A Patch of Grass

A Patch of Grass

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Now that it’s fall, with cool nights and warm days, something is happening in the backyard, something I longed for all summer long: the grass is growing! I’ve seen it springing up all over the yard, but especially here, where it luxuriates with a few autumn leaves. 

While some homeowners worry about a patch of weeds, here we celebrate a patch of grass. I’d almost forgotten what it looks like, its long thin spears so soft on bare feet, so tempting to trod.

The ongoing lack of grass and subsequent weediness has been through no lack of trying. Seed has been sown, and sown, and sown. But the hard clay soil has seemed impervious to it. All the more reason to be gladdened now — that for some reason, be it rain or chill or slant of sun, the seed has finally taken.

Seeing this patch of grass now, feeling it tender beneath my feet … gives me hope. 

Paper and Pen

Paper and Pen

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The witch hazel is blazing bright yellow in the backyard, but at least so far, I’m working inside. I will work in chill but not damp chill (which we have today) — plus there is the sensitivity of the wonderful machine on which I type these words. One drop of moisture in the wrong place spells doom. Which has me thinking about the portability and beauty of paper and pen. 

I could no more do my work solely with those two items than I could with a stylus and clay tablet. But it’s worth mentioning how much freer one can feel with tools that weather the elements with fortitude and good cheer. 

The fickleness of the modern computer is one of those things that makes me feel I’m living my life atop a stormy sea of unknowingness. It’s a fair-weather implement that helps me when there’s power, but doesn’t when there’s not. I don’t really, truly understand how computers work, only that — somehow, miraculously — they do.

And of course, there’s the fact that this blog wouldn’t exist if I communicated  only with paper and pen. And there you have it: the modern dilemma in a nutshell … or at least one of its nutshells.

(Above: the little black book where I write when I’m not typing.)

Twin Branches Trail

Twin Branches Trail

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A weekend walk reminded me of just how wild the Reston trails can be, especially the stretch between Twin Branches and the W&OD Trail, which winds along the Snakeden Branch of the Glade.

It angles up, then steeply down, crosses a stream then follows it for three-quarters of a mile. Houses are a rare sight. Instead, it’s trees and paths and creek water singing.

How easy it is to forget it’s out there, the natural world, even as the suburbs have encapsulated it. But it’s still with us, in the small parcels we’ve allowed — still with us, to heal and inspire.

What’s Eating Folkstone?

What’s Eating Folkstone?

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Neighbors are buzzing. Theories abound. But no one has yet figured out why great swaths of lawn are being rooted up, ripped through and turn asunder. No one is quite sure what’s eating Folkstone. 

Is it that eight-point buck that’s been cruising the woods near here, pawing the ground in a show of virility as he partakes of our impatiens? Or could it be an errant bear, chunking up before winter comes.

The most believable theory is that hungry skunks or raccoons are tearing through the grass looking for grubs. Once they sniff them out, they paw through the dirt until they’ve eaten their fill. 

It’s hard to overstate just how bad a lawn looks after they’re finished with it. The photo above just hints at the damage. But stay tuned for more evidence soon. The latest plan: to install a remote camera.

Quick Trip to Bangladesh

Quick Trip to Bangladesh

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The news escapes slowly, as I learn which of my colleagues, liberated from the office until at least 2021, have quietly slipped away from their former homes to other (usually sunnier) climes. At least two have moved to North Carolina, one to the Outer Banks. Another is relocating from Arkansas to California. Still another has been living on the Delaware shore since March.

I won’t be moving anytime soon. But I have a wealth of armchair trips I can take. 

Right now, for instance, I’m thinking of Bangladesh, not a big vacation spot, true, but a place where I spent an intense and satisfying two and a half weeks in 2017. Having just written an article based on reporting I conducted there, I’m reminiscing more than usual about the place. 

It was the rainy season, and the fields were startlingly green.

Tea plants were ready for picking. 

Streets were bustling and rickshaws were colorful.

I met people I’ll never forget. 

Is it any wonder I can’t resist a backward glance?

Tender Foot

Tender Foot

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I woke early and padded outside for the newspaper, whose slap on the driveway had provided the final whoosh of my awakening this morning (bobbing as I was on the edge of consciousness and waiting for just such a prompt). 

