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West Side Story

West Side Story

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I used to live in the West Village. Now I’m a visitor here. It’s taken a while to adjust to this fact. “A while” is an understatement. We’re talking more than two decades now!

It must be the timelessness of the place, the winding streets that began, they say, with cow paths. The bohemian flavor that lingers amidst the wealth and Starbucks.

But it’s not just the timelessness that draws me back. It’s the new features, like Hudson River Park, a ribbon of asphalt and greenery that runs from 59th Street to the Battery. To stroll or bike here is to be of the city but not in it. It’s to be moving as the river flows, as the city itself moves, poetry in motion.

Every time I visit, I add another chapter to my own West Side Story.

Cut-Through

Cut-Through

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A couple days ago, I parked and walked on Lane Allen, a hilly road I’ve grown fond of on recent visits to Lexington. It has a tree-canopied section — the most treacherous of all, of course, no shoulder, no sidewalk but on the north end some trampled grass, the pedestrian’s makeshift sidewalk.

On this particular walk I turned and looked behind me, back to Parker’s Mill, an even hillier, sidewalk-less road, and noticed that the field behind St. Raphael Church abutted property I thought was along my usual route.

Yesterday I tested the theory. This involved tiptoeing through a backyard, scaling a fence, crossing a  creek and almost entering a horse pasture by mistake. But eventually I found my way to the church property (they won’t mind trespassing, I reasoned) and over to Lane Allen.

 It was a small discovery, but it made me unreasonably happy. Now I can take a beautiful walk without driving to it. Now I know the real lay of the land.  I’m that much closer to being a walker in this suburb.

Going Solo

Going Solo

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An early walk this morning, and along the path I kept bumping into groups of runners. Each cluster of three or four would ask me if others were up ahead. I smiled and pointed behind me. Yes, they were all there, the pack.

I was glad to be of help — but even happier that I was running alone and not with others.

I belong to a family, a workplace, a church, a book group, a writer’s group and a tap dance class. But organized running is not for me.

Trail time is for thinking, listening to music, putting the day into perspective

And these are tasks best performed alone.

When Walking Was King

When Walking Was King

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I had another blog topic rattling around in my head this morning, something about March coming in and going out like a lion, when I read an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. It’s the opening of baseball season, America’s national pastime, wrote Matthew Algeo, but long ago, fans gathered to watch another sport, competitive walking.

It was called pedestrianism, and it involved people walking around a dirt track for six days at a time. The races lasted for 144 hours (with participants napping on cots), included heavy wagering and winners (the celebrity athletes of their day) could take home as much as $425, 000 (in today’s currency).

At first, I checked my calendar. Could this be an April
Fools joke? But no, it’s still March. And yes, pedestrianism was a genuine phenomenon.

The author’s point was cautionary: Pedestrianism was in part done in by doping scandals. At one time in our nation’s history no one could have predicted that it wouldn’t have remained the nation’s pastime forever.

But I take something different from the piece. For a walker in the suburbs, it’s funny proof of how once walking was king.


(Wikipedia: An 1836 illustration of a “Walking Wager”, from Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, by Anonymous, Philadelphia.)

Walking West

Walking West

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Long day at the office and the best way to unwind: walking an extra mile to Metro through the streets of D.C.

I’d stayed so long that I strode right into the setting sun. E Street was a swath of light, and the faces of the people marching toward me were shadowed spheres.

It was a strange way to see the world, as if my direction were the only direction. I thought briefly of skipping a block north, finding another route, but quickly realized the sun angle would be the same.

I was walking west, going home. It was the only way to go.

Free Hour

Free Hour

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A free hour, from 6-7 last evening, and the trail beckoned. The sun was low in the sky and the evening was soft and warm. Cyclists whizzed by me and my legs felt heavy and tired, so I kept to the right and warmed up slowly. 

Ten minutes in and I was flying. Well, not really. But it felt that way. It’s been such a long, cold winter. And to be dressed only in one layer, moving at my own pace down a path in the suburbs, seemed perfection to me then.

Maybe it was runner’s high or maybe it was spring fever — and it certainly had something to do with daylight savings time. But whatever it was, I was not alone.

Everyone I saw — from the ferociously helmeted bikers to the boxy guy padding along in thin sandals — seemed to feel the same way.

Trudging On

Trudging On

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March has never been one of my favorite months. But this year I approach it with a fair amount of gratitude. Gratitude and wariness.

I’m grateful we’re in a month of longer days and shorter nights. Glad to see the spring birds crowd the feeder. Encouraged by the warm sun on my face, by the halfhearted witch hazel and the tentative green shoots of the daffodil.

I’m wary, too, though. March is fickle. March is proud. March likes to keep you guessing. And indeed, we frolic this weekend under threat of a winter storm Sunday night into Monday. Predictions are we’ll see our coldest temps of the winter on Tuesday morning. That’s Tuesday, March 4.

What’s a walker to do?

Pull on the coat, the gloves, the ear-warmers; find the sunniest music possible — and trudge into the wind.

Sidelined

Sidelined

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I know. I tend to rhapsodize about the snow. I like how it gilds the everyday, how it covers imperfections, changes patterns, shakes up routines.

But one thing I don’t like is what it does to walking trails and paths. Here in the suburbs, walkers are always at the mercy of the automobile, but never more than when snow and ice take our paths away. Suddenly, all walking is street walking, which is fine when there are shoulders and gravel berms, not so good when those are buried under mountains of plowed snow.

Thursday, after a foot fell, I stayed inside, but by Friday I was itching to be out again. Streets were full of slush; my shoes oozed.  On Saturday, more snow, but it wasn’t sticking, so I ran gingerly through flurries. Yesterday, finally, a still cold with dry pavement, a boon to the ice-phobic.

Our paths are still covered, but I’m not sidelined. At least until the next flakes fall. We’re expecting more snow tonight.

A View in Mind

A View in Mind

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Cold and snow have hemmed in my walks and runs, have kept me close to home. But yesterday I broke free. Not that it was much warmer than it has been, but it wasn’t snowing or sleeting (yet) so I left the neighborhood for a familiar route.

I darted across the busy street to the trail on the other side, the one with cut-out hedges, the one that always makes me feel like I’m in a maze or a tunnel of English hedgerows. When that trail ended I was at the crest of a rise, where I can see for miles on a clear day.

It wasn’t clear yesterday, but no matter. I have that view in my head. I could see the Dulles control tower, the blue hills beyond it. I could escape the immediate and enter the faraway.

A Walker Continues

A Walker Continues

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The snow has clung to
every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia
have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow,
crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words. 

Four years ago today I started this blog with a post entitled “A Walker Begins.” Since then, there has been a “slow, patient accumulation” of at least 20,000 words. Other than that, “Walker” hasn’t changed much, other than my learning how to make the photos larger. One of these days I’ll figure out how to switch templates, which will make it easier to follow and comment.


Otherwise, I imagine I’ll keep plugging away as I always do: walking, thinking, noticing.


Writing about the world in an attempt to make some sense of it — though not too much, of course.