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Waterfront Walk

Waterfront Walk

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The Seattle waterfront is a boisterous place. You can almost imagine early settlers here, lumberjacks and Gold Rush guys — such is the energy of the ferries and buskers and tourists and water taxis. 

There was a pier you could walk on to be more at one with the water and the waves. The guy sitting at the end of it yelled down to me. “How big do you think that fishing boat is? I think about 40, 50 feet,” he said. I said yes, having absolutely no reason to disagree with him. 

I wanted to move beyond all of this, though, to a place where water met land. So I kept walking north, toward Alaska (as the sign said), to the Olympic Sculpture Garden and a little cove where driftwood and drifters gathered. I could have walked all day, but I had a train to catch. 

Path Not Taken

Path Not Taken

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No long hikes yesterday, but several walks around the neighborhood. I explored the Cathedral of St. James, a local bookstore, the leafy streets around this hotel and a college campus with green paths and rhododendrons tall as trees. 

It’s hard to say which kind of day I like better, the long-hike ones or the short-foray ones. The first is the sweeping overview, the second a drilling down, an immersion in the particular, like finding a good cafe for take-out hot tea that is not Starbucks.

The kind of day I had yesterday makes me think about what it would be like to live here, to be part of the rhythms and moods of this place. It’s something I do whenever I travel, a creative exercise, pondering the path not taken.

Lake Union Walk

Lake Union Walk

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Lake Union is a freshwater lake contained entirely within the city limits of Seattle. It’s a port, a neighborhood and a playground — and we walked all the way around it yesterday.

We trekked from Westlake to Eastlake, from the Center for Wooden Boats to Gas Works Park. We crossed the Fremont Bridge and the University Bridge. We sometimes wandered off course, but always found our way back again.

The trail was a visual feast, with skyline city views, en plein air artists capturing the gas works in watercolor, boats stacked on boats, floating homes tucked away in private coves, roses blooming in pocket-handkerchief-sized gardens, even a goose and goslings. 

Yes, the feet are a little sore this morning, but what a way to see the city!

Shimmering

Shimmering

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Over the weekend, there were walks without clock-watching, walks through every cul-de-sac in Folkstone, starting off slowly and gathering speed only when the body felt ready. 

Walks with frequent pauses, not for breath but for beauty. 

The azaleas were shimmering … and I couldn’t resist. 

Sauntering

Sauntering

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Writing a blog called A Walker in the Suburbs means I’ve become familiar with all the lovely synonyms for walking: strolling, ambling, rambling, trekking, treading and wandering. By far one of my favorites is sauntering. But until yesterday I never thought much about its derivation. It was while looking up Thoreau on another quest that I found this, from his essay “Walking”: 

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived ‘from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,’ to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, ‘There goes a Sainte-Terrer,’ a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.”

Although some would say the word “saunter” comes from “sans terre,” without land or home, Thoreau continues, this is fine, too, because being without a home can also mean being equally at home everywhere — and that in fact is the secret of successful sauntering.  

I’m looking forward to more sauntering and more Thoreau. 

A Constant

A Constant

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Morning on the Hunter’s Woods Trail: Mozart in my ears, details in my brain, details I hoped would filter away like a dusting of snow through trampoline mesh. And the rhythm of footfall did clarify the day; it reminded me of what is most important, which is to live fully when and where we are.

I was aided in this by the appearance of wildlife: first, a fox sauntering down the trail ahead of me and then, on the drive home, a wild turkey beside the road, bobbing its head as it fled into the woods.  

The critters pulled me into the present and away from the fact that this is a departure day, which is not nearly as nice as an arrival day. 

But the warmth is finally here, and the day is as perfect in its way as the cold, windy Thursday that brought her here. Both days are required, one for coming, the other for going — with the walks a constant between the two. 

An Irish Walk

An Irish Walk

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There were cobblestones and spongy soil, rocky fields and urban trails. The walks of Ireland took us from Giant’s Causeway to Trinity College — and many places in between.

One of my favorites, which I’m reliving today, took us from central Kinsale to Charles Fort. It was a sun-dappled paved path with jaw-dropping views of the harbor that winked at us every now and then. 

Seeing the landscape up close, at walking pace, has kept it close to my heart. The memories of that walk are embedded there, to be pulled out at special times — like St. Patrick’s Day — to remember and to cherish.

The Details

The Details

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Sometimes all it takes is a short stroll to open the mind and senses to the day ahead. Today I took the long way around to the newspaper — out the back door, down the deck stairs, around the garden and through the gate and side yard to the driveway where it lay, double-bagged in orange.

The ground is hard and cracked, given two weeks without moisture, which made it easy for me to amble out there in my (sturdily-soled) slippers. Weather folks say we need the rain, but I say we need the dryness. The yard is finally not a lake anymore.

On my short expedition, I found several sticks that I broke over my knee and stuck in the bin for tomorrow’s yard waste pickup. I noted the fine pruning of the hollies, which no longer graze the garage. I heard the tiny peeps of birds fluttering awake in the azaleas. And I spotted swollen buds on the forsythia.

It’s a new day, these details said. Embrace it!

Grateful Balance

Grateful Balance

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On Saturday, I met my brother and sister for a walk, all three of us fully and gratefully vaccinated. We gathered in a park near the river on a day that seemed ordinary but was a long time coming. 

It was just a walk, a simple walk, but we hadn’t been together without masks on in over a year, have hardly been together at all, so it felt both new and old at the same time. 

It’s a challenge to balance the emotions — being mindful of those who still suffer while celebrating my own return to semi-normalcy — but one I’m happy to undertake. 

(A photo from an earlier walk: I was too much in the moment to take one on Saturday.) 

 

Early Walk

Early Walk

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There was time for an early walk this morning, a chilly start to a day that has already warmed considerably. But a few hours ago, I bundled up and crunched along the gravel berm, thinking about the hours soon to be unfolding.

It had been a while since I walked early, preferring the lunch-time stroll when temperatures are below freezing. But with warmer air and earlier dawns, that is shifting.

The day is different when you walk in the morning. It stretches out endlessly and without complications.  At noontime, the work of the day is very much in my mind. But the morning belongs to the half-awake brain and the thoughts that weave in and out of it.