Browsed by
Category: walking

Something Up My Sleeve

Something Up My Sleeve

Comments 0 Comment

Spring is trying, but it’s still winter here. Bare trees, brisk winds. I probably should wear gloves. But somehow I never remember, or I think I don’t need them. So on most of my walks now my hands are balled into fists and pulled up into the sleeves of my old jacket.

This is probably against most exercise maxims: relax, keep your arms loose, shake out. But for better or worse it seems to be my style these days. And I like the idea of gloves at the ready, long sleeves (and this jacket has them) with a soft lining. Some sweat shirts these days are made with thumb holes so my hands are always warm — though wearing them makes me feel like a poorly paid Dickensian clerk.

Still, there is something to be said for being as portable as possible. Do I have something up my sleeve? Absolutely!

Unforgettable

Unforgettable

Comments 1 comment
Some walks stay in mind only as long as my feet pound the
pavement; they vanish as soon as I walk in the door. Others are unforgettable.
 
It was winter and the moon was rising.  The city was spread out as it always is,
midtown to the left, lower Manhattan to the right, New York Harbor at our feet,
the ferries and tugs like insects skimming water. The day was ending and the
great city was dressing for dinner.
 
In those days the Brooklyn Bridge talked back to walkers, as
cars drove across the metal grid of the roadway below, and being out there in the middle was truly to be suspended — not on earth at
all but flying above it with towers of stone and cables of steel and something
else that can’t be named or explained.
 
Later that year I stood with thousands as music blared and fireworks
exploded to celebrate the span’s 100th birthday. And in the years
since I’ve often strolled from Manhattan to Brooklyn. But when I think
of the bridge, it’s that walk I remember most — the gathering darkness, the sighing
of tires on steel, the real world falling away.
Maps of Clouds

Maps of Clouds

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s walk began in drizzle, which I cursed silently. Not that I mind it, but my hair does. But I walked anyway, and as I did, the sky began to clear and the clouds piled up in the west and made maps of themselves, great illuminated maps. There was Cuba, or maybe some Micronesian island, and beyond it, some southern coast. And the yellow-pink light kept growing, even though the light rain kept falling. By then I had given up on my hair and just marveled that the sky could be so bright and still have rain in it.

It wasn’t until I reached the far end of our neighborhood that the rain finally stopped, and by then the clouds were on fire, so I extended my stroll along the busy road, which offers prime sunset viewing — all the while keeping those clouds, those pink and yellow clouds, in my sight.

As the cars drove past I thought how few of those drivers (often I’m one of them) could look — or see — the beauty raging around them. The poverties we are given, how they enrich us; and the riches, how they impoverish. This is certainly not a new thought, but an intensely felt one there in the just-past-rainy gloaming of an otherwise dreary day.

Stitchery

Stitchery

Comments 0 Comment

The lunchtime walk is timed, by necessity. No more than an hour, often less. Bracketed by desk work, it is more of a bolt than a saunter.

Down First to New Jersey, over and around the Capitol.

Or maybe down the Mall, to the Washington Monument and back.

Errands might take me up Massachusetts or along E Street to Penn Quarter, the bustle of Chinatown.

Sometimes just to the Botanical Gardens to smell the roses.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Each route stitches me more securely to this place.

Roses in December

Roses in December

Comments 2 comments

It was almost 70 degrees yesterday as I made my way along New Jersey Avenue to the Capitol. A small wind was whiffling the pansies, stirring the purples and yellows and the dark green leaves.  I moseyed down a section of tree-lined street that reminds me of Paris, with the U.S. Capitol winking through what’s left of the leaves.

The broad plaza of the East Front entrance was filled with shirt-sleeved tourists snapping photos, but noon light drained color from the scene. I turned left down East Capitol, passing the Library and the Folger and a bookstore I always intend to visit but never do. Roses were still blooming, tumbling along fence posts and garden gates. In the air, the smell of new-mown grass.

Everyone was out in the warm weather — dog-walkers and nannies pushing prams and office workers on a lunchtime jog.  There’s a park where I usually turn around, and today I strode right through the middle of it. I never knew what it was called until I checked a map after my stroll. It’s Lincoln Park — and not at all like its Chicago counterpart — but now I’ll never forget the name.

Before the Walk

Before the Walk

Comments 0 Comment

Before the walk comes the poem, a verse or two to take along the path.

I see more clearly with downcast eyes, pondering a private line.

