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Category: walking

These Boots

These Boots

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I began yesterday’s walk by pulling on a pair of ancient snow boots. These black beauties have fake fur at the top and a stubborn zipper. But once on, they can take me places.

Down the snow-packed driveway, onto the slushy, icy street and finally to a more thoroughly plowed thoroughfare. 

In the woods, trees were groaning and cracking. The snow was heavy, a burden for brittle branches, some of which gave way within earshot. 

But on the street, it was a different story. You could see the trees from a safe distance, could view the whitened trunks, the felted ferns. The boots gave me traction and confidence. Without them, I would have missed the world transformed.

Three Paths

Three Paths

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This is not about three paths — or two, for that matter — diverging in the woods, taking one and never knowing if it makes the difference. This is not about life choices, in other words. 

This is about three paths walked in the last three days: a Reston trail on Monday, the W&OD on Tuesday and Franklin Farm today. One shady and still, the next cloudy and cold, today’s breezy and bright. 

I think about how often I’ve strode up and down my neighborhood’s main drag, how boring it can be, how I thrive on variety, and how grateful I am that this week, at least, I’ve had it.

Church Bells

Church Bells

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My church backs into a many-pathed woods poised on a rise above a creek called The Glade. Some weekends I drive over there early, park in the near-empty lot, and take a walk before mass begins. 

The last two weeks, I’ve attended the latest service. The sun has set while I’m strolling, the air grown still. I know I’m preparing to pray, not actually praying, but it’s hard to convince myself of that. The sauntering feels just as holy, the forest just as much a cathedral. 

As if to emphasize the point, church bells toll as I finish the walk. These are real bells, not recorded ones. I feel like a medieval serf being called from the fields, drawn from drudgery to the promise of eternal life. 

Putting the Lap in Laptop

Putting the Lap in Laptop

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As a walker in the suburbs I write very little about sitting. But sitting has become my bane. It is such a necessary part of modern existence, especially when one is mostly working on a laptop, which, by its very definition requires sitting. But I’ve done far too much of it through the years and my body is letting me know it’s displeased. 

Of course, I can stand up when I write, edit or read — and I try to put my standing desk through its paces as often as I can. But when I really need to pull out all the stops with the gray matter, I need either to be walking or sitting. 

And lately … I’ve been sitting. 

(A good place to sit if you have to!)

Way Too Early

Way Too Early

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The Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Rails to Trails path was bustling late yesterday when I finally made my way to it. There were runners and walkers and cyclists, mostly the latter zooming by with a brisk warning of “passing on the left.” 

I slipped into what I always think of as the “bridle path” part of the trail, the unpaved route that runs alongside the asphalt. But due to the bridges over Herndon and Fairfax County Parkways, I couldn’t always stay on that calmer and less traveled path. 

What I could do was to focus on the scenery I passed: the changing colors of the deciduous trees. 

The subtle beauty of the shaggy undergrowth … and the sun setting way too early, once again.

A Walk Recorded

A Walk Recorded

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I took a stroll late yesterday through the gloaming, the exquisite though way-too-early gloaming — I was walking between 4 and 5! — then came home and wrote these words:

The late fall light is draining quickly from the sky and a bright near-half moon showing itself. There are the most delicate of evening sounds: a few hardy crickets, the bird that says “Judy” (did I determine that’s a wren?) and various human-caused sounds — a pinging that could have come from a small forge but was likely a kid banging on a pipe — the distant downshift of a passing truck. But none of these sounds disturbed the peacefulness of the landscape. They only enhanced it. 

Some of the shorter shrubs have lost most of their leaves. Those that remain seem to be offering themselves for viewing, like golden coins on a platter. Back on my street, the russets and scarlets of the maples and oaks shimmered in the twilight. 

Night falls fast this time of year, but when it’s warm, as it has been today, that doesn’t seem to matter as much.

Made by Walking

Made by Walking

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We make the road by walking. That was the sentence beamed on the wall of the Methodist church in Arlington where Bernadette was baptized on Saturday. Bernadette like an old-fashioned baby in her long white baptismal gown and cap. Bernadette who reaches out her arms to be held, who crawls like a house afire and pulls herself up to stand. She is a delight, though she can still cry with the best of them.

While she has perfected the piercing wail, her cousin Isaiah has mastered the wild bird shriek, his way of letting folks know he’s not getting his way. And he used this to perfection during the baptism, even as his parents fed him Cheerios, age-old food of parents in distress, and did everything else they could to occupy him during the service.

It seems like not that long ago we were the parents on the front lines, we were the ones grabbing those little pencils and envelopes in the pews, handing kids keys and trinkets they would never be allowed to touch otherwise. We were the ones carrying a screaming baby out of the sanctuary. We were the ones making the road by walking.

During the sermon, the pastor talked about how those who come before us make the way … just as we make the way for those who come after us. A lovely image not only for the Path of Life, capital P, capital L, but for every little lower-case section of it.

Driving Day

Driving Day

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It’s been a driving day — not a Sunday-drive kind of driving day but a rush-to-the-dentist-then-run-errands kind of driving day.

It’s been the kind of driving day when I look longingly out the window as I zoom past side trails I’ve strolled, imagining what it would be like to be on them rather than behind the wheel of a car. 

I’ve smelled the pine needles, pushed a low-hanging branch out of my way, even felt the fine feathery tendrils of a spider web. 

But all the while I was really cruising down Main Street, Chain Bridge Road, the Beltway. I was in Fairfax and Vienna and Tysons Corner. Everywhere and nowhere, which is how it is when you’re driving. All the while racing to get home … so I can walk.

Vienna Walk

Vienna Walk

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I found myself in Vienna last Friday. Not Vienna, Austria (though that would have been nice) but Vienna, Virginia, which is 20 minutes from my house, a place I often pass through on my way to somewhere else.

There is a strange disconnect to walk along streets one usually drives, sort of like flipping a video from regular play into slow-mo. 

There is the house on the corner lot with its split-rail fence and funky upstairs addition — but instead of zipping by it I can see the details, the little upstairs deck with its wrought-iron tables and unmatched chairs.

There are streets whose names elude me at 35 miles per hour: Garrett and Malcolm and Holmes. Solid middle-class names, though their neighborhoods are ones made pricey by their (mostly) large lots and desirable location within walking distance of Metro (back when that mattered). 

I ambled along Center and Lawyers, past Salsbury Spring, which was the only source of water for the area during the drought of 1930. I saw the place with new eyes after learning that, felt a little more connected to this place I (almost) call home. 

Mirror of the Moment

Mirror of the Moment

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So many walks to choose from these days, paths around ponds and through forests. Trails in the morning, chaste of footfall. Paths in the afternoon, littered with leaf bits from all the walking.

On Tuesday I passed two ponds, a bright one with cattails and a shady one rippled as if a fan were blowing on it. 

The water was meditative, brisk, a mirror of the moment.