Stony Man

Stony Man

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The views went on forever. The Blue Ridge that appears first as a smudge on the horizon driving west from D.C. became a green and glorious reality late Monday during a brief trip to Sperryville and environs.

The hike to the Stony Man viewpoint was uphill enough to get our hearts pumping but not so rigorous that we couldn’t talk along the way. We passed some through-hikers, serious folks with heavy packs. But we were there for the visiting and the views.

I often find myself in the park around this time of year, mountain laurel season. And there was some of that on Monday, too. But what will remain with me is sitting on warm rocks with friends, catching up, looking west and south: the light green of trees with leaves newer than those at sea level mixing with darker firs and pines. Beyond the trees the hills rose ever bluer and more distant, less distinct, until it was impossible to know whether I was looking at earth or sky.

Mall Alone

Mall Alone

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Granted, I was there on an odd Thursday afternoon, but at first I was optimistic. There was a crowd outside the Cheesecake Factory, a post-graduation celebration from the looks of it. Maybe the mall would be bustling, as it used to be.

But once inside, my spirits sagged. It was the usual sparse crowd: a few mall walkers, some mothers and children, people marching determinedly from one store to the other, completing their errands with dispatch (one of them me).

So many mall memories: taking the girls there to buy summer play clothes, First Communion dresses, prom gowns. To have their ears pierced or celebrate with lunch on the last day of school.

I miss the girls’ young selves more at the mall than most places, which is strange because we often had battles there. I didn’t buy them skanky shorts and tops at Limited Too. I humiliated them when I asked the clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch to turn down the music. The mall was one of those places where we interacted with the world — and the world seemed to be winning.

Now the children are grown and the mall is empty. I know that these two states are linked mostly in my own mind, one truth personal, the other sociological. But it’s hard not to see a connection.

Party Animals

Party Animals

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We have to keep a close eye on our parakeets. Any excuse for a party. This weekend there were two birthdays, so they went to town.

They can’t eat cake, and though they are extremely musical, have not yet managed to warble “Happy Birthday to you!”

But boy can they fly around, pull toys apart, and make a mess. It’s tempting to put them in time out … but they already live in a cage, so what to do?

Just realize that birds will be birds, crank up “Celebration” … and let the good times roll!

(The parakeet’s cage after a night of hard partying.)

A Scaffolding

A Scaffolding

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I came of age in an era when writers produced words not platforms. Which is not to say I haven’t promoted myself through the years. When my book, Parents Who Think Too Much, was published, I quickly learned that if it was up to me to bring it to the world’s attention. I devoted several months to the task, but after that I reverted to type, toiling away in obscurity.

I kind of like obscurity. You can let your hair down there, can be yourself. It’s easy to freeze when people are paying attention. One of the reasons I started this blog 15 years ago was to write more freely and for myself, not for whichever publisher or establishment was paying me at the time.

But now, with the monkey of full-time employment off my back, most of what I write is for myself. It makes sense to meld the “professional” me with the “blogging” me. I’ve added a new page to the site with links to some of my published works. I’m hoping to add another page or two before I’m done, for other works and projects. It’s not quite a platform, not yet, but it is, perhaps, a scaffolding.

(Nature’s scaffolding in miniature, shot August 28, 2021, outside Lexington, Kentucky.)

Namistay?

Namistay?

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Breathe in, breathe out. What could be more essential to meditation, yoga or life? But most of us hold our breath when the going gets tough. The inhale gets stuck, the exhale falters. The held breath tightens the muscles, interrupts the flow.

This universal tendency is not unlike clinging, the habit of mind that meditation addresses. We crave attachment; we can’t let go of people or places or things. We can’t even let go of our breath.

But the simple act of breathing can help us learn to let go. To live, we must breathe out as well as in. Each exhale reminds us of that fact. To grow as humans we must also learn to let go. “Necessary losses” Judith Viorst called them in a book by that name.

I’m a fledgling yoga student, but when my instructor pointed out this connection last week I had one of those aha moments. We end each class with “namaste” … not “namastay.” I’ll try to keep that in mind.

Drip, Drip

Drip, Drip

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It’s been a wet May. Today is too drippy to walk, but a few days ago I slipped between the raindrops and strolled through a moist and fragrant landscape. It was the ordinary world silvered into a new state of being.

