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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.

The Soundtrack

The Soundtrack

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With slower walks closer to home, the soundtrack of the stroll grows in importance. Because as much as I would like to say that I walk in silence, the better to hear the faint voice of inspiration, I usually do not. In fact, the music often is the inspiration. At the very least, it’s the pace-setter.

Sometimes it’s Bach or Brahms or Dvorak coursing through my brain, and my cadence flows from the tempo of the movement, speedy during the prestos, slower for the adagios.  Other times, I play jazz or folk or show tunes; the latter have a lightheartedness especially appreciated these days. The soundtrack can be seasonal, too: Irish tunes are prepped and ready for next month. 

Music is a mood enhancer, amplifying good thoughts, soothing anxious ones. Often I come back in the house from an amble and keep the buds in my ears, finishing a movement or a song, prolonging the escape just a little longer. The soundtrack of the walk throws long shadows on the rest of the day.  

Walk Once Taken

Walk Once Taken

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Behind our street is an alternative universe of five-acre lots. There are barns and horses and houses with names. When the girls were young I would walk them to school through that neighborhood. 

We just had to slip through the backyard across the street to access one of the trails, stay close to the fence line for a few hundred feet and then reach the road, which was only paved a few years ago.

But the neighbors whose backyard offered access have moved away. And the house closest to us in that neighborhood has just been torn down. Construction trucks come and go, and you can see through the sparse winter tree coverage how large the new house will be. 

It will be difficult for me to walk that way again, though I doubt I will stop trying. 

All That Glitters

All That Glitters

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Walks have been slower lately, both to baby an aching foot and stay clear of icy patches on the street. I miss the faster pace. I see more of the landscape this way, true, but the landscape of late winter is not always one on which you want to linger. 

Odd remnants of leftover snow, garbage cans seemingly abandoned by the side of the road, piles of pruned and discarded azalea branches. I’m reminded of late winter in Chicago, when the snow would melt and my enthusiasm for warmer weather would be tempered by seeing what had been hiding beneath the white stuff for weeks.

The suburban landscape is more forgiving, though, the ratio of green to gray easier on the eye, and there have been times lately when the salt crystals on the road gleam like so many rough diamonds. At my slower pace I can see them sparkle. 

Eleven Years

Eleven Years

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Eleven years ago today, on another snowy Super Bowl Sunday, I started this blog. It was something I’d been meaning to do for years, but the windfall of time made possible by a weather disruption gave me the space I needed to make the resolution come true. 

I still remember sitting on the couch, setting up the blog account, finding it easier than I thought. I had the title in mind, and a rough idea of what I wanted to say (though it would take months to learn how to size the photos), but it came together with the ease of something that was meant to be.  It seemed to me then, and on good days still seems to be … magic. 

Magic occurs when ideas have the room and reception to put down roots and grow. “Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest,” writes the author and memoirist Elizabeth Gilbert. “And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.” 

For eleven years, I’ve partnered with the idea of A Walker in the Suburbs, writing about walking and place and books and family life. I’m glad it came to visit me, this idea. But most of all, I’m grateful I chose to welcome it. 

Walker Meets Ice

Walker Meets Ice

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These days, walks are timed for optimal warmth and light. They must also flow around work projects and meetings, which is how I found myself looking for strips of pavement amid the icy patches on our street yesterday about 3 p.m. 

The snow had finally stopped, which wasn’t altogether welcome — it was fun living inside a snow globe for a few days — and a stiff breeze was drying off the wet parts of the road. The problem was that it was freezing the slush almost as quickly. 

I’m a fearless walker … until ice enters the picture. I have a healthy respect for it and will be glad when it melts away. Until then, I will make my way through the landscape very slowly … if at all! 

(Above: where ice should stay, in my humble opinion!)