A Walker in the Suburbs

I walked yesterday through a late-fall forest. The yellows a little more subtle. Still a riot of color, not yet a monochromatic woodland, but enough bare branches to see the direction we are heading. A feel of rain but not yet rain in reality.

I snapped this photo right before the little hill on my route. I was ready for the ascent, not thinking much about how the warmth is ending. I was generating my own heat at that point.

I knew that a deluge was in the forecast, much needed, though not drought-ending. It will take far more than a day’s worth of moisture to do that. But still, I knew I might not walk outside today. So I memorized the passing scenery. The bridge before the rise. The fat fox who scampered across the path. The walker who saw the animal and mouthed the word “fox” to me as she passed.

All these impressions are here today for me to savor. Even if wet weather keeps me home, I have yesterday’s walk to imagine and relive.

I enjoy a clever headline, so when I saw “The Gaitkeeper” in yesterday’s Washington Post (with a Gen Z headline in the online edition) I had to read it. Oh, and it was about walking, too.

The story profiled 21-year-old Cameron Roh, who has 1.4 million followers rating pedestrians on TikTok. I’ve been rating pedestrians all my life but have no followers to show for it. Probably because I rate them only in my head, as in “why are those people taking up the entire sidewalk?!” or “why don’t those escalator riders stand on the right?!”

Roh gives high marks to walkers who are aware of their surroundings and navigate crowds with ease. He criticizes those who walk blindly into passersby while glued to their phone screens.

I’m glad that Roh and others are raising the issue of walking etiquette. It doesn’t matter much to walkers in the suburbs — but it certainly does to walkers in the city.

When I lived and worked in Manhattan I’d try to match my pace to the lights of the cross streets. If I was up to speed I would catch “Walk” signs at each one. To do this required sidestepping and passing and thinking ahead. It was part stroll, part sport. It was gaitkeeping, for sure.

A mild autumn Sunday, an open afternoon, and a walk along a Reston path to the Washington and Old Dominion rails-to-trails line. Cyclists whizzed past as they do in these days of e-bikes. So I hatched a plan: return not the way we came but along a road I’ve only driven, never walked.

It was a gamble. I wasn’t sure of the distance and was concerned about the traffic. Hunter Station is an older road that has retained its charm and its lack of shoulders. Striding along it required some hopscotch maneuvers, sometimes jumping over to the other side of the road for visibility’s sake.

But the road was worth it: a cathedral of trees and hills with acorns crunching beneath our feet and the sharp scent of turning leaves. Every so often a lane would wind off to the left or right, inviting further exploration.

A walk down a road I’ve only driven before is like stepping through the looking glass. There were the familiar landmarks — the single-lane bridge, the curved hill — only in slow motion instead of fast. I could take my time, get a true sense of where I was. Which, at least yesterday, seemed like paradise.

Yesterday I walked from my daughter’s house to my own. It was an impromptu decision, though mapped out earlier. There was one tricky part, involving passage on what I thought was a trail but could not be absolutely sure wasn’t a driveway.

My trespassing days are over (though never say never) so I was hoping there were no fences to scale. I was relieved that there were not. I walked the three miles absolutely legitimately.

These were suburban miles, to be sure. Not a bucolic woodland trail but a paved path along a four-lane road where motorists drive 10 or even 20 miles above the posted 40 miles-per-hour limit.

Still, I’d achieved what once I could never have imagined — I’d made my way, on foot, from one home to another. It felt like a break-through. In fact, it was.

I’ve developed a cautious approach to reading the newspaper these days. I want to be informed, but refuse to let the news dictate my day. I’ll scan the headlines, dip into stories that interest me, perhaps read a few op-eds, then call it a day.

This morning I lingered over a story that fits perfectly into the philosophy of A Walker in the Suburbs. A counselor at a Maine high school, transformed by her own hike on the Appalachian Trail, decided to offer a hike instead of detention to students caught skipping class or talking back to their teachers.