Every broad leaf or outstretched bough held on its surface gleaming drops of rainwater. I had fun trying to photograph them. I was never able to capture their freshness or fragility, their glitter or gleam. What seemed like diamonds now look like water spots.

I have no illusions of photographic greatness. But snapshots jog the memory. When I look at the pictures I snapped that damp Thursday, I remember the freshness of the morning, the quicksilver beading of the raindrops, the whole sensory experience of the walk. And that’s the point of it all.

Sitting Still

Sitting Still

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I’ve been a road rat since before I can remember, a kid who thought nothing of being cooped up in a car all day because, well, that’s the price of adventure. Not that I would have phrased it exactly that way at age 5 or 11 or 14. But I knew that boredom was the price of travel.

I rediscovered a bit of that feeling last weekend on our four-day trip from Fairfax to Fayette and back. That’s Fairfax County, Virginia, to Fayette County, Kentucky: 500 miles, give or take a few. Eight hours, maybe nine if you’re pulling a trailer, which we were.

How to while away the hours, especially when you’re not driving? When there’s more than one person in the car (and sometimes even when there’s not — but that’s another story), you talk. You get caught up on work and family and what you’ll do when you arrive. And then, when you’ve exhausted all conversation, you stare out the window at the clouds.

Decoration Day

Decoration Day

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The graves roll with the landscape. They rise and fall with the hills that wind to the river.

I’ve seen the cemetery darkened by the low clouds of late October, seen it filled with the crisp precision of a military honor guard, seen it empty of living souls.

But yesterday I saw it bustling with loved ones, each grave decked out with a small American flag and many with flowers.

It was Decoration Day, and I was in Kentucky. I could place two pots of mums, one for Mom, one for Dad. Afterward, I snapped this shot.

Father of the Trail

Father of the Trail

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Fairfax County — and the country — lost a champion on Wednesday with the passing of Representative Gerry Connolly. Connolly served 16 years in Congress, but I remember him best for the 14 he served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. That’s when I first heard his name, and despite his national profile, Connolly spoke out for federal workers and the D.C. area until the end.

What I’ll best remember him for isn’t a bill or a speech, though — it’s a trail. The Gerry Connolly Cross-County Trail runs from one end of Fairfax County to another, from the Potomac River to the Occoquan. Connolly was key to making it happen, to pulling together the snippets of walks and paths, to seeking the permits and the permissions that carved a continuous passage through these heavily developed suburbs. If anyone had asked me if it could be done I would have laughed at the question. A trail? Through all of this congestion?

But Connolly and a dedicated group of volunteers found the through line. They saw the possibilities. They gave a congested, car-oriented place the beating green heart it deserves.

I’ve written about the Cross-County Trail often in this blog and elsewhere, have hiked the whole thing — twice — since I did every segment as a down-and-back. And some sections, the ones closest to my house, I’ve walked more times than I can count.

When I read the obituaries in yesterday’s paper I noticed that they didn’t mention the trail. It took a columnist to point it out. (Thank you, Marc Fisher!) Connolly will never know the spirits that have been soothed or the ideas that have emerged on the trail, what it’s made possible. But tens of thousands of Fairfax County residents do. And that would have made Connolly happy.

Pitch and Roll

Pitch and Roll

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I’ve been reading about Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, Fanny, widely credited with keeping the writer alive to the age of 44. The author battled illness all his short life, spent months at a time in bed. Perhaps that was the inspiration for one of his delightful poems from A Child’s Garden of Verses, “The Land of Counterpane,” about playing with toy soldiers on his bedcovers.

Fanny made it her life’s work to find an environment that would allow her husband to live a full and creative life — even it meant long and ardulous sea voyages. She was as sickened by sea air as RLS was invigorated by it.

Prone to queasiness myself, I thought about the sacrifices she made, the discomfort all travelers used to endure. We think a delayed and crammed-full flight is bad; try weeks at sea in steerage! Adventurers of yore either dealt with the pitch and roll … or they stayed put. I wonder, how many of us would have toughed it out?

(The schooner Casco carried the Stevensons from San Francisco to Hawaii in 1888. Photo courtesy the RLS website.)