We’ve been spending the majority of our time during the pandemic and work from home experience in south central Pennsylvania, but occasionally we do need to dip back into our usual domain of Arlington, Virginia. One one of these occasions a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a “walk on the wild side” on the Windy Run Trail.
This trail is only a short distance from our home, but offers a semi-wilderness-like tangle of trees and underbrush arrayed along a babbling stream (Windy Run, obviously). Although as you progress toward my usual goal, a dramatic bluff over-looking the Potomac River, the rushing sound of the stream gives way to the steam of rush-hour on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which you cross under.
The day I sojourned along the trail, there were few other people astir, just a few dog walkers on close to the trail head. As I went deeper into the woods and up and down the steep portions on this muggy day, the air felt heavy and instead of feeling energized by the nature all around me, I began to feel slightly uneasy. I came for a short escape to nature, but the trees and the atmosphere started pressing down on me.
When I reached the underpass, the feeling accelerated. Graffiti referencing the killing of George Floyd was writ large along the metal beams. I caught my own breath as the full weight of the message “I can’t breathe” brought me back to the reality of our troubled country.
There is no escaping the news, the angry division of people, the fear and uncertainty. Nor should there be. It is the time and space we live in and must all confront daily. We live side by side with nature and human history, both at times beautiful but often ugly and disheartening.
I passed under the bridge with the traffic roaring above me and got to the other side. I stood on the high bluff gazing at the muddy waters of the Potomac. I felt a mix of emotions – awe at how untamed nature can still appear but cognizant of the fact that humans still fight so hard to control it, and each other.
Roll on, mighty river. Bring us some hope for better days.
