A Walker in the Suburbs

We walked all over the First District yesterday, slipped into half a dozen churches, one of which was built in 740. And we ended the day at the Prater, the amusement park that lies between the Danube Canal and the River Danube. The centerpiece of the Prater is the giant ferris wheel known as the Wiener Riesenrad. I knew it as a frightening scene from the film “The Third Man” with Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles.

I rented “The Third Man” for Suzanne to watch before she came to Vienna. I’d heard it was set in Vienna and had never seen it before. The movie is set in post-war Vienna, a dark, dangerous place with enemies lurking in every corner. Vienna is in ruins. I thought, Suzanne will never want to visit Vienna after seeing this film. Now she wants to see the movie again.

I’m happy to report that we rode the Riesenrad and lived to tell the tale. This is not to say I didn’t hang on for dear life. But it was pretty tame, as ferris wheels go, and as we inched our way to the highest point, all Vienna was spread at our feet.

We met Suzanne yesterday; it had been more than five months since we’d seen her. While I was walking in the suburbs, she’s been walking in one of the great European capitals. So she took us on the first of many tours, to the Opera, Stephansdom, and Cafe Central, known for its sacher torte and Old World ambiance. We are going out again soon to the Naschmarkt and the Belvedere Castle and St. Mark’s and all sorts of other places. We have placed our hands in the capable hands of our established Vienna tour guide. Vienna has waited for us. And we have waited for Vienna.

Today we went to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. It houses an almost completely intact 17th century warship, the Vasa, that sunk about 10 minutes into its maiden voyage in 1628 but wasn’t dredged up from Stockholm harbor until the late 1950s. The ship is a beautifully carved work of art, a messenger from the past. It’s grand and glorious. But listen to the movie, take the tour, and you learn that scores of men were crammed into its gun decks. Go down to the lowest level of the museum and you’ll meet some of the 40 men and women who perished when the ship sank, look at their skeletons and read about their lives. From their bones, scientists can learn about the diets of these people, the injuries they endured, the fractures that hadn’t healed, the illnesses they suffered. Almost all of them were malnourished; tooth decay and gum loss were common. Sailing out on this grand ship may have been the highlight of their difficult lives, and then, in an instant, it was all over. It’s easy to romanticize the past, especially when I’m traveling in Europe. The skeletons in the Vasa made me glad I live in the modern world.

Traveling to Sweden is like traveling back in time, back to a second spring–the trees just leafing out, the daffodils blooming, tulips, too. Today was one of the first and finest sunny days of spring. Everyone was out, mothers and babies and teenagers and old folks and marching bands and tourists, of course, like us. We learned from Dan today that we are only 11 hours drive from the Arctic Circle! No wonder the air has a chill when the sun goes down (when it finally does). But the warm days are all the sweeter here because they are so rare, and Stockholm was humming with life, the gardens and the palace and the narrow alleys of Gamla Stan (Old Town). Traveling is like a second spring, too. Suddenly the eyes are opened to what is always there.

It took two planes and more than fourteen hours before we landed in Stockholm, but since then everything has been so easy I almost can’t believe we’re in a foreign country. Tom’s cousin, Dan, and his wife, Ann-Katrin, have taken us into their lovely lakeside home outside of Stockholm and we have talked and hiked and taken a ferry to a castle where the king and queen live. It all seems like a mirage–the soft green of the newly leaved birch trees, the melodic sounds of spoken Swedish, the warmth and hospitality of Dan and Ann-Katrin. But it is real–my fuzzy, jet-lagged brain tells me so. And because of my fuzzy, jet-jagged brain, this post will be brief. Just long enough to say, we already feel at home in Sweden.

Not to be sacrilegious, but I realized a few days ago that we would be leaving for Europe, taking our long flight across the Atlantic, on Ascension Thursday. I believe this holiday has been demoted in the Catholic Church from a holy day of obligation to a regular holy day, but years of Catholic schooling have left their imprint. Ascension Thursday it is. The day Christ ascended into heaven, 40 days after Easter, a perfect counterweight to the 40 days of Lent.

Today we rise, too. Not on clouds, and not to the music of angelic choirs. We rise by racing through the airport, taking off our shoes, our jackets, our belts; by handing our passports and boarding passes to various grim-faced officials. It is not easy to fly these days. But there are few feelings like it. It is freedom, of course. That’s the thrill of it. An escape from earth, an escape from time, an escape, even, from the weather. And so, off we go…

I saw it on the street when I was walking the other day: a single feather. Dark, elegant, alone. From a crow, perhaps. At home we have feathers all over the house from our sweet parakeet, Hermes. But his are electric blue, or sometimes darker pinfeathers or fluffy white downy bits that float in the air like dust motes. We humans molt dead skin and fingernail parings. How much more lovely the gifts birds leave behind.

Last week my work computer starting acting strange. Messages popped up telling me I was under attack, that my files had been corrupted. Ben, our helpful computer guy, took a look. “You have a virus,” he said. “You should turn off your computer.”
I frantically tried to save files. I rushed to complete a project. I wondered why and how this happened. Most of all, I thought about how we personify mechanical malaise and call it a virus. As if my computer has a fever and an upset tummy. Or a rash and a headache.
The urge to personify is supremely solipsistic, but it’s understandable. We see the world through human eyes, so a weeping willow is a grandmother with long, stringy hair and a drainage tunnel is a pair of snake eyes. Computer viruses aside, personification makes the world a warmer, friendlier place.

Yesterday I had the first of several procedures to tame the varicose veins that I’ve had for two decades. It wasn’t too bad, and it’s something I’ve been meant to do for years. I bring it up in this blog because, for one thing, the doctor prescribed walking to speed recovery. This is just the kind of prescription a walker in the suburbs wants to hear, of course.
But the procedure brings up the more general topic of aging and how one goes about it. I don’t think I’d ever have a tummy tuck or a face lift. But being able to wear shorts or skirts again in public would be nice. Following the same moderate philosophy, I try to eat right and exercise. But I keep in mind that I’m not in my 20s or 30s anymore and can only expend so much time and effort fighting time and gravity. Is this copping out or aging gracefully? How hard should we fight against the aches and pains, the pull of mortality? How much of our life should this consume?

If I remember to turn my head when I walk from Metro to work, I see a sliver of the Capitol dome. And still, after many years, I can’t believe I’m here.

People from big cities don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a world where things are always happening somewhere else. When I was a child in Lexington, we went to Cincinnati to shop, to Dayton to visit family and, eventually, to Indiana and Illinois and New York for college. For us, the important stuff was happening elsewhere. And seeking it, traveling or moving or going away to find it, gave us something to aspire to — gave us, you might say, a life’s work.

Children raised near the center of world gravity (like my own) live where things are already happening. They don’t arrive in a big city with a sense of astonishment so deep and so grand as to resemble madness.

When you start your life away from the fray, you learn to live with longing. You don’t always get what you want. It is a healthy tension.