Words tilt the sky, straighten the trunk, unmask the liquid

line of the horizon.

There is still much more unnoticed than revealed.

Walker Eats Words

Walker Eats Words

Comments 1 comment

I walk daylight paths and share (mostly sunny) thoughts, but I walk because I want to, not because I have to. Most of the time there is a car at my disposal. Most of the time, but not last night.

It was a long day with a complicated automotive choreography involving three people and two cars. I was driving one vehicle in the morning and another in the afternoon. It was dark when I stepped off the commuter bus, and I had car keys in hand, ready to slide into the seat and drive home. But I couldn’t find the car; I walked up and down the lot, looking in vain for the distinctive luggage rack of our sedan.

I would have called and asked for guidance but I had no phone and the pay phone was out of order, probably has been for several years. Never mind, I told myself. There must have been some confusion. I’ll just walk home.

Walking home from that distance wouldn’t be daunting in the daylight, but it was at night. I found myself tripping on cracked pavement and dodging cars, even when I crossed with the lights. It took me 45 cold unpleasant minutes in my dark coat and too-tight work shoes. The only thing I could think about was how much I wanted to be home.

I hadn’t been in the house more than five minutes when Tom and Celia walked in. The car was in the lot (sans luggage rack); I had just missed it.

What I hadn’t missed was this: It’s easy to rhapsodize about walking when you don’t have to walk.

Intermittency

Intermittency

Comments 0 Comment

A problem with our wireless network has changed my blogging habits. I write quickly, post quickly, before I’ve timed out.  At least for now, I’m learning to live with intermittency, with stopping and starting, with that which cannot be controlled.

A valuable lessons to be reminded of from time to time.

My pace has been intermittent lately, too, as bursts of running punctuate my usual fast-walk cadence. I try for a steady pace but can’t help but respond to the music in my ears and the feel of my joints.

Even the weather has been singing this tune — blustery and cold one weekend, calm and warm the next.

Bedrock is necessary, that which is solid and predictable. But what gets us through the day is the lighter, looser loam on top.

Mall Walk

Mall Walk

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s mall walk: Brisk wind, hands stuffed in my sleeves and looking, always looking. The mall belongs to
everyone and holds everyone and when you walk through it on a clear fall day, it’s the people you notice first. They stroll, they stare, they move slowly. Sometimes they stop, right in front
of you. And then you (or at least I) roll my eyes and stride impatiently
around them. But the place is for them and of them and they make it sing, they
make it make sense.
Usually they come in groups. Families with toddlers who careen
down the broad gravel walkway. Tired mothers with purses worn across their
chest to leave their hands free for pushing a stroller or wiping a nose. Groups
of school kids with backpacks and more energy than seems possible. Tourists were everywhere yesterday — forming
lines at the Capitol, taking a break at the carousel, buying
hot dogs and ice cream in front of the Smithsonian Castle. 

And there I was, a reluctant
resident of our nation’s capital, someone who  routinely disparages the
traffic and the lack of place — until I take a walk on the Mall.
Until I see the people. And not just the tourists but people like me, office-dwellers with keys around their necks and tennis shoes on their
feet, all of us out for some air on a sunny afternoon. Runners and footballers and Frisbee throwers and people sitting quietly on a
park bench munching a sandwich and folks
strolling through the Botanical Gardens, learning to recognize the
switch grass from the blue stem. 
I know it’s probably just the endorphins from the walk, but these people, all of these people, the tourists and the residents, all of them seem glad to be alive on
this day and in this place. It’s easy to be one of them.
After the Rain

After the Rain

Comments 0 Comment

I could tell the difference before I reached the first dip in the road. A day earlier I had misjudged, found myself trudging through rain, my socks damp, my hair wet. But yesterday, I stepped into a drenched clean world.

On my way, an empty mail truck. An early lunch for the carrier? We on his leeward side were still waiting, but those whose letters had arrived were slowly shuffling to their mailboxes, sweaters pulled tight, suspicious glances at the sky.

In the new section of the neighborhood a worker swept the wet street in front of a construction site. He seemed only to be moving mud, but he greeted me cheerily.

Down at the corner the cars zoomed by, as they always do, and the dying sycamore dropped its leaves. The rain came too late for that poor tree. And the big white house that was abandoned for so long, it still looked abandoned, even though someone seems to be living in the place. So a good soaking doesn’t solve everything, but it did put a spring in my step.

On the way home, I waved at the cars I passed. People do that here.