Friday in the District

Friday in the District

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I usually work at home on Fridays, but today I’m in the office. It’s a beautiful day here in the nation’s capital, a transitional day. Not only does it feel a little bit like summer and a little bit like fall, but it also feels a little bit like a weekday and a little bit like a weekend.

And I wonder: Is this how workday Fridays are now? Maybe they are and I just haven’t noticed. On the sidewalks: a greater mix than usual of suits and workout attire. On the Mall: a higher proportion of joggers and bikers.  On the streets: more double-parking!

On the whole: A deliciously casual, buoyant air. Not enough to make me come downtown every Friday, but nice for a change.

Fighting Fear

Fighting Fear

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I try to think of something else but it’s hard not to. I have a daughter flying into Dulles from West Africa this weekend.  She’s not arriving from one of the affected countries but from somewhere close. And while at this point the extra scrutiny (temperatures taken, isolation if necessary) only applies to passengers arriving from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, I wonder if officials will widen the net, start checking those arriving from any West African nation.

It’s fear at work, I know. But fear is contagious, too. And just as there’s no vaccine for Ebola so also there is no immunization for fear. Information doesn’t help — it’s hard to read a newspaper or watch the news — but ignorance is no better.

One of the most poignant news programs I’ve heard about the epidemic described what doctors and nurses do in Liberia before starting their shifts. Here they are on the front lines, dealing with Ebola patients every day, wearing substandard protective gear and working in primitive conditions. And what do they do before anything else? They stand in a circle, they pray and they sing. 

If they can sing, so can we. Sing in their honor. Sing for their safety. Sing until the fear goes away.

The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter

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I had seen warning signs like this one along the trail for months — “Archery Program in Process.” But until last weekend I had never seen a deer hunter. He was decked out in camouflage and his face was smudged with paint. If he had been in a tree stand I would not have seen him.

But he was on a trail and I was, too. We passed each other, exchanged brief hellos. He held an elaborate bow, nothing like what I remember as a child. It was all metal and wires. It meant business. And he did, too. If I’d had more time to prepare myself I might have asked him to pose for a photo. But he was in a hurry and did not look happy. He was not dragging a six-point buck behind him.

I curse the deer that gobble up the daylilies and scrape the bark off the Kwanzan cherry. I think of them not as Bambi but as Super Rat. I wish they were gone — all but one or two I could spot across a sylvan glade once or twice a year.

But the idea of this guy up in a tree looking for movement, scanning the woods with his high-powered scope — well, frankly, it creeps me out. So I gave the deer hunter a wide berth — and I shivered as he passed.

Autumn Planting

Autumn Planting

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There’s a delicious irony in autumn planting, a slap in the face to fall. All around me leaves are yellowing, dying, flaming out, and here I am plying the soil, ripping out the summer flowers, putting fall ones in their place.

I chose mums and ornamental cabbage, hearty plants that can bear a hard freeze and stff wind. I forgo the pretty pansies with their thin stems and hopeful faces.

Planting in the fall is a vote for life. It’s thumbing my nose at winter, saying (if only to myself) maybe it won’t be as bad this year.

Ten Years

Ten Years

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Every so often I receive a message from LinkedIn reminding me to congratulate a contact on a work anniversary. Silly stuff, for the most part. But there is one work anniversary I celebrate every year. And I don’t need LinkedIn to remind me.

Ten years ago today I went back to work in an office again. I had been a full-time freelancer for many years by then and —truth be told — wasn’t sure that being a staff writer-editor would “take.” It’s not that the work wasn’t interesting; it was giving up the freedom of the freelance life and swallowing the three-hour round-trip commute.

But I did swallow it, and through the years have earned back a bit of flexibility. It’s a routine and a rhythm I’ve gotten used to. But it’s not the work that matters. What matters is the writing I do when I’m not working. Which, in a way, renders the anniversary moot. But I celebrate it still. It was a milestone.

Piano at Rest

Piano at Rest

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After half a century on its feet the piano needs a rest. And it’s getting one.

It all started when the instrument kept losing its tune. The tuner diagnosed loose pins and proposed a remedy. Turn the piano on its back, insert a wood-expander solution around the pins and wait a week.

