A Walker in the Suburbs

Returns still go in the chute, and holds can still be delivered to an outside table in a plastic bag. But for the bold and restless, you can also now enter the Fairfax County Public Library branches in person. I took the plunge … and I’m so glad I did.

Here in the outdoor office, where I just completed several major tasks and am taking a brief breather before starting another, I often find my eyes wandering to the hummingbird feeder. 

Being back at the beach always comes as a shock. I know that this world continues to exist when I’m not here. Its rhythms free for the taking, its palms swaying in the breeze whether I’m here to see them or not. 

But the year is long between visits, and sometimes it seems like a mirage. Oh, no, though. It is still here, with all its differences and beauties. 

It’s so lovely to be at the beach again. 

“Bring back those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,” went the old Nat King Cole song, which I just learned from Wikipedia was originally a German tune.  It’s one of those ditties that once stuck in your brain remains there, so I will not link to it.

The song has been in my mind these last few days as we enter full-on summer, with temperatures in the 90s and rising humidity. It is, without a doubt, my favorite time of year. And now that I’m working at home I’m able to be out in it most of the day.

Besides avoiding a long and often-arduous commute, being outside this summer is my favorite part of the new arrangement. To be a part of the scene — part of the whole buzzing, bird-chirping, lawnmower’ing, afternoon-thunderstorm’ing package — is as close to mindfulness as I can get.

What a day —  family gathering, bright skies, air that feels like no air so lightly does it lie upon the skin, and,  this morning, the picture-perfect docking of the SpaceX Dragon capsule with the International Space Station.

As I conclude another trip around the sun, I think about what lessons, if any, the past year has held. One big one is this — that we choose what to focus on, what to believe. So today I concentrate on the miracle happening above us rather than mess down here below.

As I write these words a breeze stirs the wind chimes. It’s the happy key of D Major. A melody of one year ending and another just begun.

On this Memorial Day, I’ll find time to be grateful for all who gave their lives so we might be free. I’ll listen to a patriotic song or two, and hang my little American flag out by the mailbox.

I’ll think, too, about the almost 100,000 Americans who’ve lost their lives to Covid-19, the 245,000 who’ve succumbed to the disease in other countries, and all those who grieve for them.

But mostly my thoughts will flow to the hillside in Kentucky where my parents lie. It’s a sunny peaceful spot.

Rest in peace, Mom and Dad.

Yesterday my brother Drew surprised us by stopping by the house on his way home from an appointment. We chatted, nibbled on cookies and caught up. It turned an otherwise ordinary evening into a delight.

First, there is the wonderful reality that he now lives close enough to do such a thing. But more than that, I realized how much I relish a custom that has vanished to the extent that even its replacement (calling someone on the phone without texting them first) is on the way out.

In the old days, dropping in was how you stayed in touch, the original face time. As someone on the shy/introverted end of the sociability scale, this sometimes gave me fits. I once lived in a mountaintop community where people not only dropped by but walked right into your house unannounced. While that was taking things a bit too far, I’d rather have that than no dropping in at all.

(One home I dropped in on a few years ago.)

This is A Walker’s second guest post. As with the February 1, 2019 entry, it’s by my mother — this year on the occasion of her 94th birthday. Mom was a natural, as these words will show. Happy Birthday, Mom! This one’s for (and by) you. 

She woke to the early morning sun and stretched her arms and legs as usual, happy she could still do this. Maybe this meant she wasn’t really old. Maybe 80 was just some mystical number she had to use to mark the passing of the years. If she could still move her arms and legs as before, maybe she was just the same as she had always been, just a little wiser.

She smiled as she reached back in her memory to other mornings, other stretches. Winter mornings when she was five years old, living in one of the three houses her family had lived in on Woodland Avenue, waking to the sun as she had done today. She remembered stretching her limbs in much the same way as now.

But then she remembered how she finished that stretch with a hard, childish motion before she put her tiny feet on the cold floor and ran to the gas stove that would warm not only her feet but her whole body. Soon Aunt Mayme and Aunt Beedie would know that she was awake and one of them would come to put their arms around her and warm her in a way no gas stove ever could.

A few weeks ago, the recently widowed Alfie got a new cage mate. His name is Bart, and he, like the late Dominique, is a rescue bird.

Strange to learn how many birds our local Humane Society offers, some from owners who can no longer care for them, but others because they are strays. (This more of a summer thing, I guess.)

Bart is friendly, well-loved and used to being held, but he is also an escape artist. Luckily, he ended up not in the jaws of a hawk but on someone’s balcony — and from there to the shelter and, eventually, our home.

He and Alfie spent more than a week in separate cages, getting used to each other’s proximity, then … they moved in together.

They’re both males, so Alfie sings less (there’s only so much he’ll do to impress another guy), but they frolic together, preen each other, share food and sit contentedly in each other’s presence.

I worry when I see them squabble (a pet owner who thinks too much?), but I’ve decided there’s no way to read parakeet relationship signals thoroughly enough to truly worry. Instead, I’m just sitting back and enjoying the show.

Dominique the parakeet, who came to us from the Fairfax County Humane Society shelter seven years ago, died yesterday. We never knew her age, but she could have been 10 or more by the time she passed away.

She was a small but valiant creature, and she proved herself loyal and strong on numerous occasions. Plagued for years by fatty tumors, she never let them slow her down. Even as late as yesterday afternoon she seemed strong enough to chatter and nuzzle with her cage-mate, the ever-so-chirpy Alfie.

In 2016, when her original partner, Sid, was ailing, the canary-yellow Dominique literally propped up the  sick bird with her own body.  And she bravely bore the antics of the young whippersnapper (Alfie) we brought in to take his place. Because Dominique really seemed to mourn Sid when he was gone. I was afraid she would pine away without another parakeet by her side.

The thing about a bird is that its death is preceded or accompanied by a fall. Not unlike humans, if you want to get biblical. But unlike humans, birds are creatures of the air, and to find one lying still on the bottom of the cage is sad indeed.

Rest in peace, Dominique.

(Above: Dominique and Sid in 2012)