Posted tagged ‘\exploring’

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”The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets.”

July 27, 2025

I feel lazy today. I haven’t yet gotten dressed. I made the coffee, read the paper, talked to my sister in Colorado, had another cup of coffee and finally got down to writing. That brings me to now.

Today is uninviting, a bleak day with a grey sky threatening rain. It is in the low 70’s, but a strong breeze makes it feel colder. My house is dark. I’ve left the lights off. It is also quiet, almost as if no one lives here. The dogs are napping, Henry upstairs and Nala beside me on the couch. My mood is somber, reflecting the day.

When I was a kid, I always went to mass. I feared mortal sin. I didn’t want my soul to look like the black milk bottle in my catechism. My church clothes, not to be confused with my school clothes or my play clothes, were always the same, a dress or skirt, good shoes and a hat. I carried my missal. It gave me something to read. Back then, the mass was in Latin with Latin responses. The priest faced the altar and had his back to us. I always felt a bit detached.

When I was out on my bike, my mother never knew where I was. Even if she had asked, I could never had told her where I’d be. I usually didn’t know myself. I had many different routes. I remember riding by the golf course and looking for and finding balls in the gutters and on the lawns of houses across the street. Two different directions led to other towns, one had the lake while the other had the trains. I could ride to the zoo. I’d put my bike in the bike stand and check out all the cages. Back then, the zoo had an elephant and a kiddy zoo where the animals were in scenes from nursery rhymes like the clock in Hickory Dickory Dock, the old lady’s shoe and Humpty Dumpty on his wall. At the end of the zoo were picnic tables. If I had brought my lunch, I’d sit there.

I’d check out Spot Pond. It is by the zoo. It was a reservoir which meant no trespassing at all. I always imagined a Huck Finn raft with me sneaking to the island with food and shelter and hiding there to camp. The water always looked so inviting. Now, you can fish for bass and bluegill and rent boats like canoes and kayaks, but you still can’t swim there.

My bike took me everywhere, even once to East Boston to visit my grandparents. My bike made my world so much bigger. I was an explorer.

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“Her routine was as predictable as the rotation of the earth.”

November 11, 2017

Last night was bitingly cold. When I took Gracie out around 1:30, the cold took my breath away. Gracie didn’t like it any more than I so she peed as she walked. It was not squatting weather. Today is much warmer in comparison. I went into the yard with Gracie and didn’t mind waiting. She roamed a while then picked her spots. She squatted just fine.

I have all these patterns of movement every morning. I take Gracie out and fetch my papers then we both go to the backyard. Once Gracie’s finished in the yard and we’re back inside the house, I make the coffee then get Gracie’s dish. That’s kitchen to hall to den. On the way back from leaving Gracie’s dish, kitchen to den, I get the cat’s dish. That’s den to living room to kitchen. I fill the cat food dish then pour my first cup and head back to the den. That’s kitchen to living room to den. I read the Globe first then it’s back to the kitchen where I put the toast in the toaster oven and wait. Once it’s done, I fill my cup for the second time and walk back down the hall to the den to read my second paper, the Cape Cod Times. That’s where the usual pattern ends. The rest of my day is free form.

I didn’t make it to the dump yesterday. Even on warmer winter days the wind rips across the recycle center, and it’s cold. Yesterday the dump would have been freezing, frozen tundra like. I won’t be able to go until tomorrow as it is closed for Veteran’s Day.

Today I have an empty dance card. I’ll go through my recipes to find appetizers for game night tomorrow. I expect to get the laundry done. I’ve hit my breaking point. The pile is high enough to have my full attention and merits a sign: beware of falling laundry.

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“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”

July 26, 2015

Today is overcast and dark and the air has a damp chill. It feels as if rain is pending. I hope so. It has been too long since the last rain fell.

Last night was perfect for movie night. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. Goldilocks would have found it just right. The crowd liked Breaking Away and they clapped when the Cutters won.

I lived in a project from the time I was five until I was sixteen. It was in my small town and back then the word project had no stigma attached. We never thought twice about calling it the project when we talked about where we lived. Even now, when my sisters and I remember growing up, we start our memories with, “In the project…” The houses were all duplexes made of wood. The front yards had lawns, bushes and flower gardens. We lived in a corner duplex so we had a huge front yard with a small hill leading to the sidewalk and the street. All the backyards had clotheslines, and each side of the duplex had two of those clotheslines. In the middle of the backyards, between the sets of duplexes and behind the clotheslines, was a grass-covered hill, perfect for little kids to sled on in winter and to slip ‘n slide on in summer. The project was loaded with kids of all ages. My best friend lived up above from where I lived, and she even lived in the same duplex where we had first lived. Everyone in the project was a neighbor. One of our favorite neighbors lived in the house next door and another favorite lived right beside us in the same duplex. Their side was a mirror image of ours. A few neighbors were not so friendly, but only a few.

