A Correction

A Correction

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After the earthquake struck Tuesday, all I wanted to do was go home. Home would be its usual chaotic, cozy self. Things would be right where I left them.

Of course, the earthquake shook our suburb, too, and apparently shook harder here than it did downtown, shattering one of our nicest pieces of wedding china (a covered vegetable dish used more for storing receipts than serving mashed potatoes–that will teach us to use the good stuff instead of the everyday) and shaking down the closet where I store magazines, photographs, the girls’ school work and other memorabilia.

I snapped a photo before I tidied up, took it to remind myself what a pack rat I am and how much cleaning and organizing I need to do — but also to certify the power of nature. An earthquake, as we are all too aware after the tragedy in Japan, can rip apart an entire society. But even a 5.8 quake like ours exposes fault lines and weaknesses. An earthquake reverses order.

After the last big tremblor in Virginia in 1897, I read, the water swirled the opposite way out of the springs. And if my closet holds any lesson, it is this one: After an earthquake, what was once on the bottom is now on the top, and what was once on the top is now on the bottom. It is a reversal, a correction.

Shaken

Shaken

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It was shortly before 2 p.m. and I was finishing lunch at my desk when I heard what sounded like a bunch of people running and jumping above my ground-floor office in D.C. This didn’t make sense, though, because I had never heard footfall before from the upper levels. Before I could process that fact, the entire building began swaying, and I realized that as unbelievable as it was, we were most likely having an earthquake.

By the time I got outside I realized I had left my purse, my phone and all my work inside. All I brought with me was a Diet Coke — not the most practical item for bail out but (apparently) what I had in my hand.

There are cracks in the Washington Monument, damage to the National Cathedral and fallen masonry all over town. It is not what you expect when you go to work on a perfect late summer day. It is, therefore, a good reminder of the preciousness of life.

Depth

Depth

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Some books start strong and peter out as they go forward. Others pick up steam in the middle and race you to the finish. The Social Animal, by David Brooks, is neither of these. It’s a strange hybrid of a book, an attempt to explain the latest research on learning and emotion through the stories of two fortunate, happy (fictional) people, Harold and Erica.

Harold and Erica for the most part make their own good fortune, and they are likeable people, or at least Brooks makes you like them. My problem was, I wanted to know them better. The fiction part of the book kept getting in the way of the nonfiction part, at least for me.

But as the book progressed, I got used to its split personality and was uplifted by Harold’s final revelations:

“Harold tried and failed to see into the tangle of connections, the unconscious region, which he came to think of as the Big Shaggy. The only proper attitude toward this region was wonder, gratitude, awe, and humility. Some people think they are the dictators of their own life. Some believe the self is an inert wooden ship to be steered by a captain at the helm. But Harold had come to see that his conscious self — the voice in his head — was more a servant than a master. It emerged from the hidden kingdom and existed to nourish, edit, restrain, attend, refine and deepen the soul within.”

This is a book about depth — and the depth makes all the difference.

Vista

Vista

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What does the eye appreciate, the eye that evolved to spot antelope across a distant horizon, the eye that often looks no farther now than the tiny screen of a smart phone?

It likes the greensward, the open expanse of turf, like the swelling savannahs of our evolutionary past. And there, where earth meets sky, if not an animal of prey then an emblem of our ambition: a city to conquer and admire.

I once spent time in this place, the Sheep Meadow of Central Park. In fact, I once lost a set of keys somewhere on this vast lawn. I walked by the meadow daily and mediated on this vista. It is a uniquely American view, embracing our love of cities and of countryside, promising both peace and prosperity. It is a sigh of relief, a gasp of delight.

Dreams of Space

Dreams of Space

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When I lived in New York, I once sublet a studio apartment in this building. The arrangements were sketchy, as sublets so often were, and in less than six months time the original renter told me she would have to return.

It was not a hard decision. I had been existing in a space the size of a large walk-in closet. It was so small that when I gave a wedding shower for a friend I realized once all seven had arrived that there was literally no place to put their presents. Every other surface was being used.

It was during my time in this place (and earlier, when I lived in a studio in Chicago) that I began dreaming that there was an annex to my apartment, another room or cubbyhole that I had somehow overlooked. How splendid, my dreaming self would think, all this space, and I hadn’t realized it before. Now I can spread out. Now I can breathe. And then, I would wake up.

Dreams of space. When the body is deprived, the mind compensates.