While students grumbled and some parents worried that this wasn’t punishment enough, the counselor persisted. A year later, students report that the hikes have enlarged their perspectives. They feel soothed and encouraged by the three-mile expeditions. Some feel invested in school for the first time. Others hike even when they’re not in detention.

Solvitur ambulando is the unofficial motto of this blog. “It is solved by walking.” It is also solved by being outside, watching the play of light on trees, joining the parade of seasons, trudging the extra mile.

I’m always heartened to find further proof of these truths.

Some days, I walk to stretch my legs, to get my muscles moving. Other days, it’s mental exercise I crave. The ideas flow best when the body moves through space.

But yesterday, I walked for none of these reasons. Yesterday, I walked for tomatoes.

I took the long way around, ambled one half of a circular trail, crossed and recrossed the Glade, went up a hill and down some stairs. And, close to the end of my route, I stopped in at a farmer’s market. The tomatoes were ripe and I bought three.

What fun to stroll back to the car with my precious cargo. Not just my phone and keys (the essentials), but also with those three tomatoes.

A walk doesn’t need a reason — but if it does, tomatoes are a good one.

Yesterday I slipped out between the raindrops for a walk around Lake Anne. This is one of my favorite Reston walks, one I often take with a good friend, though sometimes I do it solo after my yoga class.

This bridge is on that route, a bridge to nowhere, you might think, though that wouldn’t be exactly right. It’s only a short pedestrian bridge, doesn’t span a great river or even a shallow canal, but it brings me full-circle from the community center, where my yoga class is held, back to my car. A bridge to somewhere, after all.

On the way I pass gardens, kayaks, rock sculptures, a cafe and a bookstore. The best walks are like this, I think. They combine natural features — woods, fields and streams — with signs of human habitation: houses, stores, cafes. And then there are bridges. A good walk might include one of those, too.

It may not look like much, but it’s an improvement, two crosswalks instead of one, new crossing lights, and paved walkways on the corners (notable since my neighborhood has no sidewalks). The intersection is finally becoming a walker’s corner.

For weeks this summer workers busied themselves erecting poles, stringing wires, pouring concrete. I couldn’t figure it out at first. All I knew was that traffic funneled into one lane and it took longer to get through the light.

But then they finished up and the mess made sense, though it seems an empty gesture in some ways. My area is more walkable than it used to be, but it’s no walker’s paradise. I routinely drive to walk because it’s more pleasant to stroll when you aren’t fanned by 60-mile-an-hour tailwinds.

But every effort helps, and this corner has long needed some love. If pedestrianism is part of the picture, so much the better.

I’ve missed trail walking this summer. It keeps me grounded; it keeps me sane. But heat and humidity have scrambled my schedule. Many days I hoof it right after waking up, when there’s still a trace of nighttime coolness in the air.

Walking at this hour means I stroll the streets of my neighborhood. Driving to walk seems strange enough midday or later; at 7 a.m. it’s too ridiculous to contemplate.

Or is it?

Yesterday’s immersion was so pleasant that it made me want to trail walk every day. I’m not alone. There’s parking along the road, and my car usually has company.

It was late afternoon by the time I escaped yesterday, and the air was full of moisture and cicada song. Which is how it is right now. And so … I’m off to trail walk.

There’s a new speedometer in town, or at least in my neighborhood, one of those portable gizmos that’s set up to remind motorists to slow down. This one has colored lights that blink when you go more than 10 miles over the 25 miles-per-hour limit.

I walk past this speedometer every day. At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. Was that a number up there as I approached? A single-digit number, true, but still, a number — 6!

I wasn’t speeding, not by a long shot, but my puny pedestrian footfall was being picked up and measured. Yes, officer, I’ll slow down. I could have sworn I was only doing 5.

Truth be told, I probably did clock six miles an hour when I ran the occasional 10K road race, covering the 6.2 miles in 54 or 55 minutes. But that was long ago. Now I’m lucky to make 3.5 miles an hour. The machine seems to round up. It’s bad news for motorists, but good news for walkers in the suburbs.