When I talk about my childhood with someone, I usually have to explain the project, defend it somehow, as most people tend to think of projects as block after block of brick high-risers in the poorest part of any city. They never think of them as I do: a place filled with kids, ready playmates, with a grassy field of grasshoppers which jumped in front of you when you walked, an old tree for climbing, blueberries for picking, woods for exploring and a swamp perfect for catching pollywogs in spring and for ice skating on in winter. It was the best place in which to grow up. My sisters and I agree on that.

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“Not all those who wander are lost.”

June 26, 2014

Today is the day: USA versus Germany. The game starts at noon, my time. Extended lunches are the order of the day. Lots of sickness going around as well. I think it is the 24 hour flu.

It was raining when I woke up early this morning. Gracie went out, did what she needed to then ran right back inside. The paper wasn’t here yet. I was reading my e-mail when I heard the thump of the paper hitting the driveway. Just then the heavens opened, and it poured. The rain seemed to be coming straight down in torrents. Gracie and I watched from the front door. Rain mesmerizes both of us.

Summer and screen doors go together. When I was young, doors didn’t shut slowly. They slammed. Every time one of us went out, the door slammed behind us. My mother always yelled, “Don’t slam the door.” If I had known the word delusional back then, I would have used it to describe her and the other mothers because all over the neighborhood you could hear mothers yelling and doors slamming.

Summer rain never kept us inside the house. Getting wet was no big deal. My mother didn’t care. She was just happy to be rid of us. We’d walk in the woods where the trees were so filled with leaves we never got too wet. Other times we’d ride our bikes, but riding bikes on a rainy day meant taking care as sand along the side of the road was slippery and would sometimes cause us to skid and fall. Other times we’d skid on purpose to leave tire tracks behind us. The longest tracks won.

I got lost twice as a kid. The first time I didn’t realize I was lost. I just thought I was exploring with my brother. My family had just moved into a new house, and my brother and I decided to check out the neighborhood. We went through the field below our house, kept walking into the woods and came out on a street just beyond where the woods ended. We kept walking. We found a stream behind some houses and stayed a while to float leaves. When we walked back to the main street, a police car stopped, asked our names then had us get in and they took us home. Our parents had gotten scared and called the police.  We didn’t know where we were or where our house was, but we didn’t care. It was the adventure which was fun. I was five and my brother was four.

The second time I got lost was at the drive-in. I was in my pajamas and robe. When I needed to go to the bathroom, I went alone. I assured my parents I’d be fine. I found the bathroom but couldn’t find the car. I roamed up and down the aisles and finally went to the refreshment stand. They called over the car speakers for the parents of Kathleen Ryan to come, and my father did. I was about six or seven.

I have the most amazing sense of direction. I never get lost even when I’ve somewhere I haven’t been before. I just somehow find my way. I don’t go to the drive-in any more.

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“Part of the urge to explore is a desire to become lost.”

June 14, 2014

The rain has stopped but the day is still damp and cloudy. There is such an after storm stillness that even the leaves aren’t moving. I was on the deck for a bit this morning and was surprised by how warm a morning it is. Today is a free day. I have no lists.

When I was a kid, we roamed a lot on Saturdays. On days like today my sneakers and the bottom part of my dungarees would get soaked. I never cared. The best part of being a kid was needing no sense of style or fashion. Dirt was acceptable. Fields and woods were for exploring, and rain was never a deterrent, at least not misty rain or, as my mother called it, spitting rain. The leaves always glistened when it rained, and I remember slurping rainwater from the leaves when I got thirsty. We wandered far afield usually staying in the woods or along the railroad tracks. Once we found a raft and used it to pole around a pond. The raft was made from an odd combination of wood pieces, and there were holes between the pieces so our feet were always in water. We poled a couple of times around the pond and then put the raft back where we had found it. At the swamp, we jumped across the little canals from one island to another and went as far back as we could until the underbrush was too thick and there were thorns. It was only in the winter that we could follow the swamp to where it ended.

