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The Walking Wait

The Walking Wait

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Arlington’s ART 43 bus is punctual enough to set your watch to — although I suppose no one sets a watch anymore. But through the months I’ve ridden the “Art 43” I’ve come to count on its regularity.

This morning was another story. I figured there was a good excuse, and there was. An accident on the route tied up traffic for miles. But I waited … and waited. A small crowd soon formed.

What’s more important, though, is how I waited. On a Metro platform you can pace but you can’t walk. When you’re waiting for this bus, at least in the morning, you can walk — because the bus makes a little jog around a short block, and if you walk clockwise around the stop, you’ll see the bus in time to run for it.

All of which is to say that today I walked while I waited.

The walking wait (waiting walk?) is not the most restful walk I take. But it’s better than just plain waiting.

(Rice paddies in the sun. I figure if the walk wasn’t restful, at least the picture can be.)

Workday Travel

Workday Travel

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Travel has many advantages, one of them being how it shakes me out of my routine. It forces me to take a few risks, talk to people more than I would otherwise. It’s hard to be bored when I’m traveling. Tired, nervous and hungry, maybe. But never bored.

Sometimes, even traveling to work will do that. Today was one of those days.

With the two main subway lines coming in from the west partially shut down due to smoke in the tunnels, I took a bus I’d never taken before.  It was a jolly crew of commuters and travelers crammed together, many of us standing.

I chatted with a young couple from Slovenia. She was model-caliber gorgeous. He spoke excellent English, had a pierced eyebrow and wore a button that said, “Ask me how to lose weight.” (I didn’t.)

“Slovenia is small, but we are mighty,” he said, reeling off names of some of its famous citizens, including First Lady Melania Trump and various sports figures I’d never heard of. But he was so proud of his small country that he made me want to go there immediately!

All this is to say that when I got off the bus at Rosslyn, I barely knew where I was.

Leaving in the Dark

Leaving in the Dark

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Once again it’s dark when I leave for work and light when I return. This happens every year when we “spring forward,” and every year I note the change.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the long evenings — though long, frigid evenings are not exactly what I had in mind.

It’s more the shift of expectations. Can I still come home, pull on comfy sweat pants and veg out? Not so easy when it’s light till 7:30.

On the other hand, leaving in darkness has always signified seriousness of purpose. It’s the departure hour for early-morning flights and important interviews.

I feel so virtuous pulling out of the driveway with only moonlight and porch light to guide me. It’s like I’m getting a jump on the day — even though it’s no earlier than I left last week!

Deadlines, Real and Imagined

Deadlines, Real and Imagined

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Writing this blog is completely voluntary, of course. No one is paying me to do it, no one is expecting me to do it. Which is why, when things are especially crazy at work, I post here later in the day.

Today has been one of those days. Having waited all day for a logical stopping point, I’ve finally given up. I’m writing now at an illogical stopping point — meaning that I still have work to complete before close of business.

Ironically, it’s often when I telecommute that I don’t post here until later in the day.  Overcompensation, a different routine, real deadlines interfering with imagined ones.

But which are more important? The real ones demand response, will get it one way or the other. The imagined ones can slip away. Does that not make them the ones that need me most?

Seems that way to me.

(Rushing here, rushing there. But at least I’m not riding Metro today.)

Two-Hour Delay

Two-Hour Delay

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When I was a kid, you either had school or you did not. There was no in between. By the time I had children, the two-hour delay was well established.

In many ways it makes sense. Icy mornings often moderate, and two hours can make a big difference in the condition of roads and sidewalks. Having just driven to Metro on a day deemed too tricky for an on-time start, I can vouch that the county made the right call today.

But I can remember what a mess it was when the kids were young and school started at 11:05 rather than the (already late) 9:05. I could barely transcribe an interview before they were home again. And there’s something about the moral relativity of a two-hour delay that disheartens me. It’s mushy, especially when employed too often.

