An Even More than Usually Self-Involved Blog Post, But at Least There Are Trees in It
My case of COVID-19 some months ago
(yes, I was vaccinated and boosted but got it anyway) was mild enough that I
didn’t bother to mention it in my blogs or social media. The weather was still
sufficiently unwelcoming at the time that staying at home for a while (longer
than the CDC protocols) was not a big departure from what I would have done
anyway. I felt lousy for a week (much like a standard cold) and then felt fine.
Almost. There was one lingering aftereffect: my energy and stamina took a hit
that did not recover on its own. I felt perfectly normal when sitting or just
standing around, but just walking 100 feet was as taxing as it previously would
have been to run an all-out 100-meter dash. I needed to stop and catch my
breath – no exaggeration. It was such a mortality reminder that I actually was
motivated to revise my will and end-of-life documents – though if the stock
market and consumer prices continue to perform the way they have lately, those
won’t be of much consequence to anyone anyway. My response was to attempt to build stamina
back with daily walks. Many people much older than I run multi-kilometer races
and work out in gyms, of course; back on April 3 I blogged about Edward Weston
who in 1909 walked from New York to San Francisco in 105 days at age 70 and
then walked from Los Angeles to New York in 78 days the following year. I’m not
as ambitious as any of those people. I just wanted again to be able to walk
from my car to the supermarket door without wondering if I’d be able to walk
back. Lots of my neighbors walk on my street – a lightly trafficked cul-de-sac –
for exercise, usually with their dogs, but I prefer a more solitary hike. I
live on five acres (two hectares), four of which are wooded. Years ago I hacked
a trail through my woods with enough twists and turns to make a fairly lengthy
path.
The trail
c. 200 y.o. stone hedgerow. Someone once worked very hard on this.
Did walking in the woods help? Yes,
though for a few weeks I wasn’t sure it would. At first I literally (not
figuratively) would have to stop every 50 or 100 feet (depending on the slope) to
catch my breath. Sometimes more often. But by the end of a month I could walk
the full circuit without stopping or gasping. Now I’m pretty much back to
normal. (Normal by the standards of my pre-COVID 2022, that is: I’d prefer
normal for my 1973, but we take what we can get.) The wood trail also promotes
personal serenity, or so I’ve always found, which is why I made it in the first
place. There is something about being surrounded by leaves and trees instead of
people that eases the tensions. With the exception of four college years
in downtown DC, I’ve been fortunate always to have woods a few meters from my
door – not always deep woods but thick enough to enter and see only trees, at
least in spots. A good part of my first 6 years was spent actually in a tree:
there was a tree at the edge of woods by our house with branches that made it
ideal for climbing. In 1959 my family moved to Brookside. In back of the house was a
hillside stretch of woods with a marvelous path that went all the way to the
elementary school I attended. It was my most common way to get there and back
when the weather wasn’t bad. This is now a linear park, but at the time it was
still the R.O.W. of the long defunct Rockaway Valley Railroad, so I rarely encountered
other walkers. The school itself abutted woods with trails and a stream (which
the kids for unknown reasons dubbed Balboa); we were forbidden to enter it
during unsupervised (!) recess so of course that is where we went. My own first
home (sold in 2000) was a cabin in the woods. What of those four years in DC?
Sometimes I would walk from 19th St NW (near F) across Arlington
Memorial Bridge all the way to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a wooded park in the
Potomac with an entrance on the Virginia side. It was a bit of a hike (check a
map) but I did it without a thought, which explains my nostalgia for my 1973
stamina. Anyway, (once again) I’m not ambitious
enough to try to emulate Mr. Weston or even some of my dog-walking neighbors.
However, I need to stop at the supermarket today. It’s a simple joy to be able
to do it again without gasping for breath in the parking lot. Afterward the
woods trail beckons. It’s no Appalachian Trail, but for my purposes it is long
enough.
Do you have any snakes up there? We do here, mostly nonpoisonous, but I don't care to be bitten by them either. I've already found my first shed snakeskin while mowing. I need to do some land clearing like you have done in those photos. Perhaps when it gets cooler, way too hot now.
The snakes are overwhelmingly harmless. There are some copperheads, though years typically pass between my sightings of one. Besides, their poison isn't very deadly. It won't normally take down a healthy adult (some people are sensitive of course) though it is a hazard to kids. I'm told there are a handful of rattlesnakes in the region, but I never saw one; my mom did once back in the 1970s. We do have bears, however. I walk in the daytime; they prefer to wander around at dusk or night. Black bears are not aggressive normally. Most likely they will ignore you or walk away, but of course I prefer not to test it.
Do you have any snakes up there? We do here, mostly nonpoisonous, but I don't care to be bitten by them either. I've already found my first shed snakeskin while mowing. I need to do some land clearing like you have done in those photos. Perhaps when it gets cooler, way too hot now.
ReplyDeleteThe snakes are overwhelmingly harmless. There are some copperheads, though years typically pass between my sightings of one. Besides, their poison isn't very deadly. It won't normally take down a healthy adult (some people are sensitive of course) though it is a hazard to kids. I'm told there are a handful of rattlesnakes in the region, but I never saw one; my mom did once back in the 1970s. We do have bears, however. I walk in the daytime; they prefer to wander around at dusk or night. Black bears are not aggressive normally. Most likely they will ignore you or walk away, but of course I prefer not to test it.
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