My town had a box factory and two factories which made chemicals and all three of those factories were by the railroad tracks. We used to see the people from the box factory on their breaks. They’d be sitting outside on the steps talking together and smoking cigarettes. The factory was at the end of the tracks near what used to be the station. The windows were too high for us to see what was going on, but there were piles of unfolded boxes stacked on the loading dock. Two railroad cars were always on the tracks across from the factory. They never moved, and I don’t think they were ever used for anything. We couldn’t get into them but we did climb the steps and look wistfully inside.

We were gone all day, but my mother never worried even though she didn’t know where we were. When we were leaving, she’d ask where we were going. We never knew so our answer was always,”Around.”

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“Part of the urge to explore is a desire to become lost.”

March 1, 2014

Snow is coming on Monday. Wow, I’m just so excited. We haven’t had any in at least three days. The weatherman also says it will be cold for most of the week. What a surprise! I was getting so tired of those high 20 degree days.

Today looks washed-out with light but no sun and some blue but mostly gray skies. The breeze is brisk and chilling.

I make all these plans to go places then I decide that being home and warm is the best place to be. Today I haven’t a choice. I have some must do errands. I will, however, award myself in some way for being fearless in the face of frigid cold and winter’s mighty hand.

I am an explorer. Even when I was a kid I explored. On my bicycle I rode all over town. I’d go down roads I hadn’t ever ridden on before. It wasn’t ever to find anything. It was just to see what was there. From high school in Arlington, it was a dime bus ride to Harvard Square down Mass Ave. It was the best of times for Harvard Square. The Orson Wells Theater, the old kiosk and the Wursthaus were still there. Book stores were everywhere. My friends and I explored the square time and time again. We went down one way streets resembling alleys and found hidden places to eat. We walked Harvard Yard. We never tired of spending a dime to get to the Square. We knew we might just find someplace neat, someplace new.

In college, I was no less an explorer but hardly explored. Books and classes took far too much of my time, and each summer I had to work. I was stuck in one place for what seemed like the longest time. I had a few interesting adventures in college and they helped but weren’t quite enough. My need to explore had expanded well beyond my bicycle and Harvard Square. I wanted new places. I wanted to need maps and hear a foreign language. I wanted the chance to be lost.

I am still an explorer, but my boundaries have expanded well beyond what I dreamed when I was ten. I have been lost several times, and I love finding my way. That’s what explorers do.

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“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”

March 24, 2013

What a bright, sunny day it is with the bluest of skies. Though still a bit chilly, only in the high 30’s, the sun makes it feel much warmer. The breeze is slight and only gently rocks the branches. The snow is just about gone. Today must be an apology of sorts from Mother Nature for the grayness of the past week.

This morning I watched a spawn of Satan be thwarted by my bird feeders. It tried all three sunflower feeders but got nothing except frustration. Its paw jabbed and jabbed inside the wires and still came back empty. Take that, you spawn of Satan!

I have high hopes. My back is getting better, my outlook on life is rosier, Easter is next week and baseball starts April 1st. Life is good.

When I was a little kid, small things gave me joy. Blowing puffy dandelions into the wind, catching fireflies, picking and eating blueberries or watching pollywogs at the swamp were the best ways to spend part of a summer day. Getting dirty while doing it was a bonus. I’d lie on my stomach and look into the water at the edge of the swamp because that’s where the pollywogs first appeared. We’d go and see them every couple of days and watch them grow. They were the tiniest black specks at first darting so quickly I could almost miss them but then came the arms and legs, and they were easy to see. When they were full-grown, they just disappeared, moved on to somewhere else in the swamp, probably in the back among the trees and bushes where we seldom went.

That swamp was my favorite of all places when I was young. It had a wide open area in the front where we watched the pollywogs in spring and where we’d ice skate in the winter. Small channels on both sides led away from the wide front. In the summer these channels were bordered by overgrown bushes and trees growing on what we thought of as islands. Exploring into the swamp meant jumping from island to island, getting scratched by the briers and getting wet feet if you weren’t careful, but at least once every summer we’d explore as far as we could. In the winter it was easy. The channels froze and the trees and bushes were bare. We walk and follow the channels as far as they went holding on to limps to keep from slipping and falling. We’d get on our hands and knees to look into the ice. It was like looking at a tiny world. The ice was so clear we could see all the dead leaves, the vines and the limbs of trees which had dipped into the water and been frozen. I can still see it all in my mind’s eye. I thought it was beautiful.

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