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Walking Early

Walking Early

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An early walk this morning as the day began. Quiet and dim when I started, flashlight bobbing, illuminating the pavement, but often off, too, so I could savor the darkness before the dawn.

Only one car about at such an hour, for newspaper delivery; otherwise, mechanical stillness to match the natural kind.

I heard crickets, inhaled the scent of newly cut wood and freshly mown grass. And then, finally, a chirp, the first bird.

By the time I got home, the sky was light, the lone bird was a chorus and night had turned to day.

Walking the Apple

Walking the Apple

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In a few hours I’ll board a train that will take me up the Northeast Corridor to a journalism school reunion. Well, it won’t take me directly there. I’ll land at Penn Station, hop on a subway to 96th Street, check into the hotel, then walk, walk, walk wherever my feet will take me.

Maybe to Central Park, which should be lovely this time of year.  The Reservoir Path is nice, or I could dip south to the Sheep Meadow. There will be the castle and the Great Lawn and the arbor and the Ramble.

Later there will be lectures and panels, receptions and dinners. There will be classmates I haven’t seen in years.

But before that, there will be the walk.

Slipping Out

Slipping Out

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Last evening I slipped out at dusk, wearing tennis shoes, office clothes and a rain jacket the color of twilight. It was too late to change into sweatshirt and tights. There was time only for the leaving.

And so I forgot the trappings, the music on a string. I bolted before the moment and the impulse left me. Open on my screen was an article, mind food. Beside me a book of poetry.

They would wait. The walk would be something else, I knew, nourishment of a different kind.

Second Beginning

Second Beginning

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A pre-dawn walk today in a light rain, Cyclops-eye blazing, cap and a hood to keep the drops at bay. These early outings merge into dreamscape. Did I really don shoes and socks and walk to Fox Mill Road and back? Or was that another walk, another day?

By the time I left the house this morning the day had lightened and the rain was steadier. The pink dogwood lifted its arms gracefully on one side of the yard, and the white dogwood took my breath away. In between were ferns, azaleas and forget-me-nots. The familiarity of the spring garden.

It seemed a different day than one hour earlier. A second beginning.

As Morning Unfolds

As Morning Unfolds

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I left the house before six today, walked into a misty morning with piled clouds and a chorus of birdsong. The air had a pastel fullness to it and the light was worthy of Bierstadt.

On mornings like these I leave the music at home so I can better observe the day as it wakes, stretches, waves his arms and opens its eyes.

Today, though, the morning clouded up as I strolled, and fat drops fell. But before they could gain too much traction, the day reversed course once again. Now it’s gloriously sunny and green.

It’s what I’ve wanted to do every day this week as I sat five stories up in a shell of glass and steel — watch the morning unfold, and be inside it as it wakes.

Free!

Free!

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It must be spring cleaning time, because Folkstone Drive has become a bazaar. Within the last few weeks, you could have scored a kitchen cabinet, bathroom vanity and a grill — all sitting on the street, absolutely free!

It’s hard to drive by this stuff without picking it up. It’s that hunting-gathering impulse honed when I lived in New York in my 20s and practically furnished an apartment with pieces drug in off the sidewalk.

But with much internal dialogue (“do you really need a broken grill? don’t you already have one sitting on the deck?”) and a modicum of self-shaming, I’ve managed to ignore this free stuff and act like I’m above it all.

I concentrate instead on the backdrops into which these items are placed and what lies just beyond them — the woods, the flowers, the dogwood, the redbud! What’s always free is the stride and the vista and what I see along the way. Everything else is just gravy.

Opportunities for Awe

Opportunities for Awe

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Yesterday’s walk took me along a Reston trail. It was late afternoon, balmy and blooming, with crows cawing in the swamp.

I thought about the name of this blog, “A Walker in the Suburbs.” I thought about how if you didn’t know my suburb, you might envision streets of sameness, void of nature and texture.

You might not imagine this immersion in a natural world: stream gurgling, peepers peeping, smell of loam in the air. You might discount the opportunities for awe.

Georgetown Stroll

Georgetown Stroll

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A Georgetown walk can be full of stops and starts. Crowds bustle and churn. Sidewalks narrow and buckle. Cars jockey for spaces.

This is one of the oldest parts of D.C., and it does not always hum to a modern pace. You can’t drive fast here; the four-way stops see to that. And you can’t walk fast here, either — at least not on a crowded Sunday afternoon.

But if you hit a lull, and the gods are with you, you can at least stroll. And if you do, this is what you see:

Enough

Enough

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These days I take walks whenever and wherever  I can find them. On busy days, around the block is all I have time and space for.  Yesterday was one of those days.

I pushed open the heavy glass door, slipped on my sunglasses and turned right at the Cosi Restaurant to reach the service road.

Usually it’s quiet back there but yesterday there was enough traffic to keep me on my toes, skirting puddles while steering clear of delivery trucks.

At the end of the block there’s a fitness park, which is where I snapped this photo. Many of flowering trees took a hit in last week’s frigid weather. About half of Washington’s famed cherry blossoms were nipped, the first time this has happened in the trees’ century-old history.

But this little guy survived. And seeing him there with a background of blue made me feel like it was truly spring, not just March 20.

It was a short walk. But it was enough.

Name That Path

Name That Path

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A recent walk through the Folkstone woods led me past a shady glade and creek curve where the girls used to play. They called it Brace Yourself. Maybe there was some feat of derring do they had to perform there, walking across the creek on a log or picking up a crawdad. I’m unclear why they gave it that name, but the point is that they did.

Brace Yourself got me thinking about the joy of naming places. I remember doing that when I was a kid. There was the Valley of Eternal Snows — a sheltered cove in the Ware Farm field behind our house, a place where I had once found some dirty snow late in the season.

And then there were the Block-up Boys — not exactly a place, I know. They were the bullies on the street who wouldn’t let me ride my tricycle to the top of the hill. (So there was a place involved, sort of.)

When we name a place we make it our own.  We look at it with fresh eyes; we see it whole. Why do we stop doing this as we get older? Do mortgages and responsibilities drive it away, this penchant for staking imaginative claim to the places we love?

I made a tiny vow right there at Brace Yourself. I decided to start naming the bridges and paths, the springs and glades. Even if no one else ever hears or knows these names — I will.