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The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers

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My new assignment (which I gave myself): Walk the Cross-County Trail in earnest. Cover the sections I haven’t covered (which are most of them). Chart the great green heart of this populous county.

The timing of the assignment: regrettable. I left later than I’d intended and was little more than halfway on my route when the low clouds and heavy air gave way to the severe storms that had been predicted (and which I had ignored). Forced from the trail at a detour, I picked my way through the wind and rain to a nearby street. I huddled for a while under trees that were short enough not to kill me if they fell but full enough to shelter me from the brunt of the storm.

Ten minutes into the deluge the wind picked up, the rain fell slantwise and I decided to make a run for it, to find an intersection where I could call for help. It was then, as I tried to make a phone call, that there emerged from the storm a kind soul with a large umbrella.

He motioned me over, I ran toward him, and together we dashed to the shelter of his garage. He disappeared for a minute and returned with two towels. For the next 20 minutes we talked about the storm, the fearsome way it blew up and (typical suburbanites) the siding we had on our houses. I never learned his name.  This morning I read in the paper that a tornado touched down less than two miles from where I hiked.

I went to the woods for wilderness and solitude; what I found instead was the kindness of strangers.

I wasn’t far from here when the storm struck.

Team Sport

Team Sport

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I was out earlier than usual this morning and stumbled upon some bustling pavement in the neighborhood next to ours. There were runners and bikers and dog-walkers. A couple of joggers looked familiar, like people I knew vaguely from church or the kids’ school. One man I recognized from the pool; he arrives after 8 p.m. and does an exquisitely slow breast stroke.

Seeing these walkers put some pep in my step. They reminded me that, while walking is for the most part an individual activity, it can also be a team sport. Not that we’re keeping score. But in some palpable way these fellow travelers cheered me on.

We’re all in this together, they seemed to say, as they looked up from the pavement with a wry grin or a raised hand or a good morning. Our strides may be slow, our breathing labored, but we know there’s something golden in these still mornings.

Fellow walkers in Lower Manhattan.

Weekend Walk, Weekday Afternoon

Weekend Walk, Weekday Afternoon

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A short sleep, a long day — these are good reasons to take a weekend walk on a weekday afternoon.

Such a stroll takes me out of the neighborhood, for one thing. So it automatically gives perspective. It’s long enough to break through the torpor and tightness. And it reminds me of sunny mornings and long evenings.

I walked through through a meadow and a woods, past a pond and a pool. I picked some miniature Queen Anne’s lace to press and send to Suzanne in Africa. I snipped some knockout roses from our bush out front, placed them in the tiny vase and set them on our kitchen table. They won’t last long, but that’s okay.

In the beginning of the walk, I was tense and tired. At the end, I was loose and awake.

A Walk in the Dark

A Walk in the Dark

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By the time I took my after-dinner walk it was almost 9 p.m. The light had faded from the sky, and clouds obscured the moon and stars. A head lamp turned me into a roving Cyclops; I was alone in a bright, clammy tunnel. No music, no sunshine, the air heavy with the moisture of an impending shower.

 Don’t look at the cars or you’ll blind the drivers, Tom said, instructing me on the headlamp as I walked out the garage door. So I turned my head demurely whenever a car passed. This had the additional benefit of obscuring my identity. I didn’t need my teenager to tell me how dorky I looked (though she was glad to point it out). I knew that a headlamp and a day-glow safety vest would not  win me any beauty prizes.

But the outfit — and the effort — were worth it. They made it possible to walk in the dark, to prolong the day, to pretend, just for a moment, that it was a sultry June evening — instead of a stifling September one.

Dry Season

Dry Season

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We live in a part of Fairfax County laced with runs and rills. Last fall, torrential rains swelled these small streams into wide rivers that spilled across our narrow lanes, taking tree limbs and other debris with them.

You wouldn’t know that now. Most creek beds are bone dry; the deepest are only a trickle of their former selves. This is not good news for the water table, but it is a boon for the walker.

Routes without bridges, paths that lead to narrow log crossings (or none at all) are now open for business. For the last two weeks I’ve been walking trails I hadn’t walked since 2007, when, in an attempt to ford a stream, I pulled myself up with what turned out to be poison ivy vines. (I somehow grew up without knowing that the second half of the rhyme “leaves of three, let them be” is “only a dope would touch a hairy rope.”)

But this summer I can easily cross that stream on a concrete spillway that is usually under several feet of water. And this opens up an entire network of trails through woods and along country lanes. 

 The dry season reveals worlds that are invisible under high water.

