A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday I ventured out to walk beyond the neighborhood. The big snow was more than a week ago, so I felt confident that most icy patches would be gone.

I was wrong. Icy patches were plentiful on the walk I took around Lake Anne, snow packed and hardened into slickness. But there was plenty of pavement, too, enough to make me continue.

Enter the mincing step. This is when you walk so slowly and gingerly that an observer might think you weren’t moving at all. This is when you throw caution aside and hobble unabashedly like a little old lady.

This is what I did yesterday, did it several times in fact. On the minus side, I walked so slowly that my toes felt like lumps of ice. On the plus side, I didn’t fall. An excellent tradeoff, I think.

This time of year a walk through my neighborhood has two distinct contours. When I leave the house well-bundled against the cold, I think at first that it’s not bad — not exactly warm but not bitter, either.

That feeling quickly vanishes at the midpoint of my stroll, when I turn to trudge back the way I came. It’s those prevailing westerlies, you see, and all the frosty air they bring with them this time of year.

The air makes a mockery of the headband I wear over my ears. It blusters right into my hood, almost blowing it off my head. It makes me ball up my fingers inside my gloves. Most of all, it makes me pick up my pace. It’s no surprise that I run part of the way home.

I could always turn right instead of left at the end of my street and reverse the temperature and tempo of my hikes. But it makes more sense to warm up first. The only way around this reality is to take another route, but given the unplowed status of most nearby trails, that won’t happen anytime soon.

So for the next few days, at least, these two-temp walks are what I have. At least they keep things interesting.

Halloween is more than two weeks away, but it felt quite present when I took a walk after dark the other night.

I left in a brisk wind, wearing light clothes and a head lamp. I was pretty sure cars would see me and my Cyclops eye. What I wasn’t counting on were all the little eyes staring back at me. They were from a deer family, perhaps a half dozen blithely munching my neighbor’s trees.

The walk only got weirder. I heard shrieks and giggles from the other end of the block. Flashlight tag, perhaps? Or a preview of coming attractions?

Many houses have dressed up for the season, with skeleton-head images superimposed on their walls, orange blinking lights and blow-up monsters in their front yards.

Add to this a wild wind stirring the leaves and sending twigs and small branches earthward, and … let’s just say I was glad to get home.

I didn’t intend for it to be, but it was anyway. A two-walk day, that is. Two-walk days usually result in deep sleeps, and this one was no exception.

Of course, a two-walk day is not a two-day walk. I imagine I would sleep extremely well after that. But a two-walk day isn’t nothing, either, especially if both are an hour or more, which these were. 

Yesterday’s strolls were in north Reston, with its well-peopled trail, its purposeful pedestrians. They’re not just sauntering; they’re making their way from Point A to Point B. They carry backpacks and shopping bags. They’re going places. To be in their company is to be caught up in meaningful movement.