A Walker in the Suburbs

A few hours before Tuesday’s monuments tour, my colleagues and I gathered on a rooftop to share drinks and dinner. This is the view that greeted us.

I’ve lived here for decades and never before seen a rainbow over the Washington Monument. It looks like there should be a pot of gold buried somewhere at its base — but I didn’t find it when we visited later that night.

It was the view that was golden: The city spread out at our feet, the low buildings, the honeycomb of highways, the late-day light.

I finished reading Sapiens early this morning, just in time to return it to the library tomorrow. This will be the third time I’ve written about the book, but why not?

As I wrote last week, ignorance helped propel Sapiens to science, but it was science, capitalism and empire together that gave us the modern world. Science lent empires an ideological justification for exploration and discovery. The capital used to finance these explorations was made possible by credit, which is made possible by a belief that the future will be better than the present. “The idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can improve. This idea was soon translated into economic terms.”

But science, capitalism and empire can only take us so far. Already, Harari argues, they have brought us unprecedented prosperity and peace (though not necessarily contentment). “Today humankind has broken the law of the jungle. There is at last real peace, and not just absence of war.”  Harari admits that his views are skewed by the year in which he was writing them. “If this chapter had been written in 1945 or 1962, it would probably have been much more glum.”

I know Harari has a new book out, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, in which he describes what happens when “old myths are coupled with new godlike technologies such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.”

He gives us a sneak preview at the end of Sapiens: “Despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem as discontented as ever. … Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. … Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?”

They dart, they pounce, they charge each other with a bravura that far exceeds their body weight — given that their body weight is barely 11 ounces.

Today I spent more time than was practical trying to photograph a hummingbird in flight. A fluttering tail behind the feeder is the only still I could snap. 
This time next week these little guys will likely be gone, winging their way south as they always do this time of year. So today I refilled their feeder and tried to chase away the ants that were swarming it in their orderly, ant-like way. The hummingbirds need to stoke up, and I needed to help them.

I’ll miss their antics and their beauty. But I know they’ll be warm and comfortable. And before I can turn around twice it will be late April again — and they’ll be back.

Five months of hummingbirds a year. Not bad.

I never like to leave a place, especially one as lovely as Ireland. But if you’re going to travel, eventually you have to move on. So what are we taking away from this trip?

We’ve talked about this a lot, recalling long-ago jaunts when we returned all fired up about something: living a simpler life or drinking tea from china cups.

This time it’s hard to define “the lesson.” I’d like to travel more and work less, but that’s not possible now. Finding myself taking notes during the walking tours reminds me how much I love to learn and would like to go back to school someday. Again, not possible … yet.

What will remain with me from this trip to Ireland, which was very much what remained with me from the last one, is the beauty of the Irish landscape and the warmth of the Irish people. Much has changed in the decades since I was here last. The nation is far more prosperous and modern, and there seem to be 10 times more cars on the road — all of them barreling at us down a narrow, hedge-lined lane.

But the people are as kind and funny as ever. They made us laugh. They won our hearts.

It’s not even 100 miles from Dingle (which I loved) to Kinsale, but what a difference. There’s the weather, for starters, which is just the luck of the Irish. Though we arrived in mist, rain and fog, we’ve had a glorious day here, all sunshine and 70s. The water has been dancing in Kinsale Harbor and we’ve been peeling off layers as we walk.

On a walk Sunday evening, a last-minute stroll at the end of the weekend that wasn’t, I reveled in the sheer perfection of the air. Neither too hot nor too cool. It’s taken two months, but summer seems to have finally hit its stride.

The crepe myrtle are sending shoots of color along the lanes and the begonias have flourished with all the rain, filling pots with big, fat bouquets. Goldfinches flutter from coneflower to coneflower, hunting for seeds. The strange bird that we cannot identify continues to tantalize us with his song, which consists of a click then a tone.

Out by the street the flower box has produced one tall zinnia. Better luck next time on that score. But it’s hard to complain with the weather I walked through last night.

It was summer sublime.

Arriving at the beach brings a giant exhale. Here is the hotel where it always is, the bikers and walkers, the crowd outside the ice cream parlor. Here is the tropical air, the palm trees swaying, the lizards darting.

The rhythm of the surf is the rhythm of life. To walk beside it is to feel alive again, tasting salt spray and dodging sea birds. Finding my pace beside the waves, advancing as they retreat.

This time of day I’d be settling into my desk for the day, opening files, penciling in priorities, gearing up for our Monday morning meeting.

But not this Monday. Today is the first day of a week without days, without beginnings and endings. I’ll tell time by the slant of sun on water, hunger by a growl in the stomach.

I brought a journal and books, bathing suits and sun screen.

What more do you need?

In the last few weeks, I’ve been making more of an effort to stretch after running or walking or bouncing. This is something I always mean to do but never have time for.

Now it’s time. Past time, if you want to know the truth.

Stretching not just the body but the mind and heart.  It’s one of the best ways I can think of to stay  limber, to keep growing and changing, not to ossify with age.

It’s a personal goal for my own personal new year, which starts … today.

I’ve been working with Winrock for two years and am finally at headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. I flew here Monday morning, looking out the window at the bright sun and clouds, at  the green patchwork below.

When I lived in Arkansas years ago, I wrote an essay called “Out of Arkansas.” It was a play on Out of Africa, the memoir by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen).

My move from Manhattan to a mountaintop in Arkansas seemed as radical to me as Karen Blixen’s trip to Kenya must have seemed to her. And when I looked from the plane and saw the vast landscape below, I thought of the breadth of Africa and of the American West.

It’s a liberating landscape for those accustomed to more cloistered, forested Eastern environs.

Children need roots and wings, says one adage. They need the security of home and family and the confidence and freedom to fly away from it.

It occurs to me today, riffing on this, that what I need now is headspace and legroom.

Headspace so I can vanish into a world of my own creation, beyond home, family and work.

Legroom because as much as I need the mental space, I crave physical movement, too.

It’s freedom I’m after, both literal and metaphorical.