Capitol Hill Walk

Capitol Hill Walk

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A lunchtime stroll up New Jersey Avenue to the Capitol, the grounds and plantings and pleasant vistas of which (I now realize) are thanks to Frederick Law Olmsted. Now that I’ve read his biography and learned this fact, I think of him often when I walk by. No wonder my eyes rest so easily on the west front, are led so capably to the dome. He planned it that way.

But the Capitol was not my destination. I walked around it to East Capitol Street, past the Folger and down the shady brick sidewalk to Lincoln Park.

If Mall walks are about the grandiose and the touristic (the grand edifices of the National Gallery, Natural History and American History Museums), Capitol Hill walks are about the domestic and the personal. Artful arrangements of zinnias and marigolds; the fluttering miracle of an overgrown butterfly bush; a fountain accessorized with a kitschy artificial deer (out here in the suburbs we have enough of the real thing, thank  you very much); and dry cleaners, markets and drug stores tucked away on inconspicuous corners (no tacky neon signs here).

My mind wanders: If we lived here, I could walk to work. We would mow our grass with a push mower, grow roses and herbs in large clay pots. And that balconied turret, that’s where I’d write.

The Capitol Hill walk is also about fantasy.

A photo of the Capitol that is old and out of season and that convinces me to bring my camera along the next time I take a lunchtime stroll in the city.

Caught in the Web

Caught in the Web

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The woods are full of webs these days, spun silk across the path, invisible until breached (which of course is the point) and therefore impossible to avoid. Built by aerialists for aerialists, they don’t bother our fern-high hound.

But for me, the biped, they are an annoyance, tangling themselves in my hair and sticking to my arms, legs and face. I tried swinging a stick in front of me as I walked, but felt ridiculous.

So I decided (without formally deciding) to accept the webs, to brush them off as I stroll, to apologize silently to the forest as I unravel its delicate stitchery, knowing this is just one way among many that I alter — just by moving through it — the woods I love.

Among webs’ many annoyances is the difficulty of photographing them. At least I snapped the perpetrator in this shot.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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The older woman was driving slowly, opening her window as she rolled to a stop. She probably needed directions, I figured, so I walked up to the car.

But no, she was shaking her head and wagging her finger even before she spoke.  “You’re going to make yourself sick out here. It’s too hot to be walking,” she said. “Take care of yourself.” And that was all. I nodded and smiled, mumbled something like, “It’s hot today, isn’t it?” She closed her window and drove away.

And I had just been thinking what a pleasant day it was. High humidity, yes, but breezy and bearable. So I steadied my pace a little, thinking again about the time of day (yes, it was 1 p.m. — not the best time to be out) and the simple neighborliness I’d just witnessed. In all my years of walking through the neighborhood, this was the first such interaction I’d had.

Suddenly, I was feeling all warm inside. And it wasn’t from the walking.

Decompression

Decompression

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The walk home on a no-car commute day: Leaving the park-and-ride lot on foot — on foot! — as everyone else starts up their cars. The jolt of uneasiness at first. Did I forget something? Did I forget to drive?

No. I arrived here on shank’s mare and will return that way, too. I have everything I need: sturdy sandals on my feet, a body that’s been sitting all day and needs to move, a carry bag where I stash my purse and book.  My two legs will carry me wherever I need to go.

Down the trail I glide, insects humming, bikers blasting past. The trail is much busier at 6 p.m. than it was at 5:30 a.m., so I stay to the right, pick up my pace. The thoughts of the day swirl in my head. The longer I walk, the more they make sense. How many souls through the ages have used their walks home (from the hunt, from the well, from the village) as a way to sort things out?

Walking home: The original way of decompression.

Moderation in Motion

Moderation in Motion

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I begin the morning on foot. Down the suburban street, across a tiny wooden bridge over a culvert and through a parting in the trees. It’s where we walked last night, a short and winding path that leads to the wider rail-to-trail that runs between Baltimore and Annapolis. The spiders have been busy overnight and I brush the sticky webs off my arms.

Once on the main trail I hit my stride. I haven’t walked to work since I lived in New York more than two decades ago. And I’m not really walking to work now. Only making my way to the commuter bus. But there is no car involved, and that means I start the day in a calm and ancient way. With movement and foot fall and time for thinking as I stroll.

The downed trees I see make me think of our recent storm, our erratic weather, of global warming and what we’re losing with it, which is moderation. I ponder moderation for a minute, the peace it brings and the difficulty of achieving it these days. Walking is itself a moderating activity, isn’t it? It’s not the stop and go of vehicular locomotion but something that — because it’s limited by blood and bone and muscle — keeps us true to ourselves. Walking, then, is moderation in motion. It’s the temperate response to these extreme times.

What I used to see when I started the day on foot: the East Side glimpsed from the reservoir path.