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Category: walking

Crystal City Underground

Crystal City Underground

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I knew they existed but am just beginning to explore them. “They” are a series of enclosed walkways and tunnels that honeycomb the Crystal City neighborhood.

Billed as an underground mall, the Crystal City shops are connected by wide, well-lit sidewalks (halls?!) that lead to a bakery, an optometrist, a theater … and more.

Halloween would be a perfect day to write about subterranean walkways — if only they were creepy, scary, low-ceilinged and cobwebby. They are anything but.

Still, they’re odd enough that today’s the perfect day to introduce them. The tunnels are one of the funkiest things about my new work ‘hood — and the weirdness is welcome!

Manhattan Minutes

Manhattan Minutes

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It’s the City that Never Sleeps — and I’m a person who doesn’t sleep much. Not the best combination. Which is why I find myself typing these words at this hour in this city.

Do I do the practical thing, which is try to get a few more of those elusive 40 winks?

No, of course not. 
I’m answering work emails, writing posts, editing a story — and getting ready to walk downtown. That last one — that’s the fun part! 
For this trip I’ve had only minutes in Manhattan, but I’m trying to make the most of them.
Moon Shadow

Moon Shadow

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I took the flashlight, but I didn’t use it. The moon was bright enough to light the road and throw shadows on it — dense and hulking where woods meets the road, a more delicate tracery where only a tree or two (and earth’s atmosphere) stood between me and the orb.

The illuminated landscape was like a negative, an inside-out version of the view. Devoid of life and color, a dreamscape in black and white.

I passed no cars until I was on the way home, their harsh, artificial glare a counterpoint to the natural light.

It was like plunging into another world, this early morning walk, like visiting a barren island nation.

Awe Walk

Awe Walk

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It helps us see things in new way, boosts our immune system and lowers our blood pressure. It’s even being used to treat PTSD.

The emotion of awe is gaining new respect and appreciation, says an article in Parade magazine. Being in the presence of something that is beyond human scale and understanding — the kind of feeling we get from watching a sunrise or lying under a blanket of stars — can have a profound effect on ordinary living.

Being awe-struck often has an element of surprise, though; it is, almost by definition, out of the ordinary. How to make awe a more permanent part of our day?

Drop the devices and get outside, says the article. Visit a park, museum or planetarium. Or … take an Awe Walk.

Ah, an “Awe Walk” … sounds familiar!

Rescue Trail

Rescue Trail

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The commute continues to exhaust and befuddle. It took me two hours to get home last Thursday and almost that long last night. I arrived at the Reston North Park and Ride lot just as the sun was setting.

I had my bag, having parked in the garage, but the round trip there and back would have taken 15 minutes, and in the interest of working in a walk before it was completely dark, I decided to stroll bag in hand (or, I should say, bag on shoulder).

It was a wonderful time to be on the trail. The sun had come out late in the day, and people were making the most of it. There were bikers and runners and walkers. There were commuters in work clothes and exercisers in sweats and spandex.

Goldenrod and grasses hung their heads over the pavement in a shaggy profusion. There was a stillness to their beauty, and it calmed and centered me. What a difference the walk made, better than a drink or a drug. It wasn’t magic; it was the trail.

Milkweed on the Fly

Milkweed on the Fly

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A bushwhacking expedition wasn’t on Sunday’s list of activities, but on the way back from breakfast I noticed a brown Fairfax County Park sign in a place I’d never seen one before, at the intersection of Fox Mill and Waples Mill Roads. We doubled around and pulled into a small lot that used to be in front of a great wall of bamboo.

A man was there weed whacking. He stopped and talked, said he lived nearby and was trying to make the area presentable. He pointed out a barely discernible path through the meadow. Bamboo never totally leaves a place, of course; it just bides its time. For now, though, the little park is walkable.

A quarter mile into the tangle of grasses and weeds, there was a small, clogged pond and a stand of cat tails. Milkweed pods filled the air with their fairy fluff; I tried to photograph each cottony morsel as it flew by.

It was next to impossible, but I had fun trying.

In Focus

In Focus

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I walked early today, not still-dark early, but I-don’t-have-to-be-in-an-office early. Which is a great kind of early.

The air was cool enough that I had closed windows an hour or so earlier, cool enough that I wished for a moment I’d worn long sleeves.

But not for long did I think this, because a walk, among other things, is a warm-up. It takes that which is cold, stiff and fuzzy — and renders it warm, limber and clear.

It creates new internal weather; it can bring a whole day into focus.

Late Light Walk

Late Light Walk

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It was almost 7 p.m. last night but the air was so fresh and still, so lit up from the inside, that I just had to pull over and walk through it.

Luckily, I was near a Reston path. So I laced up my spare tennis shoes and hit the trail.

I’ve just been reading Annie Dillard (more about her in a later post) and am sorely conscious of how beautifully light can be described.  So let me just say that I felt as I was walking through a painting by Thomas Cole or other Hudson River School painter. I felt that the light was shimmering all around me, that it was bouncing off the trees and the darker shapes and illuminating them, too.

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as these photos (snapped, ironically enough, quite near the Hudson River, on the train trip home night before last) but it had some of this drama.

It was dark by the end of my walk, but that didn’t matter. I was all lit up inside.

Long Walk in the Big City

Long Walk in the Big City

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Yesterday I took a long walk in the big city. I started in the theater district, made my way south and west to pick up the High Line, which is now available at 34th Street!  From there (where I snapped this picture and then very quickly ran out of charge), I strolled to Gansevoort Street, then down Jane to the West Side Highway and over to the long, skinny park that runs along the Hudson.

The sun was flirting with us, in and out from the clouds. At times it seemed as if it would pour. But it didn’t (until today), so I had five blissful hours of ambling.

It’s really the whole package that does it to me here in the city. It’s the energy of the people and the place. It’s all the hundreds of details — from the grumpy Penn Station employee yelling at a woman who could hardly lug her suitcase (“Why did you pack so much?”) to the crazy wedding parade I found myself swept up in at the end of the day (complete with a kazoo band).

It’s good to be here. Life enhancing, as a matter of fact.

All Aboard

All Aboard

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Heading to New York aboard the Acela Express, three  hours to the Big Apple. It’s work that takes me there this time, but I’ve built in a few hours to walk.

It will be the perfect way to calm down after a frenetic morning of packing, texting — and learning about last night’s Chelsea bombing. I can already imagine the relief of moving quickly down an avenue, the creative chaos of Manhattan setting the pace.

For now, there is the slightly bumpy ride of a fast-moving train, the only sounds those of keys clicking and newspapers turning. (I’m in the quiet car.)

It’s a rocking motion, and would, if I gave it half a chance, lull me to sleep.