Sun Slant

Sun Slant

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I was out early this morning and when I drove back into our neighborhood the sun was slanting through the trees and filling our street with light. I wonder why I find this so fetching. Is it because the sunshine is heaven-sent? Because it is grandiose, like a Bierstadt painting?

I have an amateurish meterological explanation for this phenomenon. The air is filled with moisture from last night’s downpour and the sunlight bounces off the water molecules in the air. Or something like that.

But what to make, then, of how it strikes my soul, of the philosophical explanation? Seeing our landscape all lit with light comforts me. It fills me with awe at the beauty of nature, and it reminds me that it is still summer — insect-humming, humidity-stoked, green-leafed summer. And I am glad of it.

The Fleet

The Fleet

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Because it is summer and because we have almost five drivers (our youngest will soon have her license), there are a fleet of cars outside our house.

Ah, driving! It’s what I do when I’m not walking. It’s what I used to do far more often than I do it now, when the children were younger, when my days were dictated by carpools. But it’s what I still do far too much. It is the flip-side of walking in the suburbs — driving in the suburbs.

What kind of mind is engendered by driving? It is not the calm mind that I described yesterday, a mind on a walk, a mind attuned to its environment, a mind living in the moment.

The driving mind must live in the future, must think several steps ahead. Perhaps that’s why (and I’m making a leap here), the suburbs have a reputation as lacking in ambiance. Because they are creatures of the automobile, they must live forever in the future. They have no time to be present.



photo: Planetforward

Perfect Air

Perfect Air

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Walking home from Metro last night, the air temperature so perfect it felt like there wasn’t any air there at all. I tried to pass through each stage of the walk as fully conscious as I could be: the trees that lace over the path before the tunnel; the joyful racket of cicadas; the houses busy with after-dinner errands, one man pulling out of a garage, another idling in one.

I crossed the street quickly. Other folks were taking the night air, too, a family of five, two young sons (twins?) and an even smaller girl in a bright pink dress. The mother stops to help the youngest tie her shoe. The father turns to see what’s keeping them. Meanwhile, the boys make it to the next corner. Wait, their parents say. Stop there.

And there are others out for the evening air, joggers and dog walkers. Everyone strides quickly; it is easy to do this evening. There is neither warmth nor humidity to stop you.

And so I make my way to the car. I know I’ve missed dinner, and it’s too early for bed. I’m glad to be moving through space, toward home.

Stream Valley

Stream Valley

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A few days ago I walked a small section of the Cross County Trail, from Miller Heights to a rock bridge across Difficult Run. I was pretty close to Vale, I think, and I paused to read a sign about stream valleys and their value to indigenous people: rich soil, nuts and berries to forage, animals there for the same purpose and ripe for the hunting. Obviously water there, too. These green secluded places were early hunting and fishing grounds. They were home.

Now these same places are helping save the area as it once was; it is through the stream valleys that the Cross County Trail (which runs from one end of the county to the other) is threaded.

We walk the paths our ancestors walked. But we walk for different reasons. We walk our dogs; we walk for health. Our livings are made elsewhere. We work for money. We work for prestige. We come to the trail to work out.

But the shaded packed dirt of the Cross County Trail may yet give us back our lives. Or at least it may give me back mine — by helping me learn to love the place I’ve landed.

Mossy Hill

Mossy Hill

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You would think that out here in the congested Northern Virginia suburbs it would be next to impossible to lose a hill. But that is exactly what happened. At least for a while.

My children found the rise, named it the mossy hill, and took me there for the first time nine or ten years ago. I was impressed. It was high enough to give a good view of the stream valley below. It made me feel like I was somewhere else entirely, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge or Ozarks, somewhere with more sudden elevations, those squiggly lined places on the topographical maps. But instead I was only half a mile from our house, roaming through a suburban woods.

And then the kids got older, left for track or band or music lessons; the mossy hill was forgotten. I tried to find it many times but the path there had disappeared, vanished under the ferns and sticky vines. But last winter, Tom and used a topo map to find the place again. We looked for those squiggly lines. We approached the matter scientifically. And now I can find the place by heart.

Yesterday Copper and I walked there. We sat on top of the rise and looked into the woods below. The sun struck the ferned forest floor in patches of golden light. Cicadas provided the soundtrack. It was a humid, still, late summer afternoon. The mossy hill was mine again.