a few laps until almost 9, when it was time for adult swim. The pool was almost empty and the lights were on. I did the side stroke, aqua-jogged and floated on my back. I didn’t want to miss anything: the pool with the lights on, my hands all lit up in the yellow glow, the moon above, almost full and struggling for equal time — a losing battle last night. Yesterday belonged to the sun.

Walking helps me think, helps me create, helps me stay in shape. Most of all, walking helps my mood. How many days I’ve left the house in the doldrums, mentally pacing, worry-logged, going nowhere. But once out the door, motion takes hold. Whatever I was fretting about before recedes. In its place are suburban sights and sounds, some familiar, others not. Today a fox stood his ground as I approached along a Franklin Farm path. When I was about 20 yards away, he turned and ran. I wish I could have followed him, lived a bit of his day. Was he a she hunting for food? A mother with babies in the woods? On the way home I passed a last stand of honeysuckle and caught a whiff of its perfume. It’s the last Friday of spring, still and clear. The medicine has worked, once again.

Today about 500 Oakton High School seniors will parade through the doors of George Mason University’s Patriot Center on their way to the future. “Pomp and Circumstance” will be playing, video cams will be whirring and I think I can safely say that about midway through the commencement address a few students will reach into their robes and slip out inflatable beach balls, blow them up and toss them into the air. Red-faced administrators will scowl, wave their arms and maybe catch a ball or two. But soon more beach balls will appear, kids tapping them with their finger tips, sending them up into the air, laughing and playing. The rules of school are no match for the exuberance of youth.

What the kids don’t yet know is that the rules of school are replaced with the rules of life — tougher, less forgiving. But for now, they can pretend there are no rules at all. For now, they can whip off their hats and throw them up in the air. For now, there is only joy.

It’s Bloomsday, the day James Joyce lovers gather to celebrate the novel Ulysses and its protagonist Leopold Bloom. A day named for a book — it gladdens my heart to know this is possible. The power of the written word. Especially the word “yes.” Here are the novel’s famous last lines: “and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. “

Yesterday was Flag Day, which got me thinking about love of country — or at the very least, appreciation of country. Traveling abroad made me think about this, too. The openness, the lack of reserve, the Americaness of Americans. So much more obvious when seen from afar. I wasn’t gone long enough to miss it this time, but when I was a 20-year-old student, returning from my first trip abroad (two months on less than $5 a day), I certainly did. And apparently a lot of other people did, too. When the small Icelandic Airlines jet landed in New York, the (mostly American) passengers burst into applause. I hadn’t flown much at the time, didn’t know that sometimes people clap at the end of a long flight, relieved to be back on the ground. For me, the applause will always be a show of patriotism, a rare chance to give a hand to a nation, a place, an idea.

As I pine away for what I’ve seen (and I expect no sympathy — come on, I just had a European vacation) I decide to absorb the vacation, to swallow it whole, so it becomes a part of me. I want to eat like a European (smaller portions, more mineral water), shop like a European (every day? with a basket on my arm? this part I know I won’t manage), walk like a European (briskly with purpose but not so obviously for exercise), dress like a European (more heels, please) and de-clutter like a European (this is very crucial). For inspiration, a photo of daily life from one of my favorite European places, Czesky Krumlov.

Sometimes I finish a book, go right back to the beginning and start reading it again. This doesn’t happen often, but it happened with Driftless by David Rhodes. The book was recommended by an old friend, so it’s a word-of-mouth read, the best kind. It didn’t disappoint. Driftless tells the interlinked stories of the residents of Words, Wisconsin. One day Pastor Winifred Smith has a spiritual encounter with the Divine. Here’s how she tries to explain it to another character, a pivotal one, July Montgomery:

“Words are meaningless,” she said. “The truth dies before it fits into them. Language lacks the capacity to hold anything real. It serves an utterly different master. What’s really real is a home words can’t get into or out of.”

Reading the book for the second time, I realize how significant these lines are, because they apply not just to words themselves but to the town of Words, a “tiny town, which sits at the dead end of a steep valley.”

One of the things I like about the book is that it isn’t afraid to tackle the big topics — a belief in the beyond, why we live where we live, how impossibly lovely it is when one soul touches another. Many modern books shy away from these topics, take a much narrower slice of the pie. Rhodes cuts off a great big hunk of it. But he does it through Words, a place few people go. “State maps no longer include Words, and though Q [county trunk road and the only way into the town] is often pictured, the curving black line simply ends like a snipped-off black thread in a spot of empty white space. Even in [the nearby town of] Grange, most people don’t know where Words is.” Read this book, though, and Words will always be with you.