Making Connections

Making Connections

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I learned yesterday that federal infrastructure grant money isn’t just going to roads and bridges. Some of it, admittedly a small bit of it, is going to trails. 

The D.C. area will get $25 million to improve pedestrian and bike connections throughout the area, part of what is hoped will be 900 miles worth of local trails throughout the District and five counties of the DMV.

While some of the money will be spent sprucing up paths that are already there, other parts will be used to provide connections between trails. That’s the part that interests me. People love to walk or bike, to move through space on their own steam. But they also like, in fact they need, to get somewhere, to commute to work, for instance. 

I know from my own explorations this winter how exciting it is to find passages between trails, to know that your wanderings can take you somewhere. And I’m glad that the humble little trail systems of our country are getting at least a small part of their due.

Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke

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For me and for many, summer is a recharging season. A lot of the recharging occurs outdoors. Whether it’s walking the trails, writing on the deck, or dining al fresco, summertime is outside time.

But not this summer. This summer I check my phone first. This morning the air quality index is 153, Code Red. So I’ll write from my office and exercise in the basement. There are plenty of indoor projects — cleaning up decades worth of clutter, for starters. 

I won’t be idle. But I won’t be happy. 

And yet … it’s the way many of the world’s people live everyday, without the privilege of working at (and inside) the home. Missing summer is the least of their concerns. I’ll keep them in mind today.

(Summer in the city, where there was no smoke last week. A tip of the hat to Tennessee Williams for the post title.)

First Storm

First Storm

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Yesterday I was writing outside on the deck, as I often do these days, when I realized how dark it had become, darker than twilight. 

I wanted to stay outside while the storm was brewing, but began preliminary shutdown so I could run in at the first drops, a caution imposed on me by the (ahem) delicate nature of the electronics in my care. I covered the wooden rocking chair, tucked away the seat cushions, and moved books and phone inside.

Not long afterward, the wind picked up in earnest and I skedaddled completely inside, up to my second-floor office where I snapped this shot. 

Oh, what a storm it was! Rain blowing down the street, like so many curtains swishing. Fat drops pelting the garden, which needs moisture so desperately. Even some hail thrown in for good measure. 

It was my first big storm of the season … and it did not disappoint. 

He Died Walking

He Died Walking

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I don’t read the newspaper obituaries everyday, but on Sunday one particular one caught my eye: it was about Esteban Volkov, who died at the age of 97 in Mexico. He was the grandson of Leon Trotsky.  

A mini history lesson, this article describes how Trotsky fled Russia after a power struggle with Stalin following Lenin’s death. Volkov’s father, a political supporter, was imprisoned and killed, and Volkov’s mother, Trotsky’s daughter, committed suicide. Volkov eventually ended up in Mexico City, living with his exiled grandfather. 

Volkov returned from school one day to find his grandfather dying in the arms of his wife and a security guard. After escaping assassins other times, Trotsky was killed with an icepick by a man who pretended to be his admirer. Young Volkov wasn’t safe, either, once hiding under his bed as a gunman fired shot after shot into his mattress. 

Volkov promised his grandfather he’d never go into politics, becoming an engineer instead. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, Volkov, by then retired, opened a museum about Trotsky in Mexico City. It now hosts 50,000 visitors a year. 

The obituary has a noteworthy conclusion, as Volkov’s daughter describes her father’s many positive traits: “He liked nature, mountains, the ocean and loved music, with Shostakovich and Stravinsky his favorites. He never stopped walking and even died while walking, outside his nursing home.” He died while walking, three years shy of his 100th birthday. That’s something to aspire to.

(Volkov, lower right, with his grandparents. Photo courtesy Wikirouge.)

 

Humidity of Home

Humidity of Home

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It’s not that Manhattan defies seasons, not completely. It can be stiflingly hot there, and bitterly cold. But weather does not rule as it does in other places I’ve lived. 

I remember my first winter in the city, being amazed when snow finally stuck on the pavement. I thought that all the heat underground — the subway, smoke belching from grates — would make it impossible for white stuff to accumulate. It eventually did, of course, but the city itself is an excellent distraction from all things meteorological. 

All this is to say that last week I was ensconced in a season-free bubble, so this week I open my eyes (and my pores) to the new season in town: summer. I know this not just from the calendar, and the writing on the street, but from the humidity, which began building Saturday and is now gearing up for a sticky, months-long run. 

What can I say — it can be miserable, to be sure, but it’s the humidity of home. 

Charm and Caution Tape

Charm and Caution Tape

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I write this morning from my quiet cocoon in the suburbs, pining for the cacophony I left behind. I stayed near NYU Hospital and the entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and except for the dead of night there was seldom a time when sirens weren’t sounding and horns weren’t honking.

A nuisance? It would be if I lived there. But as a visitor I accept it as part of the bargain. You come to the largest city in the country not for silence but for stimulation, and of that there was plenty. 

As I lace up my trusty tennis shoes for a walk through the neighborhood, I think about what they took me through yesterday: up and down the East River Greenway and across the city to Penn Station, dodging traffic, construction and the yawning maw of open basement stairways. 

The whole city should be wrapped in yellow caution tape. But that, strange to say, is part of its charm.

(I snapped this photo on yesterday’s walk.) 

Manhattan Monochrome

Manhattan Monochrome

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The clouds moved in and gave the photos from Roosevelt Island a monochromatic moodiness. But they didn’t spoil the views of Manhattan, which are primo from this two-mile strip of land in the East River.

There’s the United Nations building on the left and the Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt faint gray in the middle of the shot. There are skyscrapers made of steel and glass and masonry. There is the city in all of its heft and all of its of splendor.

I lived in New York City for five and a half years and never stepped foot on Roosevelt Island. I made up for it yesterday. 

Commuters’ Choreography

Commuters’ Choreography

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With all this energy and all these people, the question is why there are not more collisions. I’m not talking about people and automobiles, but about people and people. By what strange grace do pedestrians keep from running into each other?

I went to Grand Central Station to try and learn the answer. I observed commuters rushing to their trains, entering from 42nd Street or from the Met Life building, heading in scores of directions at once, never colliding. 

There’s an almost balletic precision to the movements, many narrow misses, but somehow people get where they’re going without rehearsing any of the bobs and weaves required to do it.

It’s worthy of Balanchine: the commuters’ choreography.

It’s Baaaack!

It’s Baaaack!

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Where to start, except to say that this place I once lived, this place I once feared had fallen prey to the emptiness and ennui that plagues many cities these days, has not only survived, it’s thrived. 

New York City is back … and it’s better than ever! Or at least that’s my humble opinion, influenced no doubt by a spot-on day of walking from east side to west side, uptown to down. Others might disagree, might say it’s dirtier, more crime-ridden. And I wouldn’t argue, given my tourist perspective. 

But as a place of great energy and drive, where people of all types rub shoulders with each other, where sirens blare, horns honk, street music sings, it cannot be beat.  

Big Apple Bound

Big Apple Bound

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It’s been a two years since I took in the Big Apple, so I’m heading up there today, to walk, visit with a dear friend, and soak up the big city vibe. 

Though I’ve traveled far and wide since then, it still seems like the place of places to me, where all roads lead. In my case, train tracks. But then, a lot of tracks lead there, too. 

I’ll do what I always do in any city, but especially this one — I’ll put as many miles on my old tennis shoes as I possibly can. I’ll become, at least for a few days, a walker in the city.