It’s too early for shoes so I walked to the edge of the driveway with bare feet. It’s warm enough for that this morning, though I’ve been known to go barefoot in much cooler temps. 

Today when I made my way gingerly to the street I thought about how tough my feet used to be when I was a kid. It took a few weeks every summer to harden the soles, but after that I was off, free to dash out of the house, banging the screen door behind me: no socks, no shoes, just a shirt and shorts and a tan that deepened as the weeks wore on. (This was long before sunscreen and there were precious few trees in the new neighborhood of two-bedroom bungalows.)

Tough feet were a point of pride. They indicated a certain street-smartness — or was it street-hardness? — and they showed that you were inhabiting the summer as you should, making it a part of yourself.

Now my feet are not only stockinged and shod, they are orthoticized (if that’s a word … and my spell check tells me it is not). They are the soles and toes of an adult who works on her bottom — and not on her feet. But they can still remember the freedom they once felt. And I like to think that, deep in their neurons and tissues, they can feel it still. 

Still Outside

Still Outside

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I write this post as I have written so many others the past few months: sitting on the deck in this lovely outside “room,” where I have a front-row seat on bird flight, leaf fall and squirrel shenanigans. 

It’s quite mild and pleasant now, but Monday morning I took the call to al fresco work to rather ridiculous proportions. Bundled in three layers of cotton, wool and down, I cut the fingertips off a pair of old gloves and donned a hat, too. My colleagues said I looked ready for the ski slopes. Instead, I was ready for a hot bath. It took a while to thaw out! 

The fact is, I don’t want to move inside. Moving inside means winter is coming, means the boundaries are closing in. I have a fantasy that I can work out here at least down to 50 degrees F. And, as long as it’s not windy (which was Monday’s problem), I think I can. 

As for now, I’m looking at the splendor around me: trees just starting to turn, flowering annuals holding bloom, sunlight dappling the lawn. It’s October, it’s mellow, and (yes!) I’m still working outside. 

The Summer Book

The Summer Book

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I picked up Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book because it showed up in a list of books that feature grandparents. There are precious few of these, I’ve noticed. 

Jansson’s Grandmother (she’s given no other name) is crotchety and wise and foolish and loving. She smokes cigarettes and breaks into a neighbor’s house. No cookie-baking for this grandma. She’s a renegade. But she also understands her granddaughter Sophia, pushes her and puts her in situations where she is bound to succeed. 

Grandmother also levels with herself and with others (when she’s not lying, that is). Here she is after the break-in: 

“My dear child,” said Grandmother impatiently [to Sophia], “every human being has to make his own mistakes.” … Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn’t even realize that they had forgotten.”

That’s the kind of gem Jansson strews about for us through the pages of this slim and lovely book, all of it amidst a natural world (an island in the Gulf of Finland) that is as beautiful as it is dangerous. 

Seasonal Migration

Seasonal Migration

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It’s time for the annual migration. I’m not talking about birds flying south for the winter but of the seasonal switch from shorts and t-shirts to tights and sweaters. 

One thing struck me yesterday as I laundered and folded and ran up and down the stairs carrying warm clothes up and cool clothes down. It was that many of these clothes would be better off going not up or down but out of the house entirely.

How many sweaters and shirts and scarves do I hang onto because I love the person who gave them to me? The answer is … many! 

Yesterday I told myself once again that I need to stop hanging onto these duds. It’s one thing to have papers and books and knick-knacks you cannot bear to part with … but to have clothes that are this way, too, is far more inconvenient. What’s required is a certain ruthlessness. I’m awaiting its arrival. 

A Patch of Blue

A Patch of Blue

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It’s easy to be morose when the great trees fall, as indeed they have done, over and over and over again. 

But when they come down, they free up a spot of sky. 

I snapped this shot yesterday, returning from a walk in what I’ve now come to think of as tree-falling weather: rain-saturated ground with a stiff wind from the west. 

This empty sky used to be filled with a tall tree. Not it’s open, free, giving us all a patch of blue.*

(*Writing this reminds me of the lovely film by that name, a 1965 flick staring Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters. One worth watching.)