ISO Good Books

ISO Good Books

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Sometimes when the world doesn’t seem quite right, I realize it’s because I’m not reading a good book. I might be flipping through a volume I picked up at the library or trudging through a tome that’s been on my nightstand too long, but I’m not caught up with a new idea, not taking notes on the little slips of paper that pass for bookmarks in my reading life.

Instead I’m reading the newspaper on public transportation and falling asleep too quickly when I read in bed.

What to do? Usually I turn to book lists I’ve kept, the recommendations of others, or even Goodreads — although I am suspicious of any booklist which also tries to sell me lipstick.

One thing I know: This book-less state won’t last long. Soon enough I will be halfway through something I can’t put down. And once again, all will be right with the world.

There’s an App for That

There’s an App for That

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This morning I heard on the radio what I thought was a victory speech from my favorite candidate (or at least the candidate who would be my favorite if this was an ordinary election season). It was a hopeful, aspirational speech and held within it the promise of true change, both political and generational.

But before I could get too carried away I switched to the station carrying news headlines — and learned there was no clear winner yet in Iowa. The new app that had been heralded only a few days before, the technology that was to make the results more robust and trustworthy … was not working.

So the speech I heard was not only hopeful in terms of our nation’s future — but hopeful in terms of a victory that has not yet (and may not) happen.

As Alice would say, things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

Early Spring?

Early Spring?

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With all the excitement over Palindrome Day (!) yesterday, I forgot to check in with Punxutawney Phil. I just looked and learned that, not surprisingly, he predicts an early spring.

The impatient buds on the witch hazel and the two-inch daffodil shoots have brought me to much the same conclusion. We’ve barely had any snow this year — not that I’m complaining. I will be perfectly happy with “winter lite.”

An earlier spring gives me more chances to amble the paved paths and trails, more opportunities to hoof it up Wilson Avenue through Arlington on the way home from work. An earlier spring means more joy all around.

Which is why I won’t say anything more about it. Don’t want to tempt fate …

Happy Palindrome Day!

Happy Palindrome Day!

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Today’s date — 02-02-2020 — is not only a palindrome; it is a palindrome of all palindromes. One that applies in all date formats (whether month or day goes first).

According to those in the know, the last time there was such a day (11/11/1111) was 909 (itself a palindrome) years ago. And the next time it will come again is 101 (palindrome) years from now, 12/12/2121.

To make it even more special, today is the 33rd day of the year, and there are 333 more to go.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Waking Up

Waking Up

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This is A Walker’s second guest post. As with the February 1, 2019 entry, it’s by my mother — this year on the occasion of her 94th birthday. Mom was a natural, as these words will show. Happy Birthday, Mom! This one’s for (and by) you. 

She woke to the early morning sun and stretched her arms and legs as usual, happy she could still do this. Maybe this meant she wasn’t really old. Maybe 80 was just some mystical number she had to use to mark the passing of the years. If she could still move her arms and legs as before, maybe she was just the same as she had always been, just a little wiser.

She smiled as she reached back in her memory to other mornings, other stretches. Winter mornings when she was five years old, living in one of the three houses her family had lived in on Woodland Avenue, waking to the sun as she had done today. She remembered stretching her limbs in much the same way as now.

But then she remembered how she finished that stretch with a hard, childish motion before she put her tiny feet on the cold floor and ran to the gas stove that would warm not only her feet but her whole body. Soon Aunt Mayme and Aunt Beedie would know that she was awake and one of them would come to put their arms around her and warm her in a way no gas stove ever could.

Middle-Aged Woman Project

Middle-Aged Woman Project

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A few weeks ago I heard an interview with writer John McPhee on the radio. He was explaining a series of pieces he’s writing for the New Yorker, which he calls his “old man project.”

The idea is that he doesn’t have the time to explore in depth a drive through Spain he made decades ago or a dairy farm in Indiana with 25,000 cows or any number of other ideas he’s been saving up to explore, so he is dipping his toe in them, then moving on.

McPhee is basing his project on a long-ago encounter with a 66-year-old Thornton Wilder, who had decided to catalog all 431 plays of the playwright Lope de Vega. The younger McPhee didn’t understand why Wilder was doing this. The older McPhee does: it’s a project without an end, a way to keep yourself going.

This got me thinking about what I do, am doing, to keep myself going, specifically my writing self. And the answer, right now, is simple: Every day, I write a blog post. And I’ve written one most every day for close to ten years. A Walker in the Suburbs is my Middle-Aged Woman Project.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Breathe In, Breathe Out

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A nascent meditation program at the office has me listening to guided exercises that instruct us to “breathe in, breathe out” and to exist in the present, because that’s all we have.

The irony of doing this in the workplace does not escape me — future-oriented as it is and has to be — but my neck and shoulders constantly remind me that I need to chill out, so I close my eyes and try to float in the moment.

I concentrate on the breath, on the inflow and outflow, the filling up and the releasing. It’s true, the present moment is really all we have. There is a seat on Metro, there is a journal I can write in. And, later, there is a walk that will take me where I need to go.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Gibbet Hill

Gibbet Hill

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Many years ago I lived across from a small hill in Massachusetts. Gibbet Hill, it’s called, a great New England name with character and more than a whiff of dastardly deeds. Men were once hung there, according to local legend.

But the hill was for me a great source of inspiration and beauty, especially in the winter. In the summer the hill was obscured by tall trees and a tangle of underbrush along the road. But in the fall it revealed itself like a puzzle in reverse, each tumbling leaf making room for a view of the slope beyond.

It was more than just a scene. It was the promise of winter wisdom buried beneath the snow drifts. It was earth, tree and sky — all stripped down to their barest and most essential, the outline of life laid open to all.

I haven’t lived near it in decades but the hill is clear in my mind’s eye. It has come to stand for the beauty of winter and all the lessons it holds.

(Photo: Gibbet Hill Grill. It’s not winter, but it’s the hill I remember.)

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock

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From where I sit I hear three clocks ticking. There is the familiar cuckoo from the kitchen, the breath-in-breath-out grandfather between the windows, and the “bim bam” on the mantel, the fastest of the trio.

Listening to them all at once isn’t confusing; it’s multi-modal. It’s the solidity of braided ropes, a hammock of sorts, holding me in place.

It’s the calm center in the midst of the action: like listening to a Bach prelude or fugue, where you search for each voice amidst the harmony. Or like jumping rope, double dutch.

It’s all about the rhythm, about three adding up to one. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

The Trees

The Trees

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I read over the weekend of a dispute among neighbors over a stream restoration project in Hollin Hills. One side believes it’s imperative that Fairfax County fix the damaged stream and the polluted runoff that infests it. The other says that it’s doesn’t need to go about it in such a scorched-earth way.

One big difference between the two sides: preserving trees. As a walker in the suburbs, I know what it feels like to have a beloved woods opened up and hollowed out. Nature alone is doing such a grand job of this that it seems a shame for humans to be helping.

In our woods it sometimes seems as if there are as many downed trees as there are upright ones. Drought has weakened many of the old oaks and high winds have brought them down. The woods are open and airier than they used to be.

While this is just part of the cycle, I miss the denser, more all-encompassing woods that were here when we arrived. I miss the sense of enclosure, the way the light looks filtering through a dense canopy. All of which is to say that if I lived in Hollin Hills … I’d be fighting for the trees.