late August walk
On an evening walk through the Fan I tried to empty my mind and just sense. Mild success there. After reading in the cool house, the air felt like a warm bath and the light was golden. The rose bush that leans over the fence along Meadow St was unadorned and looked tired. When I turned the corner into my favorite little cobbled alley, the air there felt cooler and the ivy was thick. One curling vine hung directly in my path. I love to walk the alleys, love how much less manicured they are, how the lines of ownership blur and the plants (and sometimes animals) hold sway. Four doves, brown on a brown fence watched me pass. I almost thought they were sculptures until one took a step.
Smells tonight came in eddies, like warm water when you swim in the chilly ocean. Charcoal grill. The restaurant smells--french fries, or the sharp tang of tomato sauce. Trash in the alleys, from the cans all down one side of a lonely track lined on the other side by grass and sunburned iris leaves. The clean, maybe sanitized scent of mulch and boxwoods--in front of house after house, down one block--contagious boxwoods. Coming along an alley that opened out into a sort of no man's land parking area behind some shops, a sweet/tart candy smell I recognized but couldn't place, until I saw the vine-covered fence, festooned with concord grapes, many already ripe.
You could forage through the Fan, and even skipping the trash cans you could bring home a stash of delicious or decorative or medicinal finds. Black walnuts and crabapples. Lavender, oregano, rosemary. Cherry tomatoes. Rosehips. The grapes. One yard I call the secret garden, behind a tall wooden fence, holds a pomegranate tree and a fig tree, and who knows what else. Alongside the fence, someone forgot to pave the sidewalk, and a dirt track runs along under the trees, soft underfoot, until the sidewalk resumes.
I came out along Robinson Street and passed the bus yard with its huge, slate-roofed garage, more like a hangar. I felt the sweat trickle down my spine. A man with a cigar passed and paid me no mind, his smoke adding to the scent-texture of the walk. Crossing the highway bridge in the slanted light, the cars looked strange zipping beneath--it looks so much like a race, a purposeless race, from above.
The Fountain Lake was quietly alive. A homeless woman camped on the grass with her cart. A woman jogged past, intent. Another woman strolled along and we smiled at each other and the evening. A man smiled too, a few paces on, and said it was a fine evening for a walk. He was waiting for it to cool off so he could hit the tennis courts. A couple holding hands walked past with that aimless, off-kilter wander. I thought, how sweet, but when I passed them, not looking to closely, she was sniffling.
Canada geese clustered along one side of the lake, some swimming, some preening on the edge, calling out just a little. Two ducks swam with them. People watched them, and I heard someone say, what would you do if a bird attacked you? as I passed. And I thought, they make a good Christmas dinner.
Strolling back up the road past the last of the lake, a man was shining his Cadillac. I said, It's blinding! And he laughed and said thank you. I passed another wooden fence where some leaves had poked through between the slats and then died there in a brown cluster that looked as though the wood itself was blooming. A girl in a red dress passed with her spaniel, said thank you when I made room for her on the sidewalk, but didn't look up. I passed the cigar man again, he was coming back from the store, remote behind his sunglasses.
When I got home, my little cat had not moved from her place on the front porch. She didn't move when I stepped up to the door, but she blinked once, flattened out under the railing.