Luckily there’s a largish space in the front half of the living room so the piano could rest there — well barricaded, of course, so Copper doesn’t interfere. Meanwhile, the room is topsy-turvy, and there’s a big wall space where the piano used to be.

Still, I think the vacation is well deserved. I imagine the piano on a beach, a gentle breeze tickling its ivories, its noble shoulders sunk into the sand. Soon it will sit up, shake itself awake and be ready to play again.

Capitol Walk

Capitol Walk

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One of my favorite city routes is walking around the Capitol. So at lunchtime yesterday I did what I often do: strolled down New Jersey Avenue with its high-arching trees, skirted the Carillon (named for President Taft’s son, Robert, who served in the Senate from 1938 to 1953), and crossed Constitution Avenue onto the Capitol grounds.

From there it’s a clockwise sweep of the 58-acre park — dodging tourists, watching workers clamber on the scaffolding around the dome, keeping eyes and ears open to the kaleidoscopic scene.

There’s the slow pedaling of the bicycle cops patrolling their beat; the brisk stride of the office worker hurrying to lunch; the lingering saunter of tourists, guidebooks in hand.

At the southwest corner I stop to smell the last roses of summer, still blooming in the Botanical Gardens. The trees there are already orange.

Heading north, I cross the Mall, weave through parked cars, then take a paved path back to Constitution. Only 40 minutes out of the office. An eternity.

 
(The Capitol from the east, before the scaffolding went up.)

Cutting My Losses

Cutting My Losses

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The walks I’ve been taking lately on the Cross-County Trail are not without their lessons, and one of the foremost is learning to recognize when I’m lost. The trail is well marked — most of the time — but on Saturday there was a stone crossing, a sudden turn and — voila! — I was in uncharted territory.

There was a path, of course, but there are many paths in the woods. Some are barely perceptible, the width of a deer (and given the skinny deer we have in Fairfax County, that’s not very wide); others are broad but lead in the wrong direction. The latter is what I was dealing with Saturday. It could have been the Cross-County Trail — except that it wasn’t.

When I’d walked for a while without noticing the distinctive CCT marker, I turned around and retraced my steps. There was a trail that went off to the left, but it was rockier and less cleared than I was used to — probably a dead end. There was another possibility, but it looped back onto the path I was on. I walked all the way back to the steppingstones before I found my error — and it was a big one — turning the wrong direction after I crossed the creek.

Once righted I could immediately tell the difference. The path was sure and springy beneath my feet. I had cut my losses quickly. I was on my way.

How We Learn About Meadows

How We Learn About Meadows

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On Sunday’s walk I passed an informational display telling me what a meadow is, why a meadow is
important. How sad that we have to learn about meadows from a sign! How much
better to learn about them from the burrs in your socks, the poison ivy on
your ankles and the sunburn on your shoulders.
I grew up in savannah land — bald, barely treed land where
meadows ruled. I learned to treasure the shady tree line around the edges of fields and the majesty of the lone burr oak. I
learned first-hand  the loud racket of meadows — cicadas chanting,
grasshoppers buzzing — but also the quiet heart at their center and how their beauty is best set off by the
presence of a grazing cow or thoroughbred.
 But mostly, I learned my way around meadows by tramping through them, by looking out at them from fence rows, or by harvesting them, collecting goldenrod, Queen Anne’s Lace and Joe Pye Weed. So when I came across this meadow sign on Sunday, I snapped a shot — but I made sure that there was a lot of meadow in the picture too.
One and Only

One and Only

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Yesterday I walked the Twin Branches Nature Trail, which is now part of the Cross-County trail. The last time I walked it there was huge earth-moving equipment deep in the woods and a new dam going in. I got hopelessly lost on the detour, was caught in a fierce summer thunderstorm and rescued by a homeowner who saw me shivering under a tree and invited me into his garage.

Sunday’s adventure was much calmer — although there was a little excitement. Here’s a sign I saw on my way into the woods. It was no problem heeding the warnings: Stay on the trail. Check. Do not overturn rocks or logs. Check again. Do not approach a copperhead. Check for sure on this one.

But my favorite part of the warning is this: [Copperheads] are Reston’s only venomous snake. Whew! I feel much better now.