Warming Up

Warming Up

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Yesterday’s walk was cold and damp. Tourists were unprepared, wearing thin windbreakers and cotton sweaters with no buttons. Anyone who had a hood was wearing a hood. It was that kind of day.

I had 30 minutes and wanted to make the most of them. And it wasn’t actually raining (as it is now). What else to do but walk as fast as I could without running, stoke the human engine? Pull my hands into my sleeves, cinch the belt as tight as possible… and go. 
Traffic lights work against this process, since it’s all about momentum. But once I was on the Capitol grounds I was warmed up within minutes. 

The transfer of movement into heat is one of those daily miracles. Yesterday it came in very handy.
Inside Out

Inside Out

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I write from home this morning, not always a given these days. What I see as I look at the French doors is a reflection of the piano light, the only one I flipped on this morning.

If I were to sit here long enough I would see that light, and the open music book (Schumann, “Forest Scenes”) it illuminates, fade away. In its place, the cloudy day outside.

It’s not unlike a church at night, stained glass windows gleaming into the void. Dark on the inside without the sun to flood through them.

From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. we see ourselves; from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. we see the world. At this time of year  an equal measure of both. 

Baltimore Before Breakfast

Baltimore Before Breakfast

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Yesterday I drove Celia to campus after a quick Easter visit. We left before dawn and I was back in my home office as the work day started.

A drive that early seems almost not to have happened. As the hours passed, as I wrote and edited and answered e-mails, snatches of those highway moments  slipped into my brain unbidden, like the vaporous trails of dreams scarcely remembered upon waking.

Was I really just rounding the curve after the split? Did I zoom over the Patuxent River, which I vow to explore more thoroughly every time I cross it? Was that lumbering car trailer alongside me for far too much of the way? The tunnel, the straightaway, the toll booth? Yes, yes and yes.

But by nightfall those early hours had left a weariness in my bones. The morning drive was real, for sure. Today, just the usual jaunt on Metro, a much tamer way to start the day.

(This is not the road to Baltimore.)

Easter Monday

Easter Monday

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Yesterday passed in a blur of family and friends, of early rising, early church, roasting and baking, stirring and stuffing. For many, today is a holiday, a day off work or school, time to ease back into ordinary life, to put aside the apron — or the bunny ears.

Claire and Celia assure me that no animals were harmed in the taking of this photo — unless you count excessive treat consumption as harm.

We have often wondered if Copper feels embarrassed by some of the costumes imposed upon him through the years. The only one we were sure about was when we dressed him in a hot dog costume one Halloween. That was … until yesterday. These bunny ears are a close second.

(Photo: Claire Capehart)

Poised

Poised

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On a walk yesterday I saw the forsythia, its stems plump with blooms held in check. I saw the red furze of the maples budding. The few daffodils were hanging their heads in the chill breeze that blew in. They were waiting too, waiting for the warmth to return.

Downtown, I hear, blossoms are already unfolding. But here, where I live, on this Easter Saturday, it is still a day of waiting.

The whole of this winter-gouged, potholed world is poised for spring.

Warm Morning

Warm Morning

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Sixty-two when I woke up, the first warm morning in a while. Taste of rain in the air. A breeze that stirs the ornamental grass and clatters the wind chimes.

There is warmth that builds steadily through the hours, from a chill sunrise to a parched afternoon. And then there is warmth given from the start, a gift to utilize or to squander.

Today we have the latter — and it brings a coziness to the house. We’re here already, no need to strive, to be hopeful about the angle of the sun or the tilt of the wind.

It’s the difference between a day that grows into itself and one that starts off fully formed, has everything to lose.

This, of course, assumes warmth to be desirable, which is not always the case. But on this April 3, after this February and this March, it most certainly is.

Pain and Perspective

Pain and Perspective

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Today I think of Emily Dickinson’s line, “After great pain a formal feeling comes.” It was “only” a toothache, but for last two days it brought me great pain. And though I have not exactly experienced the formal feeling that Dickinson felt in its wake, I have felt relief at the return of normal sensations.

What little thinking I could do when in its throes, I pondered what it would be like to live always in such misery. Some people do. Can we not all forgive them for ending it?

Great pain brushes small concerns aside. It is both a great equalizer and a great perspective-bringer. None of us asks for it. But it’s a part of life, and from time to time, we are forced to remember that.

Just a Walk Around the Block

Just a Walk Around the Block

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Had to mail a package yesterday at lunchtime, and though I didn’t have long I thought I would stroll for a few minutes before returning to my desk.

I walked east toward the Capitol, all swathed in scaffolding (look closely; you can see a worker in a day-glo yellow jacket).

Then behind it past the Supreme Court and Library of Congress, then in front of it where I snapped this shot before heading back down First Street to my office.

Not bad for a walk around the block!

Earthbound

Earthbound

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The Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum was a spur-of-the-moment decision, a way to fill the hour between Georgetown and Dulles Airport. I hadn’t been there for years — since long before the …

and the …

arrived there. And I was totally unprepared to have my eyes well up. I’m getting emotional about airplanes? Come on!

But the Discovery was so battered and patched, and the Concorde was so sleek and lean.

And they and all the planes and space capsules and satellites there were so much the stuff that dreams are made of that I just couldn’t help myself.

They were made for the sky, but they are earthbound now. No longer where they belong.

Wild Cat

Wild Cat

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It would have been easy to blame Copper, but he hadn’t been outside yet yesterday morning when we noticed the cat up in the tree.  Not just any cat — a large, wild-looking one with a raccoon-striped tail.  And not just any tree — one of the tall oaks.

From what I could figure he was 30 or 40 feet up. The temperature was in the 20s, with a stiff breeze that moved the trunk from side to side. 
The cat had found a perch of sorts, and at times looked content, as if sunning itself. But the longer it remained, the more agitated it seemed, shifting position, making half-hearted attempts to claw its way down. 
Finally, there was real movement, a quick scamper, an impossible leap and — after a few heart-stopping seconds when it seemed as if the animal almost certainly hadn’t survived the fall — a glimpse of that same striped tail moving side to side. 
Within seconds, the cat had scampered out of the brush, under the fence and into the woods. 
Destination unclear, motivation unknown. It may not have been a wildcat … but it was a wild cat.