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Metro from Below

Metro from Below

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Yesterday I found myself in a new-to-me part of town. It took a while to orient myself, but once I did I was striding toward the river and the Mount Vernon Trail, hard by National Airport.

My shoes were pinching and my bag was heavy, but I needed to be thinking — which meant I needed to be walking.

It was a cloudy, early-spring afternoon. Warm and almost humid. Bikers rule the trail in that part of town so I stayed diligently to the right.

But the foot fall worked its magic. I could think! I could start to see the world from a different perspective.

And, as if to underline that point, I looked up to see a Metro train glide by, so much more futuristic and Monorail-like when seen from afar. It caught the rays of the setting sun and glittered in the light.

I snapped a shot so I could remember: It’s all about perspective.

Wind Walk

Wind Walk

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A quick stroll at the end of day. Copper and I walk against the traffic, as we always do.

A cold wind blows, not as hard as it did a few hours earlier, when it almost knocked me over on a downtown street corner. But hard enough.

Now the wind is more of a companion, a negative force, something that keeps you company by keeping you on your toes. It blows my hair off my face, ruffles Copper’s fir ever so lightly. He’s unfazed by its presence.

Soon we reach the turn-around point. Now the wind is behind us, blowing my hair into my face. Now the wind is behind us, pushing us home.

Four Walls

Four Walls

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Cold rain, and plenty of it. Wind, too.  Even the hardiest walker would have found yesterday’s weather tough going.

Commuting by public transport, though, makes us all walkers, which means we have a taste of the weather, like it or not.

So I dodged puddles on the street and jumped over them to reach the curb. I stood shivering on the platform, waiting for a train.

 I dashed into buildings gratefully, shook off the umbrella, stamped the feet, brushed off the coat. It was too cold for a raincoat so the wool one was pressed into service.

And at the end of the day I marveled at the warmth and dryness of this house I sit in now. Four walls that, among other things, keep out the elements. And yesterday, that was a very good thing!

A Vital Process

A Vital Process

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In The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood, author Kathryn Aalto takes us through Ashdown Forest, past Poohsticks Bridge and to the top of Gills Lap, with its panoramic view of England’s South Downs.

These are real places — but they are also places of the imagination, where A.A. Milne traveled with his real-life little boy, Christopher Robin, and perhaps saw peeking from the trees there a chubby bear and a winsome piglet.

Like many writers, Milne was a walker. And Aalto’s words describing that here could double as a mission statement for A Walker in the Suburbs.

A lifelong joy and habit for the author, walking sets the mind adrift, clarifying and organizing thoughts — a vital process for writers. Walking allows a pace for discovering small, new things: how gorse has the faint smell of coconut in spring, that the red dragonflies hovering over bogs are actually rare, and that the nocturnal bird calls are from the threatened nightjar.

Sets the mind adrift … clarifies and organizes thoughts … allows a pace for discovering small, new things …  Yes, yes and yes.

A vital process? Vital, indeed.

Good Walking

Good Walking

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The day began early, but the only walking I’ve done is what was needed to take me to and from Metro. Which got me thinking about the difference between walking and good walking.

Walking is like writing. Both are humble and utilitarian occupations, something most people do all the time.

But like good writing — in which words are strung together in a way to arouse sympathy or disgust, beauty or ugliness — good walking elevates the pedestrian. It is more than just a way to move from one place to another. It is a conscious and reflective exercise.

Good walking wears out the body and fills up the soul. It turns otherwise dreary and muddled days into clear and purposeful ones.

Good walking — I hope to do some at lunchtime.

Rowing Thoughts

Rowing Thoughts

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When weather makes walking impossible, I use the rowing machine in the basement. It’s a noble form of exercise, full-bodied and bracing. The first few minutes are agony.

But like most activities that require intense exertion, rowing eventually settles the mind. Arms pull forward, legs push back. The rhythm takes over.

And it’s only then, ten minutes in, that the mind can begin to roam. Rowing thoughts are bulleted and basic. They are not walking thoughts. But they are better than not-exercising-at-all thoughts. And yesterday, they were all I had.

