Browsed by
Category: walking

Parade of Humanity

Parade of Humanity

Comments 0 Comment

It was one of the crazy-quilt walks that make you glad to be living and breathing on this earth. It is Police Week here in our Nation’s Capital, and E Street was clogged with the men in blue honoring their fallen comrades. I strolled past police of every stripe and family members wearing t-shirts with slogans like “In Search of Heroes.” I stepped over wires and past big banks of lights; noticed a box of white candles and another of red roses.

By Seventh Street I’d moved on to the hustle bustle of Chinatown and Penn Quarter. Feeling flush, I pulled two dollars from my purse to buy a copy of Street Sense, a newspaper written and sold by the homeless. My salesman was hawking another publication, too. “I used to be a cowboy,” he said, “and I’ve written this book. You can buy it on Amazon.”

Turning the corner I found myself in the middle of a line of wheelchairs; maybe these folks were heading to the Police Memorial, or maybe they were bound for the corner, where they would buy a book by a homeless cowboy poet.

As for me, the work day was draining away. In its place was a parade of humanity— and the precious walking time to take it in.

(View from another D.C. walk.)

Not So White Shoes

Not So White Shoes

Comments 2 comments

As I was saying, I love my white tennis shoes, took great pride in finding a pair that is not fluorescent pink or day-glow orange. The beauty of white shoes is that they’re white — but that’s also their problem. One is tempted to keep them always white. But that would mean keeping them always in a box.

I started out with good intentions, switching to my old shoes whenever I was going off road. But I don’t always know where my feet will take me. Sometimes I start on pavement but return home a different way.

Yesterday’s ramble took me into the neighborhood of South Field, where I thought I could pick up a path that meandered back to Folkstone. The path never emerged, and before long I was bushwhacking through downed trees and brambles. Ahead of me was a creek (there is always a creek around here; though we call them runs), so I searched the bank to find a narrow place to cross.

As you might expect, it wasn’t quite narrow enough.  I slipped and doused my right foot in creek water, then stepped back into a couple inches of  mud just for good measure.

I’m reminded of this quotation by John A. Shedd: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.” The same could be said of white tennis shoes!

Walk to the Station

Walk to the Station

Comments 0 Comment

Sometimes a body gets so tired sitting in one place for most of the day that when the body gets up to make its weary way to Metro, well, the body just wonders how this will actually happen.

Funny thing, though. As soon as the body gets moving, the body revives. Across the bridge, down E Street, past the courts, past the museum. There are streets to cross, “don’t walk” lights flashing. And there are corners to pause on, waiting for traffic to subside.

Doesn’t matter. The momentum is there. Even with the starting and the stopping the forward motion is still in the toes and the balls of the feet, and it banishes the weariness.

Into the Penn Quarter now. Folks in red jerseys are going to a Capitals game. Office-workers slowing down in front of a watering hole; maybe they’ll watch the game on screen. Tourists milling around the Spy Museum.  But most of us are going home. The tide of movement is more out than in.

And the tide carries me from E to F Streets, past the bakery and the wax museum and the boutiques, past the shoppers and the bus-waiters, right to the dim, inviting Metro entrance, the escalators (if I’m lucky) working, and the hustle bustle of life underground making it impossible to do anything but move quickly along the platform until I reach the spot where I always stand, first entrance, second car, one of the less crowded spots.

Soon the train zooms up and I’m aboard. Not really sure how this all happened … but it did!

White Shoes

White Shoes

Comments 1 comment

Before they are no longer new and no longer white I pause here to celebrate my new white tennis shoes. Anyone who has shopped for jogging shoes lately knows you can find plenty in day-glow orange or hot pink — but pitifully few plain white ones anymore. Even the sales clerks are apologetic.

My philosophy on shoes is that fit trumps everything, so I’ve had to swallow my love of the simple and inconspicuous lately to ensure that my toes aren’t scrunched and my heels aren’t slipping.

This year, however, there was a welcome confluence of fit and color, and I’m now the proud owner of white shoes (albeit with fluorescent green laces).

Not for long, of course. The toes are already smudged. But that’s a small price to pay for having them white to start off with.

What Used to Be

What Used to Be

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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

Comments 0 Comment

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.