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Wind-Walking

Wind-Walking

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It may come as no surprise that I take parenting advice with a grain of salt. But I do think about one bit of wisdom I once heard — that to raise children these days you have to walk against the wind. I’ve been doing a lot of wind-walking lately, both literally and metaphorically. Which is perhaps why it was strangely satisfying to pound the pavement this cold morning.

Yesterday the bitter cold took me by surprise. I was out early, had only one tissue in my pocket, and I sniffled and snuffled and tiptoed over icy patches all along my route. My hands were so cold I had to ball them up inside my thin gloves. I never hit my stride.

Today I was better prepared. More layers. Ears covered. Thicker gloves. Still only one tissue but hey, life isn’t perfect. It felt good to walk against the wind today. A shivering dose of reality. Always better when faced.

Dickens the Walker

Dickens the Walker

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Too busy writing about the anniversary here yesterday to mention Dickens’ 200th birthday. David Copperfield is one of my favorite books — in fact, it’s about time to re-read it — and I revere most of author’s classics. (I’ll admit, Bleak House was a bit tedious in parts.)

What I didn’t know until yesterday (or perhaps once heard but had forgotten) is that Dickens was a walker. The “Morning Edition” story I heard about him yesterday said he liked to walk “far and fast.”

“He did these great walks — he would walk every day for miles and miles, and sometimes I think he was sort of stoking up his imagination as he walked, and thinking of his characters,” said Claire Tomalin, author of the new biography Charles Dickens: A Life.

Imagine going for a stroll and coming back with Mr. Macawber. Or Bob Cratchit. Or any number of the other real, human, flawed, funny, rich and revealing characters that people Dickens’ novels.

Learning of the great man’s walking habits makes me appreciate my ambles all the more. A walk may not yield a masterpiece. But it almost always produces a thought or two that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t moved my legs and jiggled my old brain a bit.

Walk from One World

Walk from One World

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This winter’s mild weather means it’s not too cold for a walk before dawn. I’ve taken a few of these lately, mostly brisk strolls to the train.

To walk to Metro is to walk east, toward morning. So in all of these ambles I aim toward a slight strip of red along the horizon, the earliest sign of daylight. The only folks I see are just like me, dressed in black or gray, shouldering packs and briefcases and gym bags, purposefully striding to the ribbon of track that will whisk us from one world to another.

These last few months I have come to appreciate even more the benefit of such a separation. It is good to have a place that is not home, a cool, quiet, unemotional place in which to produce solid, if unimaginative, prose. So, I move fast on these morning walks to Metro not just because I’m scared to be stirring in the darkness, but also because I’m genuinely eager to leave the turbulent, heartfelt, almost full to bursting world for a leaner, calmer one.

I have no illusions, though. My best and deepest work always comes from acknowledging and confronting the turbulent world. I walk fast in the morning, but never fast enough to leave that world completely behind.

Connector

Connector

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This morning I walked on a path called the Fairfax Connector. There are many of these trails in our area. “Connector” is the default name for a trail that leads from a neighborhood into a park, or that connects one path to another.

As I trudged through the cold, past dog walkers and tennis players and a couple of workmen mulching Nottoway Park, I thought about how the foot traveler has more opportunity to connect than the driver. Here in my neck of the woods there are precious few cut-through streets. We like our cul-de-sacs and circles, our cloistered neighborhoods away from the fray.

But walkers know that getting out of the houses, slipping on our shoes and walking from one neighborhood to another makes us feel more alive. It’s the connector. It’s the connection.

Hollowed Out

Hollowed Out

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It was about 20 degrees this morning when I went for my walk.For an hour I took paths I hadn’t taken in years, some never at all. There were hills and bridges, slight dips and a bounty of backyards to overlook and enjoy.

At the end I tried a shortcut that I thought would bring me out on the main road. It lead, instead, to a tall fence I couldn’t scale. So I retraced my steps at a run to return to the parking lot where I’d left the car. I was tired by the end.

Along the way the ground crackled beneath my feet as the frozen earth resisted my steps. There was a feeling of renewal in the cold, of being hollowed out and made whole again by it.

Parfait

Parfait

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No epiphany today, despite the date. In its place, some sights and sounds. On my walk this morning the eastern sky was streaked pink and orange, a parfait of dawn. As the sun rose and the sky lightened, contrails made lacy white stripes through the blue.

Birds were active today, jays and robins and crows all chirping and hopping and flitting about. I decided that bird song in the morning is a sure-fire way to improve the day.

At the end of my walk, I heard a strange bark-like noise and turned my head just in time to see a plump red fox trot through the meadow. He moved like our dog Copper does, with pluck and verve and a bit of a waddle. When he reached the woods he turned and posed, then ambled on. I felt his wildness in my bones.

A Start

A Start

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I was out early this morning, early enough that my breath still made clouds in the air, out with the earliest of moseying dog walkers. Lately I’ve been too busy to venture much farther than the loop walk in our neighborhood. But today I turned down West Ox.

It’s a road that was widened a few years ago — with a bonus for walkers, a paved path alongside it. You can walk this path for miles if you want — all the way to the shopping mall. Not that I’d want to.

Today I took it past several neighborhoods and a garden shop, a church and an old barn. As I strode, the sky pinked and the clouds fluffed and beams of light made it difficult to look up. (I had forgotten my sunglasses.) My eyes teared from the fresh air and the wind and the morning sun.

It didn’t look at all like this picture, but it was a good way to start the day.

The Old Route

The Old Route

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Yesterday I left the house early, and as the sun rose I was walking an old route I hadn’t been on in years. Some of the houses had additions, but other than that the scenery was just as I remembered it. The yards were just as deep and forgiving, the trees as lofty.

And the route itself: There was the same rise to the straightaway, the expansive section in the middle, the one that was such welcome shade in the summer, it made me happy in the winter, too.

I didn’t walk long, but I felt as if I had been on a brief vacation. Such is the power of landscape to reset the mood.

The Glade

The Glade

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Yesterday the sun rose blood red between the dark trees, and swirls of frozen fog lingered in the low parts of the land. It was a good day to leave the neighborhood and walk the Glade trail.

The Glade. I’ve always loved that name. It sounds like something out of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. And I have great affection for this path since it’s one I’ve walked off and on for years.

But the Glade is not the place it used to be. A stream restoration project has elevated and opened up the creek bed, and what I noticed most was the gurgling of the water. Whereas before the creek was overgrown, muddy and still, now it is broad, open and brisk.

It was a lively place to be on a cold Sunday morning.

The Purpose of Walking

The Purpose of Walking

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Yesterday’s walks were mad dashes to and fro. That I was striding through liquid gold, that the air around me was as soft and inviting as any all autumn — I was vaguely aware of that. But I was so preoccupied in reaching my goal — a lunchtime errand, an after-work errand — that I didn’t slow down as I should.

Makes me think about how people used to walk. It was not for their health, it was not for their emotional enrichment. It was, simply, to get somewhere. And then to get back. There was a monotony and a sameness to it that must have worked against wisdom.

But still, walking has always had a purpose in our country. It has often meant freedom. “Being footloose has always exhilarated us,” said Wallace Stegner. “It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression … “

And later in this essay, Stegner quotes Gertrude Stein, who defines America in this way: “Conceive a space that is filled with moving.”

Movement through space is our heritage and our birthright. On my walk yesterday I was not alone in my oblivious striding. All around me, people were doing the same thing.