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Category: walking

Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

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I hadn’t intended it, but on Wednesday I nearly walked around Lake Audubon. I’d started with nothing more than a different route: down Glade to the nature center, along paths untrodden for years. But that road led to a paved path, then a waterside trail, then a bridge I hadn’t known was there.

When I found a street again, I was past the high school, on my way around the lake.  This was significant, my version of the northwest passage. I could now (sort of) circumnavigate the lake where last summer I felt briefly lost. 

Further proof that my ambles have purpose if not destinations, and further proof, also, that my home is Reston. But more on that later. 

Walking and Belonging

Walking and Belonging

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In his book The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City, Matthew Beaumont describes walking as s socially and psychologically meaningful activity.  Authors make cities seem new and strange when they wander through them on foot. And they have their characters do the same.

So just as Charles Dickens ambled along the lanes of Victorian London, so too do some of his characters, including Mr. Humphreys of The Old Curiosity Shop.  Apparently, Dickens walked for the same reason many of us do: to calm himself down, to ease tensions. 

Beaumont examines city walking in the work of Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward), H.G. Wells (The Invisible Man) and others, illuminating both the texts and the walking in the process.

 I take issues with one of Beaumont’s major points, though, which is to see walking as a symbol and a symptom of not belonging: the solitary nighttime stroller at odds with the world he lives in (and it often is a “he” since women’s nocturnal walking opportunities are more limited than men’s). 

From my suburban vantage point, walking is an activity that encourages belonging because it engenders understanding. How can we care about a place that we do not know, and how can we know a place that we never see … except as it streams by outside our car windows?

Whimsical Walk

Whimsical Walk

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The suburb of Reston, Virginia, is made for walking. Trails wind from neighborhood to neighborhood. Founder Robert E. Simon (the “RES” in Reston) designed the suburb for living and working. The trails connect the two.

Yesterday I strolled from Reston’s earliest “downtown,” Lake Anne, to its newest, Reston Town Center.  I’d never taken this path before, though I’d skirted quite close to it through the years. 

Along the way, I passed Hickory Cluster, a midcentury modern townhome development with big windows and geometric lines created in the 1960s by architect Charles Goodman. There were impromptu conversations in the community forest, one woman with a pair of corgis, another with a fluffy golden retriever. 

I passed a small giveaway library and the charming little scene above. The whimsy suited the place, looked perfectly at home among the woodland paths and the open common. I slowed my pace because I didn’t want this walk to end.

Lenten Rose

Lenten Rose

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A walk through Georgetown before class last evening renewed my hankering for Lenten roses. What creamy beauties they are, how full-bodied compared with their early spring cousins the snowdrop and winter aconite. I’ve wanted to plant Lenten roses (also known as hellebores) for years, but now I’m on a mission. 

Of course, last night I was being swayed by the excellent company the plants were keeping, by the environment in which I spotted them. A late winter afternoon, sun slanting low over cobblestones, grand houses standing guard over a neighborhood I could walk through for hours and never tire of.

Even a dandelion would look good in that setting. 

Without the Directions

Without the Directions

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On a doggie walk this morning I was stopped short in my tracks. Tree limbs were shiny, glazed with ice. It was unexpected and almost magical.

It was the best of both worlds, too, because the pavement wasn’t affected. There was friction on the driveway, fairyland up above.

I hadn’t known this was coming, hadn’t read weather reports that freezing rain was in the forecast.

It struck me then, and I second it now, that life is more exciting when we forget to read the directions.  

Loud and Low

Loud and Low

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When the winds howl, the planes fly loud and low over the house. I snapped this photo yesterday while on a breezy walk. 

Throughout the length and breadth of the neighborhood I was the only soul out for a stroll.

Call it cabin fever or just plain stubbornness. Whatever it was, it put me in place to snap this shot. 

Framing

Framing

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In class we talk about the “death” of the author which makes room for the “birth” of the reader, of interpretive communities that shape our understanding of literary works, and of the “indeterminacy” or gaps in meaning that allow for an aesthetic response. 

That last one seems like the loft and lightness of a shook comforter, the air pockets that provide fullness to linens and literature. 

It’s fun to think about. Just as it’s fun to think about framing, the narration of a tale that makes it what it is. Here I am, walking down a trail, pausing to snap a shot, my shadow in the photo. Life mirroring art … or something like that. 

Counterclockwise

Counterclockwise

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Today I went left rather than straight out of my neighborhood and took a familiar walk in the opposite direction. 

There were the fronts of houses I usually see only the backs of; there was the wooded trail glimpsed from afar, through a backyard. 

There were ponds glinting in the morning sun, which was in my face rather than over my shoulder. 

There was this warm winter morning, made new by a change in rotation, clockwise, rather than counter.

Going Nowhere

Going Nowhere

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A walker in winter may be trapped indoors by rain, ice, snow or cold. For several years now, though, I’ve had a secret weapon, a way to walk inside that doesn’t involve pacing. That would be the elliptical in the basement. 

The machine is designed to work out not just the legs and hips but also the arms and shoulders. The only part of the body it leaves untouched is the brain, that restless organ. 

Outdoor walks provide a moving display of images on which to dwell: familiar houses comfort, treed paths shelter, new vistas enliven.

But the elliptical walker has, if she wishes, a TV with streaming shows and old movies and whatever else she can find for distraction. She has a library of music and books to plug into on her phone. She has, in short, the world at her fingertips. And so she walks, and walks, and walks … going nowhere but quite content. 

Mall By Myself

Mall By Myself

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Yesterday, I was a walker in the city, not the suburbs. I began at 18th and L, deep in the business district. But that’s not where I stayed.

The Mall was my destination, heading toward the Capitol and my former walking route, site of numerous lunchtime strolls.

The monuments were there, glinting in a warm winter sun. The White House, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries building.

What was missing, what always seems to be missing these days, was the people. Empty thoroughfares make good straightaways, but what I would give if this scene were clogged with tourists and pickup soccer games and pale office workers out for a noontime jog.