Walking in March: Of Woods and Work

My February walk in the rain forest at Lake Quinault involved soaring trees, mosses, quiet trails, and the sound of water. And guess what—I have all those within a 15-minute walk from my front door. 

Well, technically not the rain forest label. But we're fortunate to have found a house very near Squaxin Park, which offers up over 300 acres of woods, a mile of shoreline, and trails that wind through and connect to offer any number of ways to wander.

Back up over two years ago to when we still lived in Seattle, in a corner of the Top Hat neighborhood with no sidewalks, no big natural park within an easy walking distance. 

When the pandemic struck the state of Washington before any other state, our governor and the state agency I work for responded swiftly. In my journal I noted March 10, 2020, as the first day of 100% working from home. 

In those early days as we pivoted to the online work world we needed to figure out ways to stay connected and stay up to date on the unfolding emergency. Our leadership instituted a weekly call for senior managers. Each call ended with encouragement to make sure we were taking care of ourselves and our coworkers while we continued to serve the people of Washington under enormous strains and shifts. The call often ended with the words, "Be kind. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others."

One of the ways I found to do this was to make that particular meeting a walking meeting. Now, usually a walking meeting involves walking and talking with other people. I had those other people with me via the headset I wore as I walked laps around the outside of our house, carrying my phone so it could count my steps.

This got me moving if I'd been sitting or standing too long in one place, staring at the screen and typing typing typing. It also made me a much better meeting participant. Why? Because while I was walking and listening I was only walking and listening. I wasn't reading and answering email with half an ear attuned to the meeting. I wasn't trying to multitask, which isn't even a real capability of the human brain. I was being kind to myself.

[Side note on my various forms of privilege that show up in this story, including my ability to buy these homes: I fully recognized then and know that my ability to stay home, warm, fed, and powered relied on the work of thousands of people who kept going into workplaces, being exposed to a virus we didn't understand for which we had no vaccine, and dying at higher rates than those of in these white-collar desk jobs. It still does, they still are, they still do, and I don't forget that.]

Just over three years later teleworking is still my daily reality. Our agency goal is to maintain a high percentage of teleworking so those of us whose jobs lend themselves to that format continue to reduce those vehicle miles traveled by not traveling them at all. I could go into the office occasionally if I wanted to, but the building is mostly empty; it doesn't have the "juice" of those chance hallway conversations that enrich our work by giving us a new idea or an insight into a different way of thinking about what we do.

Walking meetings are also still part of my work life. I select a meeting that doesn't require me to view a lot of slides on screen, although I can actually look at those on my phone if I need to. I put on that headset and head out the door. Within a few blocks I'm in the woods, listening with focused attention to the meeting content and resting my screen-worn eyes with the trees overhead, the water below the little footbridge, the offerings people leave at the Telephone of the Winds in memory of loved ones who have died.

Another way I make walking part of my work life while being kind to myself: Occasionally on a lunch break I put on a podcast and head for those woods. Listening to smart people interviewing interesting guests on a variety of topics yields some of those insights, those new ways of approaching a topic or a scenario that I might have gained from a hallway conversation. I listen to some that are quite obviously "about" work, in that they focus on transportation. Others that aren't transportation-focused stimulate my brain with new knowledge. I'm stepping away from that direct task focus and giving myself permission to let an idea or a question simmer a while before coming back to pin it down. 

This time of stepping away is a critical part of brain work. Einstein is famously said to have come up with the Theory of Relativity while riding his bicycle.* The movement of my body through space and my brain coming along for the ride may not yield world-changing science, but it makes me feel better, think better, live better. I'm balanced between woods and work.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.  

— Albert Einstein

Related listening

Don't tell the hosts, but I don't listen to every episode of every podcast I'm subscribed to. This list is a sampling; over the years I've subscribed to others and the list is ever-evolving. What am I missing that you think is a must-listen, and why do you think that? What makes it a good companion for a walk?

