When I travel, I rarely go to the same place twice. There are spectacular destinations that I have vowed to revisit, but many more are on my “first pass” wanderlust list. Some places have been in my travel hope chest since I was young and others are more recent finds. As the age of fifty awaits around a not-so-distant corner and the kids are on the brink of the teenage years, I am more acutely aware that the timeline does not stretch out as far ahead as I once believed it did. Like Jack Kerouac, I “lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
But in day-to-day life, I tend to repeat. I have been walking the same three-and-a-half mile circuit most mornings with Rosie the Dog for over a year. If we have more time or a day off, and it is particularly lovely and bright, or I awake in the morning with an itch to be scratched, then we might take off for a local forest preserve for a longer walk and a change of scenery. Chicagoland is not exactly a wilderness haven, but over the years I have discovered some wonderful places where the quiet of the forest is louder than the din of traffic. But at six in the morning on a regular Tuesday, when John has just rolled out of bed for a workout, the kids will need to leave for school in short order, and Rosie the Dog has her whiskered muzzle in my face, there is something comforting about the predictability of routine.
“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
-- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
We live in a neighborhood that is surprisingly quiet given its location. When these houses were built around the turn of the last century, there was no congested interstate highway dividing the village in half, nor busy arteries bordering two more sides of the neighborhood. Still, the old houses and mature trees give this place a vintage feel. Rosie and I start walking three blocks north and cross the pedestrian bridge over the Eisenhower expressway. The skyline of Chicago hugs the shore of Lake Michigan to the east, and even at an early hour there is a river of cars flowing toward it. Blue Line “L” trains hurtle beneath us and at times a traffic helicopter hovers overhead. After this clamorous crossing, our walk is quiet again, aside from the barking dogs Rosie seems to awaken with her presence.
We continue walking north for nearly a mile, passing the middle school that the kids now attend. They will make this trek themselves in a couple of hours, clumped together in backpacked, multi-celled organisms of tweendom. In a few more blocks we turn east at a stately 19th century mansion, then meander south past historic Victorians, sturdy two-flats and apartment buildings, and noble single-family abodes on pocket-sized parcels. We will cross the highway again, the city more bustling and awake than it was an hour earlier, and make it home in time to hustle the kids off to school.
The skyline of Chicago hugs the shore of Lake Michigan to the east, and even at an early hour there is a river of cars flowing toward it.
This route and routine, repetitive as they are, have granted me the opportunity to pay attention in new ways. I notice changes in light and seasons. In June and July we would set out at 5:30 in full daylight, but at that hour in October Orion’s belt is still bright above the streetlights. Some days the sky draws my gaze – the angle of the light, the peach and periwinkle streaks of cloud. Other mornings I am drawn downward to the level of leaves and grass, tree roots and cicada shells. Rosie and I take turns stopping – she takes in the surroundings with her amazing nose; I try to capture random moments on the camera phone in my pocket. We wait patiently for one another, then drag each other back to the familiar route, headed for home.
This route and routine, repetitive as they are, have granted me the opportunity to pay attention in new ways.
Last night thousands of leaves let go under the icy fingers of November. A brilliant carpet of them hid the sidewalks and streets under the elms and oaks, maples and gingkoes. The first snow flurries swirled and fluttered and the frigid air stung my skin. Summer weather stretched well into October this year, so when winter blew in with hardly a glance at autumn, the transition felt like the gray steel of the sky. This morning, that transition felt a little softer crunching through a blanket of leaves and snow in a place I call home. Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Sometimes the inward journey requires a great voyage, but sometimes it is borne in the gray light of morning, on a well worn path, with a faithful companion.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
-- Marcel Proust
