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Category: walking

What Used to Be

What Used to Be

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Here’s what a walk is like in your hometown, every block a memory.

There’s my old high school; there’s my new one. There’s where I lived when I taught high school.

There’s where a fellow teacher lived who gave me a ride when it was raining.

There’s where my friend Joelle lives, a Bluegrass Trust beauty of a house with Buddhist prayer flags strung across the portico.

There’s the bakery that I always reach 10 minutes after it closes (thank God).

There’s the old house and the old, old house.

There’s the rag-tag park where we used to play. It smelled of earth then, and wet concrete. Now it’s filled with earth-moving equipment.

There’s the steep hill to the park, down which Dad once sledded, right into the creek.

I saw plenty of new houses, new trees, new people. But I hardly noticed them.

Instead I saw what used to be.

Warming Up

Warming Up

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Yesterday’s walk was cold and damp. Tourists were unprepared, wearing thin windbreakers and cotton sweaters with no buttons. Anyone who had a hood was wearing a hood. It was that kind of day.

I had 30 minutes and wanted to make the most of them. And it wasn’t actually raining (as it is now). What else to do but walk as fast as I could without running, stoke the human engine? Pull my hands into my sleeves, cinch the belt as tight as possible… and go. 
Traffic lights work against this process, since it’s all about momentum. But once I was on the Capitol grounds I was warmed up within minutes. 

The transfer of movement into heat is one of those daily miracles. Yesterday it came in very handy.
Just a Walk Around the Block

Just a Walk Around the Block

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Had to mail a package yesterday at lunchtime, and though I didn’t have long I thought I would stroll for a few minutes before returning to my desk.

I walked east toward the Capitol, all swathed in scaffolding (look closely; you can see a worker in a day-glo yellow jacket).

Then behind it past the Supreme Court and Library of Congress, then in front of it where I snapped this shot before heading back down First Street to my office.

Not bad for a walk around the block!

Tender Earth

Tender Earth

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I walk carefully through the meadow, choosing grass clumps and leaf piles and anything else that will keep the mud off my shoes. The snow and rain have saturated our soil; to walk on it now is to sink a little with each step.

Aren’t we all a little tender this time of year? Coats cast aside, jackets unzipped, the feel of the sun on newly bared skin.  There’s a freedom but also a sensitivity.

So it is with the earth. Clover and fescue just starting to take hold. Even the lightest of foot falls leaves an imprint.  I tiptoe to the trampoline to give the grass a chance. I watch with dismay as Copper scrambles after the ball, his every feint and skid leaving deep tracks in the mud. The yard is marked with our play.

But this tender time will pass, I tell myself. Even now new plants are anchoring themselves in the ground, their roots spreading. Soon they will weave a net, a home, a bulwark. Soon the land will be less impressionable. Until then, I’ll tread lightly. 

Walking New Jersey

Walking New Jersey

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Wednesdays are good for lunch walks, and yesterday’s stroll was prime. It started on New Jersey Avenue. There’s a block there in front of the hotel, under a canopy of trees, the capitol up ahead, that never fails to buoy me.

I parse the feelings I have when pounding that stretch of pavement. There is the tree cover, which makes me feel protected, secure. There are the taxis and limousines pulling in and out of the hotel’s circular drive, which suggest adventure, the hustle bustle of business being plied. There are people everywhere: tourists wandering guidebooks in hand; office workers scurrying away from the deli on the corner, taking lunch back to their desks.

Everywhere there is movement and energy. I’m walking faster, stretching my legs, opening my eyes after a long morning of close work and frayed nerves. A faint breeze stirs the tree tops. Life moves on. It has to.


(Almost, but not quite, the view from New Jersey Avenue.)

Promise of Greening

Promise of Greening

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Day before yesterday I stole an hour at lunchtime to walk the Cross-County Trail. I hadn’t been on it in months. This was the stretch closest to my house, less than 10 minutes away. I wasn’t sure it would be cleared of ice, and when it was, my feet flew!

The snow was piled high beside the path and rivulets of meltwater ran across the pavement. The sun was warm on my face and the Chieftains loud in my ears. From time to time a bird call or two broke through the music.

I wasn’t the only one out. There were dog walkers and solo wanderers and a group of three that took up the whole path.

“Passing on the left,” said a runner as he sped past by. “It’s good to be out today, isn’t it?” And it was. A hint of spring in the air and in our steps. The greening well hidden — but the promise of it all around us.

Moving Quickly

Moving Quickly

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The story today is the cold.

Record-shattering. Bone-chilling. Cold I must soon confront.

Which raises some questions: Why do I have no corduroy pants that fit? What can I wear that is warm enough for this craziness? And most importantly, when will it ever be spring?

Until there are answers to these questions there is only one course of action — plunging in. No, I won’t be skating anytime soon. But I will be walking, running, moving quickly. That’s my way to get through the winter — and the cold.

The Science of Walking

The Science of Walking

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When I’m sluggish or stuck, when the ideas in my head have congealed into a hopeless mess, I take to the trail. Thoughts arrive as gifts, flowing from the rhythm of the stride and from the scenery I pass at the pace of footfall. When the brain stalls, the feet step in.

Seems like magic — and maybe it is. But it’s neuroscience, too.

Evidence is mounting that exercise is good for the brain, that it may even stave off Alzheimer’s. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, exercise not only triggers the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus but it also acts as “a kind of brain fertilizer, helping the brain to grow.”

The scientist Frederick Gage, says the Journal, has suggested that “new cells arise from long walks because, in an evolutionary sense, our bodies associate the exertion with moving from an existing territory, which had perhaps become depleted of food or too dangerous, to a new, unexplored territory whose details must be learned. In anticipation the brain releases new cells and growth factors, which create a more plastic state and make possible new neural connections.”

My exercised brain tells me he might be onto something.

A Grisly Discovery

A Grisly Discovery

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I woke up this morning to the news that human bones had been found alongside a trail in my neighborhood. A walker noticed the bones on Sunday, called police, and yesterday the remains were tested and found to be human. That’s all we know for now.

I walk those trails all the time. We all do. Copper sniffs seemingly every tree and bush. Apparently he missed a spot.

The police have asked anyone with information to call. Here’s what I’d like to say: This is our safe, snug little corner of the world. Please let there be some logical and non-scary explanation for this. Please let our woods remain the quiet sanctuary they have always been. Please don’t let this happen here.

Step Lively

Step Lively

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When bitter winds howl in from the west, when temperatures dip into the teens, when the sidewalk harbors little patches of black ice and there’s a quarter-mile of pavement between me and the next warm building, this is what I do. Step lively.

It’s what some Metro conductors suggest. “Step lively,” they say. “Doors closing.”

It’s what race-walkers do, with a bounce in their gait and a swivel of their hips.

Step lively, with its whiff of the nautical, its sprightliness and energy and pep.

Step lively. It’s more hop than saunter, more snap than sizzle. It’s quaint and practical and fun.

Step lively. It’s a good way to get through winter.