• 99% Invisible 
• Code Switch
• On Being
• This Land
• Arrested Mobility
• TED Radio Hour
• Talking Headways
• Short Wave
• Hidden Brain
• The Midlife Feast
• 360 Degree City
• The War on Cars
• Invisibilia
• Autonocast
• The Mobility Podcast
• Hurry Slowly
• Hello Coffee My Old Friend
• Transportation Radio
• Redesigning Cities
• Wanderful: Inspiration on the Go
• Contra* from Critical Design Lab (stopped producing episodes in 2020 though)

*Snopes says there's no attribution for this Einstein statement about coming up with the Theory of Relativity while riding his bicycle. But the American Museum of Natural History included it in their Einstein exhibit so I'm going with them. Their description of how the insight ties to riding a bike makes sense to me: "No matter how fast Einstein rides his bike, the light coming from his headlight always moves at the same speed." Snopes says the statement about how life is like riding a bicycle is a paraphrase of something he wrote in a letter to his son Eduard dated Feb. 5, 1940.

Walking in February: Of Woods and Water

February 2023 brought the opportunity for a weekend getaway to Lake Quinault Lodge in Olympic National Park to celebrate a friend's birthday. Some of the group drove to Montesano with their tandem and solo bicycles and rode the 50 miles from there to the lodge. Others, like those of us healing from a broken wrist who can't cover that much ground by bike right now, drove to the lodge.

As I drove out Friday afternoon, accompanied by the Eagles Live double album, the rain came and went and came again, reminding me with the watery blur and the slapping of my windshield wipers that I was heading into a temperate rain forest. (And, not incidentally, reminding me that I wasn't totally sorry I had to miss the bike ride in the cold grey wetness—cold makes my wrist ache even more.)

Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast meant pleasant socializing with some new acquaintances. We were going to gather again for Saturday dinner, and meanwhile the agenda was wide open for whatever activities appealed. For me, this meant a walk in the woods.

I headed first up the narrow, shoulderless road past the lodge to visit the World's Biggest Sitka Spruce. At 191 feet it's a neck-craning forest giant standing in a spot that felt sad, surrounded by the encroachment of spaces designed for tourists exactly like me. 

I tried to imagine it standing as one among many in a lush, unbroken tree canopy, birds and animals rustling in the brush that no longer grows around its feet, no signage prompting us to go visit other giant trees in the park, no people posing for a picture to put on Facebook.

From there, following the simple paper map available at the lodge, I headed back to the road and across, following the trail to Gatton Creek Falls.

I walked alone on the soft paths, surrounded by so much green! Mosses, mosses everywhere, reminding me of listening to the audiobook of Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer with its rich description of their complex lives, structures, and functions.

Every so often I passed a gigantic stump, quite possibly a mother tree cut down to build the lodge I had slept in the night before. I could not help but say softly, "I'm sorry, Mother." Saplings sprang from each stump to fill the space left behind, fed by their mother's body and watered by the rain falling all around.

I heard a creek chuckling off to one side. A small wooden footbridge provided a place to stop and listen to the water rushing downhill before continuing cautiously across on the slippery wet wood, then on up the hill.

This wasn't a hike to cover lots of ground quickly or get somewhere by a certain time. This was a walk simply to be in the woods. I gazed up, down, around and along the trail. Every minute gave me something to look at.

The very small: Delicate traceries of mosses and baby ferns. 

The very big: Those mother trees, downed logs, and tall trees soaring up, draped in long grey-green beards of Spanish moss. 

The pale: The underside of a patch of lichen, fallen from a trunk or limb above. Perhaps all that sogginess was too much to hold onto? It's so moist, like walking on thick sponges. Weblike masses of another moss shrouding a tree as if I were in Shelob's lair.

The bright: Rusty red maple leaves decaying into the soil, the contrast of a log's interior below the dark bark, pale orange dead ferns.

Life, life everywhere. The full circle, with green springing up from brown, climbing, growing, falling back to become soil again. Walking in woods and water reminding me that this world doesn't require me, or humans, to be whole and beautiful.

