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Category: walking

Endangered Evenings

Endangered Evenings

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For the last couple weeks, I’ve been stepping out after dinner to stroll a few blocks as the light fades.

This is a bonus amble, usually after a more serious effort earlier in the day. It’s a wind-down walk, time to take in the night air and watch bats careen through the sky.

One night, a big orange moon hung on the horizon. Another, a post-deluge sunset purpled the sky and diffused the light so there were glimmers from all sorts of unusual corners. 
These late-August rambles are more precious because they’re endangered.  The sun sets earlier, long twilights are on the way out. In yesterday’s newspaper, a short article noted that for the first time in months, the sun would set before 8 p.m. Sunday night.
I walked anyway. And it was lovely. 
The Thinker

The Thinker

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For the walker, what you do with your feet is simple. You put one in front of the other and move forward.

Much trickier is what you do with your arms. If you’re fast-walking, you pump them until they look like the connecting rod of a steam locomotive or the blurred, dust-kicking feet of a cartoon roadrunner.

If you’re a bit slower, you swing them at your side, freewheeling, in time to the music in your ears or the rhythm of your heartbeat.

And then there is the meandering, meditative walk, which is best accomplished with arms behind and hands clasped behind the back. It’s open, stilled and expansive — and it, more than the famous seated Rodin, is the true posture of the thinker.

There’s only one problem: When I walk with my hands clasped behind my back, I feel much wiser than I actually am.

(Photo: Pixabay)

All Talk

All Talk

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I’m not methodical enough to measure this, but I wonder if my walking pace varies when I listen to radio voices rather than music. 

On Sundays, I can hear re-aired, commercial-free versions of “Meet the Press” and other programs, so I often time my walk to coincide with these shows, which run every hour from noon till 5 p.m. And some mornings I listen to news rather than music. It gets the heart pumping and stands in for the newspaper if it’s not my morning to have it.

But beyond the pace there is the tone…

Walking with talk in my head creates a conversation, one-sided for the most part (unless I blurt out a retort to a particularly egregious statement).

But walking with music in my head allows for the inner dialogue that is such a healing part of the stroll.

Second-Hand Rain

Second-Hand Rain

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An early walk this morning into a moist and muggy landscape, breathing steam — or what felt like it.

There were puddles beside the road and the leaves were gleaming from last night’s dousing. We’ve been humid for days, but rain-fed humidity is different somehow, less oppressive, cleaner.

It wasn’t until the end of the stroll that I saw the second-hand rain. A brisk breeze was stirring the high branches of the oaks and sending down a spray of drops that caught the sun and shone there. It was last night’s precipitation recycled beautifully in the morning light. I walked through it as if through an illuminated mist.

It was a beautiful way to start the day. But now I’m dashing inside from moment to moment trying to dodge the second-hand rain … which is landing lightly on my computer keyboard as I try to write this post.

Walking in Pace

Walking in Pace

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The tiger does it, in his cage. Weary parents do it, up and down a hall, hoping that the baby in their arms will soon nod off to sleep.

Pacing is to walking as the treadmill is to the sidewalk. It is walking on adrenaline, super-charged with nervous energy that must be let out, even if there’s nowhere to put it.

While I’m lucky enough to have a strip of asphalt on which to pound out my anxieties, there have been times when nothing made me feel better than walking the circuit through my house: living room, hall, office, kitchen … living room, hall, office, kitchen.

I’ve never thought this a failing, only a useful habit. But reading A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, has given me second thoughts:

…[I]t had been the Count’s experience that men prone to pace are always on the verge of acting impulsively. For while the men who pace are being whipped along by logic, it is a multifaceted sort of logic, which brings them no closer to a clear understanding, or even a state of conviction. Rather it leaves them at such a loss that they end up exposed to the influence of the merest whim, to the seduction of the rash or reckless act—almost as if they had never considered the matter at all.

I’ll never look at pacing the same way again.

(It’s not pacing if you do it in a portico.)

Almost Empty

Almost Empty

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It’s the dog days — and I’ll take them. Uncrowded Metro, open roadways, Congress in recess, school out for summer. It’s a lovely pause, one to savor.

Walking back to my car in the warm air,  I passed through the tunnel, dark enough by 6:30 for the lights to be illuminated. From the neighborhood that backs up to Route 66 came the sound of children playing, the voice of summer.  I smiled broadly at a stooped woman in a sari and she smiled and waved in return.

Everything seemed in harmony:  the bushes and trees, the sky and land, the people and place.

The world seemed almost empty, and that was fine with me.

Brahms to the Rescue

Brahms to the Rescue

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Brahms came to the rescue yesterday. He didn’t ride in on a white horse, but he was there with his complex melodies and lyricism, with his passion and playfulness.

He was there in the morning when I walked, he was there in the evening when I bounced on the trampoline. And he stayed with me as I sautéed squash and onions and mixed it with farfalle pasta, as I broiled and plated the chicken, as I remembered I had fresh basil to season it all.

What a utilitarian composer! Brahms is not just for bedtime or funerals or academic processions. If you give him a chance, he will stay with you all day long.

(Photo courtesy New York Public Library Digital Collection)

First Thing

First Thing

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Today, I took an early walk before the heat began building. The sky was full of light but still uncertain. The day did not yet know what it would become.

This is one reason to walk first thing in the morning: the freshness of the air and the sense of possibility.

But there is another. There is the fact that the walking itself shapes the day, makes it more than it would be otherwise.

This doesn’t happen all the time, but it did today. And I’m grateful for it.

(No, I wasn’t walking on a beach, but I was remembering it.)

Walking to Metro

Walking to Metro

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I hadn’t done this in a while, had forgotten how exhilarating it can be to park at the high school and walk to the Metro station.  But when I saw the open parking spot, I impulsively pulled in, covered my window with a sun shield, locked the car and took off.

The pace set my mind spinning and the rhythm of footfall turned an ordinary commute into a tiny adventure. Yes, tiny. I don’t want to over-dramatize this. But when the conditions are right, parking and walking not only saves $5, but also provides a jump-start on the day.

Like all walks, this one has segments: crossing at the corner, trudging up the hill, turning into the neighborhood, walking through the “tunnel” (which is not really a tunnel but a passageway under an overpass) and then passing alongside the garage on the way to the station and train.

There’s only one problem now: This afternoon, I’ll have to walk back.

Chaotic Sidewalks

Chaotic Sidewalks

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It’s not just road construction, which this morning changed the bus route at both ends of my commute. It’s not just the demolition of buildings in Crystal City, which makes the walk to my office a jingling, jangling, high-decibel adventure every day.

It’s the darned motorized scooters, too, which seem to be standing or lying everywhere I try to walk. On a quick lunch-break stroll, the scooters are there. On my way in every morning and home every night, they’re cluttering up the bus stop and turning the sidewalks into an obstacle course.

I know I sound like a curmudgeon, and I can appreciate the freedom they promise. But the dangers of these devices are being realized as their riders land in doctor’s offices and emergency rooms. And that’s for the people who sign up for them.

What about those of us who don’t?