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Category: walking

Being Here

Being Here

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Sometimes on my morning strolls with Copper I look around at the familiar houses and yards, and catch my breath at the loveliness. It’s the slight roll of the land, the trees turning yellow and gold, the shaggy white miniature daisies that border the common land garden. 

This is not to say I live in some magical place, some beauty spot. It’s a subdivision in a suburb of Washington, D.C., (are there enough “subs” there?), one of hundreds. We love it for the sense of community we found from the beginning, and love it more now because it’s where the girls grew up. 

But what I was responding to this morning (and do so often these days) is the natural world that is more present now than it used to be. We have lost much during this pandemic — but one thing I’ve gained is a greater appreciation of this small patch of land where I find myself. 

It’s where I am most of the time now. And it’s not a bad place to be.

Twin Branches Trail

Twin Branches Trail

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A weekend walk reminded me of just how wild the Reston trails can be, especially the stretch between Twin Branches and the W&OD Trail, which winds along the Snakeden Branch of the Glade.

It angles up, then steeply down, crosses a stream then follows it for three-quarters of a mile. Houses are a rare sight. Instead, it’s trees and paths and creek water singing.

How easy it is to forget it’s out there, the natural world, even as the suburbs have encapsulated it. But it’s still with us, in the small parcels we’ve allowed — still with us, to heal and inspire.

Tender Foot

Tender Foot

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I woke early and padded outside for the newspaper, whose slap on the driveway had provided the final whoosh of my awakening this morning (bobbing as I was on the edge of consciousness and waiting for just such a prompt). 

It’s too early for shoes so I walked to the edge of the driveway with bare feet. It’s warm enough for that this morning, though I’ve been known to go barefoot in much cooler temps. 

Today when I made my way gingerly to the street I thought about how tough my feet used to be when I was a kid. It took a few weeks every summer to harden the soles, but after that I was off, free to dash out of the house, banging the screen door behind me: no socks, no shoes, just a shirt and shorts and a tan that deepened as the weeks wore on. (This was long before sunscreen and there were precious few trees in the new neighborhood of two-bedroom bungalows.)

Tough feet were a point of pride. They indicated a certain street-smartness — or was it street-hardness? — and they showed that you were inhabiting the summer as you should, making it a part of yourself.

Now my feet are not only stockinged and shod, they are orthoticized (if that’s a word … and my spell check tells me it is not). They are the soles and toes of an adult who works on her bottom — and not on her feet. But they can still remember the freedom they once felt. And I like to think that, deep in their neurons and tissues, they can feel it still. 

Quiet Sigh

Quiet Sigh

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This morning’s walk gave me a taste of fall: brown leaves on the roadside, thick clouds in the sky. There were fewer people about, and I picked up my pace just to get warm.

Autumn arrives next week, but tell that to the crickets, which are chirping more slowly these days, and to the cicadas, which aren’t chirping at all.

Working outside now, I glance up at the roses that twine on top of the pergola, a few of them in second bloom.  I notice how thinned out they have become, how fragile.

It’s still a humid, green world, but the edges are peeling away to reveal what’s been hidden beneath all the time: the bare trunks of winter, the quiet sigh of fall. 

Lit From Within

Lit From Within

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Walking after dark, which I’m increasingly more likely to do these days, gives me the chance to observe neighborhood houses lit from within. 

I see the glow of bedroom lamps behind drawn shades, the flicker of television screens in living rooms, the laser-like beam above a desk in front of a window. 

While some families draw every blind, others leave windows open for all to see — the fishbowl approach to living. I try to give everyone their privacy, but I can’t help but notice the lights … and the lives lived within them.

(The turkey teapot is out-of-season, but it’s the best lamplight picture I can find right now.)

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others

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I am, as you might expect, mostly a solo walker. I savor the quiet time I have when pounding the pavement in my neighborhood or on nearby trails. I mostly walk alone. 

But oh, the joy of walking with friends! Last week I planned two socially distant strolling excursions, one to see a buddy who spends most of her time away from home and I have trouble catching in town, and the other a walking meeting with a colleague who’s also a friend. 

Taking these walks reminds me how much I enjoy the other kind of walking, the kind that drives me not further into my own mind but pushes me out, into the lives of others. 

Walkable Communities

Walkable Communities

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An article in today’s Washington Post describes what it says may be the community development of the future, as the pandemic has accelerated a trend toward telecommuting that was already in process. Called the Hub at La Plata, this mixed-use development makes it possible to walk to shops and live with one car — or even no car at all. 

An excellent idea … and one that Reston, Virginia, where I (almost) hang my hat (you can walk to Reston from here) has been practicing for more than half a century. Though the New Urbanism roots of Reston have taken a beating over the years, there is still enough of the original plan to make you see the point and offer up a silent cheer for it.

I had just such a moment yesterday, when I fast walked on one of its many paved paths. Signposts directed me to South Lakes Village Center one direction and Hunters Woods Village Center the other. I didn’t walk to either, but just knowing I could … made all the difference. 

(A photo of Lake Anne taken from the top floor of Heron House, in Reston’s oldest village center.)

Hunted and Gathered

Hunted and Gathered

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On my way to breakfast, I found four ripe blackberries, courtesy of my morning walk. It’s a bush I’ve known for years, quite accessible to deer and other passersby. 

Since four berries do not a breakfast make, I sliced some peaches on my cereal, from a bag our neighbors gave us after they had picked them at a local orchard.
This means that two parts of this breakfast were locally grown, hunted and gathered. And then … there’s the Special K. 
Puddles

Puddles

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The last few afternoons have featured big rains with dark clouds building, sheets of water falling and palm trees swaying. These storms have left large puddles in their wake, bodies of water like small ponds, making you cross the street when you’re walking to the market to pick up the salad dressing you forgot to buy an hour earlier.

The puddles mirror the sky and the clouds that created them. The images vanish when the water meets the macadam.  I skirt them at first, but then take the time to snap a shot.

Looking at it now I see how the grain of the gravel underlies the mottled cloudscape — and the upside-down palms seem like two small brooms, ready to sweep the street of rain.

Fast Walk at High Tide

Fast Walk at High Tide

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The sun is well up in the sky, the aroma of sunscreen fills the air, all the shells have been found. It’s a fast walk at high tide.

Yes, the intentions are pure. I could imagine the early rising as I took 40 more winks, could feel myself pulling on running shoes, tying the laces, tucking my hair up in the baseball cap, heading out into a still, silent world where only a few beachcombers strolled meditatively along the shore.

Instead, I found myself hours later, dodging the breakers as they edged onto the only hard sand left, crunching the dross of smashed shells and dried seaweed.

It was hot, it was invigorating. It was a fast walk at high tide.