The Rocker

Easy answer: Grandma's rocking chair.

The question: "...as I arranged for a few beloved furniture items to be put into (climate controlled!) storage this week, it made me want to know about pieces of furniture that you’ve loved through the years. They don’t have to be fancy, or “beautiful,” or even, necessarily, useful. They just have to be beloved. Tell us about them, and why you cherished it or it looms large in your memory, with as much detail as you’re able to recall or reproduce."

This prompt in the subscribers-only space of Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study publication led me straight to the rocking chair that sits in our living room, covered with a deep crimson velour blanket to hide the worst of the peeling dark brown paint.

When I was born at St. Joseph Medical Center in Lewiston, Idaho, my Grandma Humphrey rocked me in this chair. She worked there many years as a licensed practical nurse and when she retired they gave her the rocker. Then it went to my parents' house, and at some point it became mine because of that story.

Grandma becoming a nurse is a big piece of what makes the rocker special. She married at 18 to a man 20 years her senior (which was so scandalous they each fudged their birth years a bit on the marriage certificate to shrink the gap). She was the youngest of 13 children and knew nothing about how to live in the world; he had to teach her to cook, clean, run the household. She had three children, my mom being the oldest and only girl. 

When Grandpa H. dropped dead of a heart attack in his 70s she was in her mid 50s. Grandma had never driven a car, held a job, or signed a check—he handled all of that for the household. She was all set to move straight into "old age" and rely on my mom for everything. Mom had four kids at the time (I'm one of the last two "late in life" babies she hadn't had yet) and really didn't have time to drive Grandma everywhere or have Grandma relying on her for all emotional support. 

So Mom gave her a fierce pep talk along the lines of "you can be an old woman now, or you can have a life and be an old woman many years from now. Which is it going to be?" 

Grandma went to school, became a licensed practical nurse, learned to drive, made friends, joined two bridge clubs and a bowling group. She became the woman who taught me to knit and tat and bowl, and always had the store-bought waffle cookies in vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry that we called "Grandma cookies".

Mom telling me this story was part of her raising me to be a feminist; she told me to be sure I could take care of myself and never to rely on a man for everything.

Fast forward to 2021. I was planning to sand the rocker down, paint it, and put it out on my deck so I posted a pic on Facebook to ask for advice. In the serendipitous world of social media I got all kinds of strongly worded good advice about how bad that would be for the rocker. It turned out a long-ago acquaintance has another friend who is a rocking chair FANATIC (has a collection of he's-not-sure-how-many). He told me it's an army knuckle arm Windsor rocking chair with saddle joints where the legs meet the rockers, and I had to look all that up to have any design context. He also offered to buy it from me. It is not for sale.

I now need to find a professional to do a really good job of the refinishing, hence the blanket hiding its shabbiness. (This is not shabby chic; it's just shabby.) 

It represents both my beloved grandma and how my also beloved stay-at-home mom raised me not to repeat the dependent parts of Grandma's life trajectory but to make my own way. Sitting in a refurbished rocker will represent my gratitude to both of them for the lessons. Rock on, ladies.

Walking in January: Of Gloves and Poetry

 "Honey, look! It's your glove!"

"What?!" I stared in delighted disbelief. The glove I'd lost on a walk weeks earlier hung from the branch of a tree along East Bay Road, clamped there with a wooden clothespin. I happily stuffed it into my backpack and we continued our walk, one of many we've taken along the water since moving to Olympia in fall of 2020.

The saga of the lost glove starts in Port Townsend, WA, over Veteran's Day Weekend. On a weekend getaway I found and purchased a delightful pair of soft gray gloves with swirls of colored yarn appliqued on the backs. Loved those gloves! So warm, so soft, and so fun to look at with their splashes of bright colors.

