Lovely, Dark and Deep

Lovely, Dark and Deep

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It’s less than three weeks till summer solstice. By 5 a.m. the first birds are singing, and darkness doesn’t fall till almost 9 p.m. At this time of year, light is our constant companion. 

Perhaps that’s why the woods appeal. They are, to quote Robert Frost, “lovely, dark and deep.” Though he described a winter landscape, mine is a summery one: oaks, maples and sycamore in full leaf, the path that winds through them sheltered and shady.

What mysteries lie down these trails? What refreshment will they bring? Will the woods be cooler than the street? These are questions I want to answer — and will. 

Finding Hildasay

Finding Hildasay

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People who know me know I like to read, and sometimes they give me a book they think I’ll like. Finding Hildasay is one of those. It’s the story of a veteran from the United Kingdom who decided to walk the entire UK coastline. 

I’ve walked a few feet of the UK coastline (!), and books about walking are a sub-genre I enjoy, so it’s no wonder that this volume found its way into my hands.

I’m so glad it did. Christian Lewis took off on his journey with £10 to his name. He foraged for food, survived 70-mile-an-hour winds, and never gave up on his quest. Hildasay is the Shetland island where he spent three months during the pandemic lockdown. It was where he finally had the time to reflect upon what he had achieved: the depression he had beaten, the money he had raised for a veterans’ charity, the  sense of purpose he had found.

The book stops mid-journey, so I wondered what was up. Could there be a sequel? Well yes there is. I have a feeling I’ll be reading it soon.

(The coastline of the Orkney Islands, as close to Hildasay as I’ve traveled.)

Busy, Busy

Busy, Busy

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It’s mulching season. Actually, it may be past mulching season, though I suppose it’s still mulching season somewhere, especially if you still have mulch to spread. 

Speaking of that, as I walk through the neighborhood, I spy much mulch. There are piles of it in driveways, waiting to be shoveled and carted to the backyard, and bags of it strategically placed under trees or beside garden beds. 

I’ve decided that having an array of mulch bags deposited around the property is the perfect way to look busy. It’s proof positive that mulching may occur in the future if it hasn’t already. 

When we first moved to this tidy suburban neighborhood, I had a thing about mulch. It seemed the epitome of uptight lawn care. But through the years I’ve come to understand its value: the moisture it keeps in, the weeds it keeps out. If nothing else, it lets neighbors know we care. 

From the Top

From the Top

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It’s the Feast of Corpus Christi, and in Seville, Spain, a procession of statues and icons on floats is — or, given the time difference, already has — snaked its way down the narrow streets of that wondrous city.

I like to think about the places I’ve been, and this is the day I think about Seville, the air scented with orange blossoms, temperatures near scalding (I almost passed out at the Alcazar), the warren of streets around the cathedral. 

We walked to the top of the Giralda, or bell tower, where the city was spread at our feet. It was two years ago. It could have been yesterday.

Best Present Ever!

Best Present Ever!

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Today there’s another little person in the world, my newest grandchild, who just gave me the best birthday present ever: arriving yesterday at 6:30 p.m., just hours before the day I came into the world a few (ahem) years ago.

Who knows what triggers labor. I don’t know the latest research. But I like to think there’s something magical about it. At least two of my three children would have different birthdays if they were of this generation. Doctors don’t let women go two weeks beyond their due dates anymore. 

But this little girl came on her own steam, at her own time. She decided she wanted her own special day. I can’t wait to meet her!

Woods Walking Track

Woods Walking Track

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Choosing a walking path for the day is a little like choosing an outfit, which means that a weather report may be involved. When showers are forecast, as they have been recently, it’s good to pick a circular trail, because there will be less distance to sprint if caught in a downpour. 

I had just such a trail in mind the other day. It’s one of my earliest strolling finds, a peach of a path that makes not just one circle but two. I take the larger loop if I have more time, the shorter one if I don’t. When I’m dodging raindrops, I take as many loops as I can before the wind starts to whistle. 

It struck me the other day that it was almost like walking on a track, with its precise quarter-mile distance, so you know automatically, with your revolutions, how far you’ve gone. 

This “track” was not quite as round or as predictable — and I’m not entirely sure about the mileage. But I could find out. 

Another Way of Living

Another Way of Living

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Because of its strict property boundaries, I don’t live in Reston, but I walk on its trails, buy strawberries at its farmers market, and take yoga at its community center.  

For many years, I haven’t known where I live: My mailing address says Herndon, my kids attended high school in Oakton, and I commuted from Vienna.  You could say I live in the suburbs of northern Virginia, but for a person who cares about place, that’s always rankled.

Since the pandemic, though, I’ve been gravitating to the place that suits me best, and that is Reston, a community founded and developed by Robert E. Simon (hence Reston) 60 years ago. Last night I watched a film made to celebrate the town’s 50th anniversary: “Another Way of Living: The Story of Reston, VA.” 

To say it makes me proud is an understatement. It roots me, inspires me, makes me want to move a mile away just to live in Reston officially. I probably won’t do that. But I’ll walk its trails with more awe than usual. 

(The Van Gogh Bridge in Reston’s Lake Anne. More on the film in future posts.)

A Whiff of Honeysuckle

A Whiff of Honeysuckle

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The aroma of honeysuckle is in the air, and every year I want to hold onto it, to have it close at hand so I can inhale it whenever I walk out the door. I dream of rooting a sprig of the vine, planting it, and training it to tumble over my back fence.

This year I came close to doing that, was even scouting out potential plant “donors.” Then I came to my senses. Introduce another invasive species when our yard is full of knotweed, stilt grass and bamboo? I must be crazy.

Honeysuckle is a wild thing, after all, and it’s best left where it is, mostly in the park or common land. A whiff may be all I get. But sometimes, a whiff is enough.

Memorial at Ball’s Bluff

Memorial at Ball’s Bluff

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I couldn’t visit my parents’ graves at a national cemetery in Kentucky, so yesterday I thought I’d do the next best thing: visit a national cemetery in Virginia. Arlington immediately sprang to mind … and just as quickly left it as I thought about the traffic.

Instead, I found a small national cemetery — the third smallest in the U.S., as a matter of fact — located near a Civil War battlefield, Ball’s Bluff. You can hike down to the Potomac, which Union soldiers crossed before the battle on October 21, 1861. 

The skirmish did not go well for them. The Confederates prevailed, just as they had at the Battle of Bull Run a few months earlier, and a U.S. senator,  Edward Baker, was killed. His death is commemorated with a marker, and the small walled cemetery there holds the remains of 54 Union soldiers. 

It was a warm day, but the paths were shady, and at the trail’s end, the Potomac River was calm and peaceful, a contrast to that day … and so many others.

Blooming Where Planted

Blooming Where Planted

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For so long this has been a loaded phrase for me — “blooming where planted.” It carries with it more than a hint of compromise. Or maybe it’s wistfulness, that I didn’t stay where I was planted but moved several times as a young adult before settling where I did. 

And then there’s the fact that I’ve ended up in the suburbs. Heaven knows I carp enough about that.

But today, the angle of the light striking the grass on the lawns I passed, the scent of the air, rich with loam and honeysuckle, made me think that there could not be a much better place to be planted. And that whatever the mixed emotions with which I’ve traditionally viewed the saying, there is a nobility in trying to flourish wherever you are, in contenting yourself with the situation at hand. 

(Pebble people frolic along one of my favorite routes.)