The High Line

The High Line

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On the High Line in Manhattan, I’m thinking of space. How this space was created literally out of thin air — well, that, and an old trunk line and the prodigious dreams of its founders. And how because of this space, a ribbon of elevated parkland in a city desperately in need of a air and greenery, so many other spaces have been created. Chic buildings in what used to be a western wasteland. A skate park at the northern terminus. Viewpoints and wading walks and art installations, soon a gallery at the southern end.

And it’s all built around walking. Moving through space. Creating, with our movement, a space both public and private.

City Steps

City Steps

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I became a runner when I lived in Chicago, but I became a walker when I lived in New York. I ran here, too, looped the reservoir a couple of times in the morning when I lived off Central Park and, when I lived downtown, made the World Trade Center my turnaround point.

But when I think of locomotion in New York City, I think of walking most of all. Because it is so crowded here, walking can feel like navigating, looking down at the feet coming toward you, figuring out how to sidestep them. It’s a choreography, a dance. But when you hit an open stretch of pavement you can rev into high gear.

Then the short blocks fly by and the bridges, too. And all the faces coming toward you seem full of good will, though you know it’s the endorphins making you feel that way. But you don’t care because you’re walking, no flying, down the streets of New York, and you feel like you’re home again.

Both Sides

Both Sides

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On a walk down the West Ox path today, one stretch was lined with wild chickory, the blue flowers nodding over the path, almost crowding me out. I felt like I was strolling along a flower-strewn walk in an English country garden. The wild plants will do that to you, will mimic, with their colors and arrangement, the artlessness of the planned landscape.

But then again, some designed landscapes, Central Park, for example, are a controlled version of nature with stream, foliage and vista. Makes me think we need a little of both — wild and free; prim and controlled — in our gardens and in our lives.

Checking My Email

Checking My Email

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The significance of the title is not the meaning of the word email. It’s the lack of hyphen. Until recently, according to the editor’s bible — or one of them, the AP Stylebook — email was e-mail. Then e-mail went the way of Web site, and things haven’t been the same since.

The magazine I edit bases its style on AP’s, and so I dutifully changed Web site to website when that alteration was announced last year. But I missed the memo on email. This morning’s newspaper tells me why. The Washington Post has kept the hyphen, so I remained oblivious to the change.

Why do these things matter so much? The fine article in today’s Post explains that, too, quoting David Minthorn, deputy standards editor of the Associated Press. “We’re not a bunch of old fogies sitting around in our ivory tower. We’re alive to changes and new ideas. We have a real sense that new words and changes in language reflect the culture and give us an inkling to where society is headed.”

Think of editors as warriors, standing guard over a culture where standards don’t matter, insisting — with their sharpened pencils — that they do.

Safe Haven

Safe Haven

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For many years now we’ve had more than one teenager in our family. Today, as Claire celebrates her 20th birthday, we only have one.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adolescence lately, its pains and its challenges mostly, its crabwise path — often sideways rather than straight up or down. The circuitous road to freedom and responsibility.

I’ve read enough history to know that Western adolescence is a relatively new creation. Kids used to grow up a lot faster behind a plow or on a factory floor. A common metaphor for young adulthood now, of course, is a launching pad. A place where our young ones perch lightly on their way out of the nest.

Look closely at this photo and you’ll see the egret on the deer’s back. An unlikely pair — as unlikely perhaps as middle-aged parents and their teenage offspring. But the deer offers her back as solace, as resting place, as safe haven. Stay here a bit until you’re ready to fly farther. You know you’re safe here. We have your back — and you have ours.

Pony Swim

Pony Swim

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Today is the last Wednesday of July — the annual Pony Swim in Chincoteague. It’s the day when “saltwater cowboys” herd wild ponies across Assateague Channel at low tide for an auction held the next day. Proceeds from pony auctions through the years have helped finance the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. And auctioning off some ponies each year keeps the herd to a manageable 150.

The day I drove home from Chincoteague earlier this month there was an article in the paper about wild horses biting campers, stealing their food and otherwise being canny and uncooperative. I pointed out to folks that the article was about the wild ponies of Maryland; they were the ones who were acting up. The wild ponies of Virginia are probably too busy fending off mosquitoes to get into any further mischief.

I’ve never seen the Pony Swim, but I know the place well enough now that I can imagine it. The sun will shine flat upon the water, the lighthouse will loom picturesquely in the background and the charm of an old custom will unfold in a town that most days, except this day, time seems to have forgotten.

Photo from Chincoteague Facebook page

Complementary

Complementary

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I’ve never considered myself a color expert, a landscape designer or, heaven forbid, an interior decorator. But I know what I like about color. It’s the contrast, the way one end of the wheel brings out the other.

It’s the profusion of complementary shades in the summer garden. Our neighbor’s, for instance (not pictured here; this is ours), with tall zinnias of yellow, orange and pink all mixed in with the sturdy dusky rose coneflowers.

As for us, we’ve had orange day lilies, yellow black-eyed susans and pink coneflowers all together, and, if you look at them from the right angle, you can see a purple hydrangea in the foreground, too. These bright mingling hues are enough for now. They are meant to go together; they are pleasant on the eyes.

Stop-Time

Stop-Time

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It was not the night I would have chosen to watch home movies of the girls. But Suzanne is here, and she is in a cataloging state of mind. So I found an excuse to go downstairs, to walk by the TV, and once I started watching I couldn’t stop. For there they were again — our grown-up girls as babies and toddlers, dancing and playing and learning to walk.

Here you are, you three, I wanted to say. Where have you been hiding? This is the way you’re supposed to be, giggling and singing and stirring soap suds in the sink. It’s not time for you to graduate from college, to drive to the beach, to have your first job.

It was all I could do to sit still and watch their chubby arms reaching out as they took their first steps into the world. I want to be there all over again for them, be there in a way that was so much easier than the way I must be there for them now.

Decisions

Decisions

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The hottest days of the summer drive us indoors, where a winter mentality is lurking. Clean the basement, organize a closet. This is what I should be doing today.

Instead, I want to lie in the hammock with a good book and let torpor overtake me. It’s not yet 3. There is enough day left to do both.

Hot Days

Hot Days

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The hydrangea wilts, the hammock waits, the cicadas hum. It is midsummer in Virginia, a sizzling hot day on tap, 101 before it’s all over, they say.

I remember other scalding summers, cooling off on the Staten Island ferry in Manhattan, the feeble breeze of a single fan in a shotgun apartment in Lexington, the blistering pavement of Chicago in July (which seemed unfair given how frigid it had been the previous winter), our long honeymoon summer on Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas. It was so humid all the envelopes sealed themselves.

When I think back on the hot days, the misery does not translate. What remains is a sense of life fully lived.