We came back home to Olympia from our mini-vacation. I wore my gloves everywhere—right up until I lost one of them on a walk. Most Saturdays we walk from our home into downtown, going by the farmers' market and then running small errands and getting coffee or lunch. Somewhere after a stop at Olympia Coffee on 4th, one of my gloves disappeared. I called around to the places we had been to no avail. The next time I was in downtown I walked the same route hoping for the glove to be lying there waiting for me to reclaim it. Still no avail, whatever that is. (Okay, yes, "avail" does have a definition.)

I mourned my return to my boring plain old gloves. But then—eureka!—Belleza Ropa in downtown Olympia carried the same style of gloves, although in black rather than grey. Turns out they're a sister store for the one in Port Townsend. Bought the black gloves and wore them happily—right up until I lost one on another Saturday downtown sojourn. 

As soon as I realized it was gone I jumped on my bike and retraced our path, searching in vain. Apparently losing a glove was becoming part of my routine too. I would have been willing to wear one black and one grey but had managed to lose the right-hand glove both times.

I went back to Belleza Ropa. They no longer had the exact colors I really wanted, although they did have another pair with a quieter color combo. I settled for Pair of Swirly Gloves #3. Just for fun on some occasions I wore Bright Swirly Lefthand Glove #2 with the new Tamer Swirly Righthand Glove #3.

Weeks passed until that January Saturday when Lost Righthand Glove #2 reappeared pinned to that branch.

That alone would have made the walk a bit magical. We laughed about the idea of a "glove miracle", neither of us being much given to belief in miracles when simple kindness or coincidence offer sufficient explanation. That, and paying attention to what's around us.

Whenever we walk we're scanning for birds on the water, in the skies, or in the trees and shrubs along the way. We always see mallards, crows, and seagulls, sometimes Canadian geese (which we refer to as "our Canadian visitors") or the comedic black and white Harlequin-painted buffleheads. On really awesome days we see a great blue heron or two, and once we spotted a kingfisher. We watch the waters of Budd Bay for the sleek head of a seal, sometimes to avail. We note the plants growing alongside the sidewalk and whether they're showing the damp brown dormancy of winter or starting to poke out a bit of spring hope. My sweetheart keeps tabs on the various sailboats in the marina that catch his eye. We're noticers, we are.

On this particular journey, another touch of magic awaited on our path to reward our noticing. The light rain overnight had revealed phrases of poetry stenciled onto the sidewalk, something I had read about in an article on Olympia's poet laureate program discussing the use of a paint that doesn't show up until it gets wet. We made our usual circuit around the edge of the bay and went to the market. 

As we left the market I spotted yet another line of poetry on the sidewalk. I read poetry every morning and finding it serendipitously along our route on the same day my glove reappeared felt like an un-birthday present. Later search turned up the name of the poet, Zyna Bakari.

We walk more now than we ever did before the pandemic. Starting to telework 100% of the time in early March almost three years ago created the need to go somewhere, anywhere we could go without breathing someone else's air. Back then we lived in an area of unincorporated King County that lacked sidewalks. We roamed the empty streets lined with parked cars going nowhere and I realized just how much I really wanted to live in a place with sidewalks or paths to walk on—a place that felt like it had a place for us to move safely and comfortably. When we moved to Olympia that was on my list of must-haves along with a bikeable location.

We ended up in a fabulous neighborhood where we have sidewalks on most streets we'd want to use to go anywhere, with bike lanes and trails connecting us to destinations too. The trip to downtown and back comes to 5 or 6 miles or thereabouts, depending on how many places we stop. Sometimes we decide we'll bail out on the return and let Intercity Transit give us a nice warm lift back uphill to our neighborhood. Sometimes we choose a slightly different route to mix it up coming or going. Each walk gives us time together, movement, fresh air, and the chance to see our town at a human pace and get to know it better than if we only saw it under glass.

When we got back from this particular day's outing, I wrote a thank-you note and biked down to clothespin it onto the tree where some kind person had hung my lost glove. So glad we went for a walk that day!

And yes, I now keep very close tabs on my gloves.