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Category: walking

Walking Lake Anne

Walking Lake Anne

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The other day, looking for some adventure, I ambled around Reston’s Lake Anne. I started at the landmark Heron House, the
16-story condominium building that was the epicenter of Robert Simon’s bold bid
for urban density in suburbia. Lake Anne Plaza doesn’t feel very urban today — or
very dense for that matter — but I know it’s a work in progress. I find a path that hugs the lake, cross a little bridge and walk past town houses adorned with native plants, witty sculptures and small fountains.

In the distance, I hear the clang of
a metal ladder as it’s leaned against a house. Someone is painting. I stroll
along South Shore Drive, steel blue water winking between the trees, and imagine what it must be like to live beside a lake, to take a daily measure
of its moods and colors. From the looks of the canoes and kayaks
along the shore, this lake is not just observed; it is experienced.

Before
long I’m at the far end of Lake Anne — and Wiehle Avenue, which I thought was
farther east. Foot travel often surprises me this way, showing me connections
that car travel cannot. As I swing around to the
northern shore, I catch a whiff of simmering grains and the sharp-sweet scent
of cinnamon. Rice pudding? My stomach rumbles, and I walk faster, back to my car. It’s never far away in
the suburbs.
Reentry Walk

Reentry Walk

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Low skies and gray clouds made for a tough reentry yesterday. The pleasures of the table, of family and friends, of long sleeps and easy afternoons — all reverted to workaday tasks and tedium. Even the knowledge of more holidays in the near future, of how much there is to do between now and Christmas — even those thoughts didn’t move me.

So when I left the house at lunchtime, I made my way to the meadow. I needed the sweep of open land, of a path running through it, of birds on the wing.

And that’s what I found: quiet fields asleep for the season, a pair of robins (so soon? ), and a still pond without last week’s thin skin of ice — a still pond that is liquid once again.

Familiar sights, easy on the eye and stimulating to the brain.

Yesterday’s walk that did what the best walks do: send me cheerfully back into my day.

The Great Pause

The Great Pause

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It’s almost December, trees are bare. Paths that seemed endless in summer green are exposed when winter comes. The community forest is not the leading edge of a wilderness; it is a parcel of land that didn’t perk.

But that’s not all. It is also is a landscape stripped to its essence. I take out my earphones and listen. I can almost hear the silence. The great pause. A momentary intake of breath before the hard exhale.

The fields are
empty; the nights are long. Early winter is peaceful, muted. It asks nothing
of us now.

Rhythm of the Amble

Rhythm of the Amble

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Lately I’ve been running as much as walking. This may be good for my physical well-being but I’m missing the measured thought that comes with slower foot fall.

I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth more rumination. My theory has been that running requires enough effort that there is little left for anything else.

But the other day, on an especially soothing woods walk, another possibility presented itself: It’s the rhythm of the amble — left, right, left, right — allowing each step its own percussive moment. It’s trance-inducing after a while. And very conducive to cogitation.

Then again, it may have been the autumn color and the deepening dusk that worked its magic.

Walkable City

Walkable City

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“Walking is a simple and a useful thing, and such a pleasure,
too. It is what brings planeloads of Americans to Europe on holiday, including even some of the traffic engineers who make our own cities so inhospitable.”  — Jeff Speck, Walkable City
 It would take far more than a single post to describe all the ideas in this book, thoughts about walkability from one of the nation’s foremost experts on it, the city planner Jeff Speck. For now here are Speck’s “Ten Steps of Walkability”:
 Put cars in their place
Mix uses
Get parking right
Let transit work
Protect the pedestrian
Welcome bikes
Shape the spaces
Plant trees
Make friendly and unique spaces
Pick your winners
Speck mentions European cities throughout the book. Here are places where pedestrians rule, where public transit safely transports people to and from their destinations, where bikes are welcome and buildings create human-scaled places.
What all these features combine to create is a walkable environment, one people want to stroll through and be part of.  We need to value “moving under one’s own power at a relaxed pace through a public sphere that
continually rewards the senses,” Speck says. “We need a new normal in America, one that
rewards walking.”

Running and Walking

Running and Walking

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I can’t really explain it, did not set out to do it, but lately I’ve been running more than I’ve been walking.  My knees seem up to the task, and there is the mood-elevating aspect of the endeavor, the “runner’s high,” which encourages the habit.

I can’t help but compare the two, though. Running is about the pace, the accomplishment. At least at this point of my re-entry into the activity, I find myself thinking more “hey, I’m running!” than anything else.

Walking, on the other hand, frees the mind for wandering. The pace is natural, conducive to wool-gathering along the way.

All of which is to say: the ideal day would include time to run and walk. Ah, if only I didn’t have to earn a living!

Beating the Clock

Beating the Clock

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I don’t know when cross-walks that flash “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” turned into cross-walks that give pedestrians a countdown of the seconds they have left for crossing, but I was thinking yesterday how this development has changed my walking style.

Before, I would find my cadence and stride confidently from block to block. My feet were on auto-pilot while my mind was free to wander. I stopped and started when needed.

Now if I spot a flashing “20” halfway down the block, I play beat the clock. The natural gait is gone. Instead, I race to the corner and dash across the street.The flow of thoughts is replaced by strategy. If I keep up the pace another block I can beat that light, too.

Do I get where I’m going any faster?

I doubt it.

Run, Don’t Walk

Run, Don’t Walk

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Sometimes it’s harder to walk fast than it is to run slow. So more often than not these days I find myself running. Not like these college girls, fleet of foot, majorly in shape.

No. I’m talking about a middle-aged version of running. Plodding, for sure.

The fast walk must balance speed with dexterity. The roll of the foot, still earthbound. Keeping the pace when gravity argues against it.

Whereas the run, after a while, becomes habit. There is a rhythm there that moves you forward. Kind of like living.

The Return

The Return

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Walking an unfamiliar route can mean a longer jaunt than expected. Landmarks beckon: Just one more block. The temptation is to run too far down the beach or path. And then …. you have to walk home.

Yesterday I ran out and lost steam. The landmarks that flew by the first time passed more slowly on the return. On the other hand, it was on the return that I savored the sights I had sped by earlier.

I’ve always wondered about the different ways we perceive time on a journey. It often seems faster on the way home, perhaps because the sights are more familiar. But when you run one way and walk the other, the reverse is true. The return takes longer — but gives more.

Door, Wall and Flower

Door, Wall and Flower

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Art imitates life imitates art. The door bedecked with flowers, a variety of hydrangea, I think, larger and more open-petaled than the usual. The wall decorated with wisteria — and a bicycle, in case you get tired of walking.

To walk in an old city is to stop often to photograph buildings. It makes for a halting step but a full camera (phone?) upon return.

It’s more than worth the trip.