Browsed by
Category: walking

“It is Solved by Walking”

“It is Solved by Walking”

Comments 0 Comment

I just finished reading Alice McDermott’s novel Someone, in which twice appears a favorite quotation (motto? adage?) of mine: “It is solved by walking.”

When I wrote about this in an earlier blog post, I used the Latin “Solvitur Ambulando,” a term beloved by pilgrims and poets, and mentioned that I might have given this name to my blog had it not already been taken. Still, the spirit of “Solvitur Ambulando” fills this space. I can’t count the number of times my mood, my priorities, even my energy level, have been “solved,” have been set right, by walking.

According to some sources, the phrase originated with Diogenes, who disputed the unreality of motion by walking away. In that sense, solvitur ambulando not only means walking but any practical proof of an argument.

In The Tao of Travel, Paul Theroux attributes the adage to St. Augustine. “Walking to ease the mind is also the objective of the pilgrim,” Theroux writes. “There is a spiritual dimension, too: the walk itself is part of a process of purification. Walking is the age-old form of travel, the most fundamental, perhaps the most revealing.”

For me, it’s the most essential. Not for locomotion — but for sanity. 

Rush Hour

Rush Hour

Comments 0 Comment

My walk yesterday nudged right up against the morning rush hour. Not the D.C., Reston or Vienna rush hour — but the Folkstone rush hour.

Because my subdivision’s “main drag” leads to the local elementary school we have a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the afternoon when active pedestrians risk being run over by a convoy of mini-vans.

Not so for me today; I squeaked in before the brigade. But I wasn’t too early for the bus stop coffee klatsch. Whether by choice or requirement, every child now waiting at the bus stop waits with at least one parent. Gone is the small kid society my children enjoyed during those years — with its own hierarchy and pecking order, sixth-grade patrols at the top, morning kindergartners at the bottom.

Now it’s a time for parents to chit-chat and kids to revolve around them. It’s another way that childhood is changing, another thing I miss about the way things used to be.

Invisible Community

Invisible Community

Comments 0 Comment

It was the hour before dusk on a day that felt more like summer than fall — prime walking time.  I drove past fast-walkers, slow-joggers, stray commuters like me, just heading home. I thought about the community of walkers, one that’s often invisible to the amblers themselves but, ironically, quite obvious to the drivers.

The car-bound cover more ground. Their range lets them see the patterns in the strolls, the commonality of purpose. In one block is a lone faithful runner. In another, an old couple strolling slowly. They may not run into each other, but they are all there.

Since almost anyone who walks in the suburbs drives in the suburbs, we have many chances to see beyond our routes, to know that even if we feel alone, we are not. There are others hitting the pavement too. And in some strange sort of way, we are one.

Segments

Segments

Comments 0 Comment

Walking home from the Silver Line yesterday and driving to the Orange Line this morning, I noticed the journeys have something in common.

Like any trip, they are not just one long sweep of motion; they are segments cobbled together by time and movement.

I hadn’t driven to the Vienna Metro (Orange Line’s last stop) for almost four weeks, so I saw it with fresh eyes: the Fox Mill Road segment, up one hill and down another; the Vale portion, before the big turn and after it; the straightaway that is Hunter Mill Road; the short stretch of Chain Bridge; the newly repaved and bicycle-laned Old Courthouse, then the turn onto Sutton, Country Creek and right then left into the parking garage.

Walking gave me these eyes, let me see the drive in segments as I would a stroll. I’m grateful for that.

Commuting on Foot

Commuting on Foot

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday I walked once again from the Wiehle Metro station to my car in a parking lot four miles away. Why is this worth mentioning? Only for this — that I am, finally, commuting on foot in the suburbs.

This is not an accomplishment to be shrugged off. And I don’t mean it’s my own personal accomplishment but an evolution in the way we live. That I can step off the train and travel on my own steam to the next destination is a marvel, given the way I started living here 25 years ago.

Then I couldn’t leave the neighborhood on foot because of cars barreling down narrow, un-shouldered roads. Now sidewalks and bike lanes take me to the grocery store and pharmacy; let me tap into Reston’s trail system, which used to be a tantalizing but unreachable distance away.

So to all forms of walking I celebrate here  — ambling meditatively through the woods, running pell-mell through the meadow, strolling briskly through the city — let me add the walk which is not a destination in itself but which has a larger purpose. It not only takes me out of myself; it takes me home.

Canopy Walk

Canopy Walk

Comments 0 Comment

As walks go, this was a short one, only about 80 feet. But it was 25 feet above ground — and it swayed as I moved. Up there amidst the live oaks and cabbage palms, I was not just in the foliage but of it.