Perhaps that’s why I slogged into the office today. It was hard … but it was pure.

(We only got an inch of snow today; the photos is from 2010.) 

Catching the 43

Catching the 43

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Sometimes I just miss it, but other times, like yesterday, I look at my watch, think there’s no way I can get there in time, but somehow, with much huffing and puffing, I arrive at the line of people that means the bus hasn’t yet come. Moments later, the ART 43 bus pulls up to the Crystal City stop.

The Arlington bus system is a marvel. It runs on time, is comfortable and pleasant, and the drivers aren’t surly. (I have a low bar for drivers.) Compare this with Metro — dark, crowded, subject to delays for door jamming, arcing, you name it.

The ART 43 runs from Crystal City to Courthouse and back with only one stop in between — Rosslyn. It’s 10 minutes of efficient transportation.  No wonder I’m glad when I catch the 43.

Missing Poetry

Missing Poetry

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Some people have their morning coffee; I have my morning poetry. Or at least I used to. Today I learned that my radio station is developing some “exciting new programs,” and to make way for them will stop airing The Writer’s Almanac at 6:45 a.m. Listeners can still hear the program online, the announcer said.

But they won’t, I’m afraid.  Or at least this one will not. I’ve had the program delivered to my inbox for years and I never listen to Garrison Keillor read the poem of the day. Sometimes I read it, but I  never listen to it.

No, what I had for years was serendipity. The program aired when I was often driving to Metro, and I could sip tea and drive and start the day with a gasp or a sigh; with a roll of the eyes or a sudden watering of them.

Poetry moves me. Even in the morning. I’ll miss it.

Behind the Wheel

Behind the Wheel

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Women in Saudi Arabia have just been given the right to drive. It’s a much-needed step toward equality in that nation, and I’d glad that it’s finally happening.

Makes me think about a time in my life when driving meant liberation, which was decades ago, when I first got my license. Now driving is an irksome duty, a way to move from A to B. Now I feel more liberated walking or riding a bike than I do driving a car. It’s hard to feel free when you’re sitting in traffic or jostling with trucks on the Beltway.

Good to be reminded, though, of the pleasures of locomotion, of not being dependent on others for transport. I could be sitting on one of those buses in Bangladesh, the battered ones that seem to have been in countless crashes. Or I could be on the back of a zemidjan in Benin, hanging on for dear life as motorscooters careen around me.

But instead I have a car of my own and can propel myself wherever I need to go. It’s nice to be reminded that it’s nice to have wheels.

Coat Tails Flying

Coat Tails Flying

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I saw him from the bus window, a lone biker on a share cycle, not his own road bike. He was wearing no helmet and his hair was in a bun.

What caught my eye, though, was his suit jacket. It was flaring out behind him as he rode, and it made him seem, though he was suited for a day in the office, about eight years old.

He was any kid on the way to the park or the pool on a delicious summer afternoon, all his life before him. He was free! But better than that, he managed to capture this feeling on the way to work.

He was not practicing safe behavior. There was no bike helmet in sight. But I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We were behind him all the way down Clarendon, as I watched his coat tails fly.

Two Walks

Two Walks

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Rising early has its advantages, chief among them the chance to take two walks before breakfast.

My first was before 6:00 a.m., air still cool, crows still running the place. Their caws say “danger, danger, danger,” but not for me. I hear jays and hawks, too, plus the rise and fall of midsummer cicadas.

The second walk was a purposeful stride from Oakton High School to the Vienna Metro Station. It’s the closest place to park and not pay, so when the morning is luscious and I have the time,  I walk the mile instead of driving it.
The sights and sounds are different: Instead of crows I hear the whoosh of traffic noise, and the hawk’s cry is replaced by the shrill grind of metal-on-metal as a train lumbers into the station. 
But these are quibbles. It’s Monday. It’s morning. And … two walks are better than one.
(I took this en route to the Vienna Metro some years ago. The trees look like they’re walking, too.)