Browsed by
Category: walking

Framing

Framing

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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.

Georgetown Gazetteer

Georgetown Gazetteer

Comments 0 Comment

Tomorrow, my humanities class moves from online to in-person, so I’ll drive to Georgetown again, as I was doing last fall.  I’m looking forward to meeting classmates in person, though of course there will be the nervousness of any new venture. 

I took a trial run of sorts on Friday when I visited campus for a required Covid test. That was accomplished in minutes, which left plenty of time for a stroll around campus and through the neighborhood.

Flurries were flying as I walked the brick sidewalks and dreamed myself into the Federal townhouses. There was the buff pink with dark green shutters, a stately corner manse, a teal-shuttered beauty with the view of Georgetown Visitation. 

It’s a tough choice … but I’ll take one of those mansions on Prospect, one with a river view, please. 

Monochromatic

Monochromatic

Comments 0 Comment

It was just above freezing yesterday when I set off through the woods down a path that leads to our sister neighborhood on Westwood Hills Drive. I had walked there a couple weeks ago and admired the forest views, the courts and cul-de-sacs, the feeling of being on the other side of the looking glass. But I’d driven to that walk. This one was solely by shank’s mare. 

Finding new ways to escape the neighborhood on foot is becoming a minor obsession. I enjoy the great suburban irony — driving to walk — but still like to subvert it whenever possible.

Yesterday’s walk was a pleasing mix of sedate street and woodland trail. The ground was thawing in the latter and mud was a factor (my shoes were banished to the garage after the stroll). But I plunged on, making a large loop through the still, spare, monochromatic landscape. 

Frozen Walk

Frozen Walk

Comments 0 Comment

It was a frozen world I walked through yesterday. Bundled up in my warmest coat, hooded and thick-socked, I made my way along the Franklin Farm trails, which were understandably empty. You know it’s cold when even the dog-walkers stay inside. 

The paths were mostly clear, but any pooled water was frozen solid. I stopped and examined the ice, snapped photos, wondered why some ice is milky white and other is clear, thought perhaps I should have learned that in high school but did not. Mostly, I moved quickly. A winter walk is bracing, as long as it’s short. 

Wind-Whipped Walk

Wind-Whipped Walk

Comments 0 Comment

On Friday, ahead of what I’d heard would be a snow-stormy weekend, I took a brisk walk around Lake Audubon. Well, not exactly around, but as far as I could go. 

The wind had already picked up, and it was moving across the lake, creating patches of sunlight on the water that glimmered and moved with the wind.

I was wearing my warm black parka with the faux-fur-lined hood, which kept me warm but hampered movement, so I wasn’t skittering ahead as quickly as I usually do. But I was comfortable and meditative and feeling energized by the wind in my face. 

These are the moments that gladden the lives of walkers everywhere — or at least this one. 

Picketing

Picketing

Comments 0 Comment

When you’ve seen a movie as often as I’ve seen “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the lines you may not have noticed on first or second viewings pop out at you later.

One of the exchanges I noticed this past December, during my umpteenth watching of this holiday classic, happens when Mary sees George Bailey walking back and forth in front of her house, presumably getting up the nerve to knock on her door. “Are you picketing?” she asks, in a lovingly jocular way that would come to characterize their relationship.

I think of that line often as I walk Copper, an old doggie whose idea of a long stroll is making it one driveway down and back. First we turn right out of the driveway. After a brief mosey on that side of the yard and a careful sniffing of the planter at the foot of the mailbox, we turn the other way and stroll over to the forsythia and its band of encircling liriope, where there are more sniffs to be had, long lovely inhalations, as if Copper was about to swill a fine wine.

Sometimes we repeat this backing and forthing several times before we go inside. Does it feel like picketing? Absolutely! All we need is a sign: “More meat, less kibble!”

Flash Gratitude

Flash Gratitude

Comments 0 Comment

I have in my temporary possession a book called The Best of Brevity. It’s a compilation of short essays from the journal Brevity, which features flash nonfiction. 

The genre of flash nonfiction is relatively new to me, although I write it everyday. It is the true-to-life equivalent of flash fiction. part of a trend — probably long since peaked if I’m catching onto it — toward the brief, the ephemeral, the transitory. 

Let me add to this canon with what I’ve come to think of as flash gratitude. 

Flash gratitude is the sudden, piercing awareness of life’s blessings. Stubbing one’s toe and thinking … at least I have a toe to stub. Or hearing the gentle purr of forced-air heat and giving thanks for the warm home I sit in as a result. 

I had a moment of flash gratitude yesterday when I heard about fellow Virginians trapped for 18 to 20 hours on an impassable I-95. They were cold, hungry, frightened and, most likely, angry. They were bearing the brunt of the snow storm in a real and all-too-personal way. 

Let this be a gratitude trigger, I told myself. Whenever life looks bleak and purposeless, I will conjure up those poor souls trapped in their Kias or Toyotas or Hondas or Fords, those poor shivering drivers and passengers, and my heart will nearly burst with joy that I am anywhere else but on a snow-packed, jack-knifed-tractor-filled I-95. 

(This snow has its beauteous moments, too.)