A Walker in the Suburbs

I first heard the phrase “motion is lotion” from a physical therapist. I took to it right away. Movement matters. It can heal body, mind and spirit. The more you move, the more easily you move. I believe this. Most walkers do.

The expression pops into mind especially after a new exercise routine or enthusiastic weeding session leaves me stiff and sore. That was the case this morning, as I hobbled out of bed into my running tights and t-shirt to do the neighborhood loop with an ever-loosening gait.

My eyes have healed and I’ve no more excuses to skip the grunt work of exercising: the planks and poses that pit body weight against gravity. I went up against the weeds over the weekend, too. They have run rampant lately.

All of which means I needed the lotion that comes from motion. Come to think of it, I should get up and move a little more right now.

(Walkers in York, England, get some lotion from their motion.)

It was the most positive health story I’ve read in a long time, discussing a study in the July issue of Neurology which found that people who walk faster than their peers are less likely to experience cognitive decline.

Maybe this makes up for all the crossword puzzles I don’t work, all the chess I don’t play, and all the supplements I don’t take.

The study looked at 5,000 older people and builds on earlier research that studied folks in their 80s who walk at the speed of 50-year-olds. In short,”super movers” age more slowly. They’re healthier and more long-lived.

The article doesn’t discuss the sore muscles and creaky knees that can accompany a faster gait. Are these aches and pains a small price to pay? It depends on how bad one is hurting, I suppose.

But I know where I fall on the issue. I’ll keep walking as fast as I can, for as long as I can.

When I found myself with dilated eyes and time to kill before driving home, I did what all curious walkers do: explored the area. In this case, the area included one of the largest malls in the U.S. There was just one hitch: reaching the place on foot.

The Tysons Corner area is not pedestrian friendly. It may become more so in time — or at least that’s the hope. The Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority (WMATA) put four stations in the Tysons area when it was routing the Silver Line in a bid to make the neighborhood more walkable. But it will take more than that, I’m afraid.

It will take more weirdos like me, people willing to stroll across 10 lanes of traffic on a broiling-hot afternoon. At least there was a crosswalk.

(This is not a pretty picture, but that’s the point.)

I’m just back from a Reston trails walk. It was good to have a change of scene after days of hoofing it through the neighborhood.

Not that I have anything against my neighborhood. It’s bucolic, as suburban subdivisions go, but it’s limited. I march up and down one major thoroughfare.

When I walk the Reston trails I meander along the Glade Creek, or circle Lake Newport. I cross bridges, trudge up hills and down. I explore any side trails that look appealing. A walk becomes an adventure.

Or least that’s the way it seems at the time. Maybe it’s just the walkers high.

Yesterday’s walk was business as usual, the neighborhood loop in humidity so thick it felt like I was striding through pea soup. I consoled myself with memories of Deep Creek walks.

Though we were only there seven days I found a lovely route: a stretch of road with tall trees that met up high, cathedral-like, befitting the book I was reading, Sarum, about Salisbury, England, and its cathedral.

The light that reached walkers was dappled and fine, with puddles of sunshine and brief bright stretches. Each stroll lifted me up, spun me out of daily duties into higher realms. Which is, after all, what you want a walk to do.

We stopped for a hike on the way home from the lake, strode through tall grass and old forest, sat on a bench and watched the eddies in Tolliver Creek.

At one point we heard a bird that sounded familiar, that sounded as if it was talking to us right from the heart of the woods. The Merlin app told us it was a hermit thrush, a relative of the wood thrush I heard last month.

It was a gem of a walk, with paths through meadow, park and woods. At the end we watched as butterflies fed on milkweed. It’s all the rage to plant milkweed now — we have some in our yard — but this was one of the first times I’ve watched animals taking advantage of it.

Milkweed is not an unattractive plant, but it’s not my favorite, either. Seeing it as food made me appreciate it more. Hikes can be food, too, sustenance for the spirit. This one was for me.

I felt as if I was feeding on the forest. After the clamor and clang of a busy week with the family, it was a quiet moment, time to absorb all the week had to offer.

It happened on an ordinary walk, and it happened twice, since this ordinary walk was on a circular trail, where you run into people more than once if you’re strolling in opposite directions.

I’m glad it happened twice, though, because the first time I didn’t believe my eyes. By the second time, I was sure. A fellow walker, a man about my age, smiled and tipped his hat as we passed.

I’ve written before about how walkers acknowledge each other. I don’t expect much, am happy if I get a nod or wave. I never expected a tip of the hat. Such behavior harkens back to an earlier age, when gentlemen wore fedoras and opened doors for ladies.

Did the hat-tipper similarly acknowledge male walkers? I have no answer to that question. But I do know how nice it felt to be the recipient of a such a courtesy. It was a congenial gesture; it made me smile all the way back to the parking lot.

(President Calvin Coolidge tips his hat. Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

In music, the phrase “a tempo” means to return to the original pace. In the last few weeks (touch wood) I have been returning to my original walking speed.

I had slowed down through the winter and spring due to a hamstring thing. I won’t dignify it by calling it an injury but I will say that it turned my allegro into an adagio.

But now, if I’m careful, my stride is little more my own. The trick is knowing when I’ve overdone and backing off. I’m not as good at that as I hope to become.

It’s a good lesson not just in walking, but in life.

(Sometimes the sand slows me down.)

I had been flipping through a book I read long ago called Suburban Nation when I heard of a new book called Sidewalk Nation. I love the symmetry in this. The irony, too.

In my suburb, there are no sidewalks. One walks along the side of the road, which is mostly no problem — until it is, in wintertime or during what passes as rush hour in these parts.

New arrivals to our neighborhood complain about the lack of sidewalks — I certainly did — only to be put off when they hear from old-timers about the difficulty of installing them, the property rights battles that might ensure, and the supposed allure of the more “rural” look our bare roads seem to provide.

Sidewalk Nation is on my to-be-read pile, so I imagine I’ll post on it at some point. I’ll be interested to learn what it has to teach me. Until then, I’ll stroll on the sidewalk-less road that is part of our landscape now — and probably always will be.

Yesterday I walked on the way to the grocery store — didn’t walk to the store, of course; that’s not done in the suburbs. But I have a route I work in on the way to food shop. So I pulled into the parking lot that’s usually empty and found it … full. I’d forgotten that pools are open now, and this lot serves one, a community pool we used years ago, when the girls were younger.

At the end of our several-year membership there, I was the only one who used it. I would slip out after supper and swim laps. It was divine. Yesterday, though, I could only listen to the sound of splashing, the thunk of kiddie cannonballs.

Think of all the sun exposure you’re avoiding, I tried telling myself. It didn’t work. I wanted to be slicing through the cool water doing the crawl or breast stroke.

But I kept moving and the walking worked its magic. I had the pavement and the blue skies and Beethoven in my ears. I had the miracle of movement, which eases the mind and tires the body. I had/have so much. And when I’m walking, I remember it.