Browsed by
Category: walking

All Talk

All Talk

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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?

Fortunate Day

Fortunate Day

Comments 0 Comment

I was waking up slowly when the sound of a falling branch catapulted me into full consciousness. It’s a hazard of living in the midst of a waning suburban forest, a place where the old oaks have outlived their three score and ten.

This time we seem to have been spared. It was either a branch from the common land, or a smaller limb off the tree in our yard that’s already slated for demolition next time the tree guy comes around.

But the swoosh and thud did serve as a rousing alarm. It got me up and into the morning, where I took a delicious amble through humid air and young birds doing that little looping fly that is so endearing.

A day that begins with an early walk, no matter how one comes by it, is a fortunate day indeed.

Rainy Tuesday

Rainy Tuesday

Comments 0 Comment

The weekend weather was sunny and hot, perfect for Memorial Day. And the rain quite politely held off until this morning. I noticed the first faint drops on an early walk.

At first they seemed little more than moisture squeezed out of humid skies. But by the time I’d returned home and brewed a pot of tea the drops had turned into a deluge, and I drove to Metro with foggy windows on puddling roads.

It was a tropical rain that fell, sheets and sheets.  I think of the flowers I just planted by the mailbox. They’ll be getting a long drink of water. And the ferns that are still in winter-basement mode (which is to say, half dead) … they will love the way this day is starting out.

Even humans don’t seem to mind terribly much. We’re heading back to the office anyway. So let the raindrops fall …