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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.

Day One

Day One

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The first day was a late one, so this post is late, too. But I’m determined to push “publish” while it’s still light outside.

It’s a cold and cloudy start to 2016, a day that could actually be called wintry after so many warm ones. The sun, still timid, is lost in the clouds. The trees arch bravely over a newly cleared backyard. 

I’ve spent hours reading and writing and thinking about this new year, what it might offer, how I might shape it. And now, I’ll do what I usually do when I’ve thought too much: I’ll lace up my shoes, grab my iPod and take to the streets. A walk — that’s what will make this first day right.

Trail’s End

Trail’s End

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I found it sooner than I thought, the southern terminus of the Cross County Trail. Found it and savored it, this beautiful spot along the Occoquan, a place where water meets land. The southern tip of Fairfax County.

I’ve followed the trail more than 40 miles, from the falls of the Potomac along Difficult Run to these placid waters. It was a long walk, a walk of many segments, and now that I’ve completed it all I can think of is how I’ll do it next time.

It’s a good thing to feel at the end a journey: the urge to begin again.

Half Hidden

Half Hidden

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This is a good year for ornamental cabbage, its creamy centers unblemished by frost spots or drought. I noticed a stand of these plants on my walk yesterday. Light pink shading to ivory, edged by sage green.

I stared hard at them as I passed, lost myself momentarily in their spiky beauty so that I could re-create them on the page this morning. A type of stillness in their leafy flower. “A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye,” in Wordsworth’s style.

Later I would stroll past the Capitol and the Supreme Court, philosophies etched in stone, all the grandeur of official Washington.

But what stayed in mind were the cabbage plants, their quiet beauty, their brave salute to winter.

Mind Travel

Mind Travel

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I whiled away some Metro wait time this morning staring at a map in the station. This is one for Reston-Wiehle, the current (but I hope not forever) western terminus of the Silver Line. I fixate on the southern exit,  how I could cross Sunrise Valley Drive at Commerce to Wethersfield then cut through the golf course to Durand and Purple Beech.

From there I’d take Soapstone all the way to Lawyers, Steeplechase and home.

It’s a walker’s fantasy. An hour-long walk at best. It would involve the kind of time I don’t have anymore.

For me, for now, the route is for mind travel only. A way to let the walker’s imagination wander while the walker’s body is doing what it has to do.

Walkers Awake

Walkers Awake

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Yesterday I walked to Metro in an almost rain that required almost an umbrella — but you could get away without one. It was  refreshing.

A misty gloaming, the end of a deluge, meant that those who were fed up with the pelting had given up on any barrier between them and the sky.

And then you had people like me, people cooped up in an office all day and glad for the feel of the elements, any elements.

So I walked quickly, thinking I could dodge the occasional fat drop or two. In my ears the Bach cantata “Sleepers Awake.” Trumpet soaring; organ chords giving me a rhythm for footfall, a walking bass line. I let the contrapuntal melody move me forward.

It took three and a half plays of “Sleepers Awake” to reach Metro Center. I was a little damp but no worse for the wear.

Schuylkill River Walk

Schuylkill River Walk

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The meeting ended a few hours before the Northeast Regional left 30th Street Station so I had enough time to stroll from my West Philly hotel, down Chestnut to 34th, then Spruce, then across the Schuylkill to the walk that runs beside it.

It was Friday afternoon, sun had broken through the clouds, and the temperature was about 70. I joined the baby-stroller-joggers, cyclists, skateboarders and others heading north along the river.

I almost went to the Barnes Museum — one of the Philadelphia’s new premier attractions — but I like to think that in walking we get a glimpse of the true city, the one that exists beneath the attractions.

There were glimpses of skyline with tall grasses in the foreground, there was the sun striking the water; there were all the people and conversations. There was, above all, the joy of moving through space, a space new to me, thrilling in its unknowns.