Late Walk

Late Walk

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The snow didn’t just melt yesterday, it evaporated. It left us in a great sigh of fog and cloud. A late walk convinced me of this, put me in the midst and the mist of its vanishing.

Along the shoulder, snowbanks receded, and rivulets streamed across the pavement. The air was alternately cool and warm, pockets of moisture and of scent.

Car lights cast rainbows in the air. I kept my distance, knowing they couldn’t see me. But I marveled at the diffused light they cast, and used it to find my way.

In the west the clouds parted just enough to showcase the sunset, its pinks and violets a simmering, shimmering band of unexpected color.

Places to Go

Places to Go

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On Wednesday, a stretch of clean, dry pavement appeared — and I took it. The block of E Street between Third and Fourth, where scarves once garlanded the gingko trees, was the first clue that the walk to Metro Center would be manageable.

And it was. Only a few iffy crosswalks and curbs but otherwise blissfully snow-free stretches of sidewalk with the typically eclectric street life. Barristers with briefcases trudging meditatively through Judiciary Square giving way to raucous, red-shirted Capitals hockey fans pouring into Verizon Center.

Not as many tourists as usual, which meant a higher incidence of purposeful striding. Much like my own, I’m embarrassed to say. We walk quickly because we have Places to Go.

I wonder how many of us are going to the same place — a warm two-story colonial in need of repair; a kitchen that’s seen better days, a fleet of cars that must be jockeyed in and out of the snow-walled driveway depending upon who’s leaving first the next day. A room full of steam and cooking smells and “how are you’s.” A place that makes the walk —and  the whole day — worthwhile.

Wednesday Walk

Wednesday Walk

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There wasn’t much time, a window between 1 and 2. I left a pile of papers on my desk, a long list of to-dos. Wrapped a scarf around my neck and found a brisk playlist. Bernstein’s Overture to Candide followed by a Renaissance number followed by one of my faves, the last movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. 

It was my standard stroll: left on E and right on New Jersey, the trees overhanging the sidewalk there, the circular drive of the Hyatt Hotel, the Capitol swathed in its scaffolding. Around it to First.

A flock of blackbirds flung themselves at the Japanese pagoda tree. They appeared to be eating something. Does that tree have fruit? Must investigate.

The Supreme Court loomed ahead in all its stony majesty.  No crowd there today, no protesters, barely a guard to be seen. I thought as I always do at the trail spot — how beautiful D.C. is in winter, the contrast of dark trees against white buildings.

Behind the Capitol, two vehicles normally used to ferry tourists sat forlorn and unused, nose to nose. A police officer tugged at his parka, flapped his arms. On this day there was one enemy, and it was the cold.

Still, a few brave swaddled souls were walking about as I was. Most of us caught each others eyes and smiled. It was that kind of day.

Mid-January

Mid-January

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On Saturday, a long walk on a Reston trail. Past the wildflower garden, the playground and a newly flooded lowland. It was almost 50, warm enough that the jacket I started out with was soon looped around my waist and my hands pulled free of the running shirt’s built-in mittens.

Ten minutes in, I reached the closest stretch of the Cross County Trail. It’s lined with interpretive signs, including one for a meadow, its pastel drawings out of place in the muted, tall-grass, cattail landscape. There are some steep hills in that area, and I looked up at houses that line that section of the trail, their decks a distant border to this natural world.

At the top of a rise I parted company with the CCT and went left to Lake Audubon, sparkling in the winter sun. The trail there runs alongside boat slips and red, green and yellow kayaks pushed up along the hill. You can walk almost completely around the lake — I almost have — and still not be back where you started from. So I made it to some strangely placed orange safety cones — and decided it was time to turn around.

On the return I noticed an angled tree swathed in eye-popping green moss, and a miniature waterfall  draining from the swampy lowland into the even-lower stream — subtle snapshots I hadn’t seen going the other way.

I write this on a blustery morning of single-digit wind chills. But in my mind it’s that mid-January morning with all its warm, dripping beauty.