Florida’s Myakka River Canopy Walk was modeled on canopy walks in the South American rain forests. It’s humble and natural and sturdily built (or at least I pretended that it was).

A 76-foot observation tower on one end let me climb up through the trees to glimpse a panorama of forest and river. I was above the canopy rather than under it.

My knees quivered and I thought about the fear that comes not just from height but from exposure. I felt a kinship with creatures that hide under rocks or brush.

Enclosure is safe. Exposure is dangerous — and exhilarating.

A Commuter in the Suburbs

A Commuter in the Suburbs

Comments 0 Comment

I dreamed all day of walking home from the new Silver Line station. I plotted the way before my feet found it. And when I began, it was just as I imagined — segments of trail, mostly paved, with clear markers of distance gained.

Strolling south across the highway, I meandered through the leafy association campuses and a golf course, its wide greens calling. A short tunnel took me to parkland paths with benches and a bridge, then up a steep dirt path to a shopping center.

I passed golfers putting, teenagers dawdling, dog-walkers walking, crepe myrtles blooming. Ambling south out of the center, I strolled past a community garden and pool to the lot where I parked my car in the morning.

One day I’ll add those two extra miles and walk all the way to the house. But for now, this is bliss: to make my way home (mostly) on foot.

Test Walks

Test Walks

Comments 0 Comment

Metro’s new Silver Line opens in six days. Over the weekend I attended a ribbon-cutting for the new station and came home with bus schedules and maps and a plan in my head. On days when I’m not driving or biking to the new station (and there may be many of those!), I may bus the five miles to the new station — then walk home.

I tried out half the new route Saturday, Reston trail map in hand. I felt like a tourist in my own community. And in a way, I was. Like anyone else, I’m a creature of routine. I must be drug kicking and screaming from my well-trod trails and sidewalks.

But change is coming to this suburb, and I want to experience it feet first. So I parked in the Hunter’s Woods shopping center lot and picked up a Reston trail that took me to a park, then a golf course and finally to within a 10-minute stroll of the new station. Today I’ll amble the southern half of the course, from home to the shopping center lot.

So while Metro is doing test runs, I’m doing test walks. Soon we’ll both be in business.

Most Walkable

Most Walkable

Comments 0 Comment

The facts are in — and they’re surprising: Washington, D.C., is the nation’s most walkable city!

Yes, that’s right. I thought the same thing: What about New York (just for starters)? Turns out, it’s Number Two.

 I heard a fleeting mention of this yesterday on the radio and looked it up today thinking I had misheard. But according to a report prepared by George Washington University’s School of Business, Washington has more Walkable Urban Places (WalkUPs) than New York City, Boston, San Francisco or Chicago.

Having lived and walked in three of these top five (and not owned a car in two of them),
I’ll admit I was scratching my head. But then I started reading
the report. WalkUPs are based on the amount of office and retail space and a Walk Score, which looks at how easy it is to run errands without a car. New York comes in second because although Manhattan earns an 89-percent WalkUP score, the other boroughs aren’t quite so walkable.

The most amazing nugget: The D.C. area has the most balanced walkability ratio between city (51 percent) and suburbs (49 percent). Really? The George Washington University researchers must be strolling in Arlington or Bethesda, not Oak Hill. Still, there are more paths here than there used to be, and Metro’s Silver Line (4 and a half miles from my house) opens a week from today.

So I’m optimistic about walking in the suburbs. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

Tread Well

Tread Well

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s walk began in the woods, late afternoon light slanting in through the canopy. Copper and I crossed Folkstone Drive, strolled down Treadwell, a street I love not just for its name (perfect for walkers) but also for its length and lack of traffic and for the calmness I feel when I’m on it.

Treadwell ends in a pipestem with houses tucked deep in the forest. Before you reach it, though, there’s a path back into the woods. We took it, picking our way through some sticker bushes and crossing a creek that required my first sitting down on the bank (a hesitation Copper didn’t understand) before launching myself forward to the other side.

Once across the tributary, we could wander from one trail to another. I noticed the silence, interrupted only by the caws of a crow and the hum of a distant airplane. Was it the silence that freed my mind to appreciate the beauty, the jewel-green moss atop the decaying log, the ferns waving slightly in the breeze?

Nothing is not beautiful here, I thought: the weeds, the stumps, the whole trees uprooted and left lying where they fell, their root balls like the inside of giant umbrellas. All of it a pleasure to the eye.

As we grew closer to the exit, the woods became noisier. It was a landscaping crew grooming the yard of a nearby house. Two mowers and a weed whacker. Welcome back, they seemed to say with their jangle and bluster, welcome back to the world.