Life on foot – Virginia style

The Driver loves to walk. Last year on the other side of the ocean we covered every possible byway in the streets around their high-rise. Now, living in a townhouse in suburban DC, she’s still finding life on foot to her pleasure.

This morning we set out for the shopping center nearby. Boy Blue, not so little any more, is ensconced in his Combi stroller. Built for Japanese children, he’s swiftly outgrowing it. Purchased in Asia specifically to fit through train stiles and onto busses, it has served well on this side of the world as well, but the boy, well, he’s definitely isn’t Asian weight. The larger jogging stroller fits him better now but this one, so compact, maneuvers better in tight stores.

We leave the townhouse and walk up to the corner, keeping to the deep shade in the warmth of a late September midday. At the crosswalk we encounter three grandmothers sitting in the grass, chatting.

“Chinese?” I question, going by their faces since I can’t hear their conversation.
“Maybe, maybe not. We’ve got so many different Asians here. Maybe Korean.”
“There are your babysitters,” I venture, knowing how hard it is to find sitters when you are new to a neighborhood, and how much Boy Blue loves Asian grandmothers.
“Don’t I wish,” says the Driver. “But if they don’t speak any English and there was a problem, how would they call me?”

We cross when the white man comes on and head to the jewelry store to get our rings checked. A gracious Lebanese man greets us warmly, and talks as if we were old friends. He gives us a lesson on old mine cut diamonds we both wear.

Next is a run into CVS, ubiquitous in this country. We find foot cream, and then look for cards. This weekend would have been the 7th birthday of our little Keren, and we want to remember her, and her parents.

The next stop is the supermarket for fruit. Finishing there, we wander back across the street and take a different route home through the townhouse complex. On the way we pass various other ethnic neighbors in this typical DC neighborhood.

No big deal, perhaps, to walk to the store, but I realize that I tend to rush at home and not take the time to walk. A boy in a stroller makes a good excuse, but I need to remind myself that stroller or no, boy or not, I am better served by walking than by driving. The neighborhood here, or where I live, is not as fascinating as the one we left behind in Asia, but fascination or not, when one walks, one actually sees the neighborhood, meets the neighbors, and learns to appreciate the ups and downs of the topography.

Note to self. Walk more.

Loons in the wilderness

“Crazy is back,” Boon says as we’re loading the heavy old boat that will ferry us and our stuff to the Old Camp. “He’s got a wife too.”

“How do you know it’s Crazy?” I ask.

“Comes when you thump the dock. No other loon does that.” At 87, Boon knows this pond like I know my hands, and not a single loon escapes his notice. Loons define the pond, wild cries and laughter in the wilderness.

Yesterday we kayaked to the lower pond*, a mere hour of hard work away. That pond is remote, but with a look of civilization to the camps. Fresh paint, nice docks, some solar panels and wind generators showing enterprising attempts to civilize the lack of electricity out here. But our pond, the upper one, reeks of wildness. The few camps on the perimeter are old and hidden in the woods, scarcely showing till your kayak is almost on them. Boon’s Old Camp is close to 100 years old now, and the New Camp is past 50. New is relative in this part of the world.

This morning I’m sitting on the steps at seven am in the bright light, steaming coffee in my hand. A loon breaks from the cove to the right and sails across in front of me. Crazy? Perhaps, if loons live long lives. Crazy was tamed by Boon’s sister more than a decade ago. This one cruises across the lake just out from shore, a black frigate in the yellow mist of morning that rises from the pond surface in streamers. I watch him in silence, tamed again by the wilderness.

Later we take the kayaks again and head to the east end of Upper Pond, exploring as we go. Halfway across the pond we find two loons cruising, separated by about 100 yards. We quietly float between them listening to their cries and laughter. Are we being discussed and monitored? We linger between them enjoying their communication echoing off the mountains, till suddenly they dive, and we’re left alone, but with a feeling that we’re still being watched.

We explore all the brooks that feed water into this pond, finding beaver dams at the end of each. Hours later, we head back to the Old Camp, shoulders weary with paddling. As we pull the kayaks onto the dock and turn them over under the huge cedars, the loons cry again, wild and eerie in the total stillness.

Crazy.

*In New England, a lake is called a pond, and a ‘camp’ is what elsewhere would be called a cottage.