country kid

Today, for a brief window between unending screen time, I took a walk in a new direction. If you go down the hill, past The Rittenhouse, cross 16th Street, and into Rock Creek Park, you find yourself in a golf course. It's not your fancy-great-uncle's golf course. I'm actually not sure who's it is. Maybe it's the people's golf course. DC has those.

You can walk around, maybe run into a golfer. But today, I hardly saw anyone. I walked over rolling hills, and through the treeline. I even saw two deer. 

But it was a clearing with a little swampy patch that made me pause. As I came down the hill, I took my headphones out, and suddenly my ears were filled with noise. Mostly the frogs, who were out as the sun was starting to set. And a few birds. The pair of mallards were silent. 

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of this time of year in the woods like this. It was a similar half-wilderness next to humanity. In middle school, I'd come home from school before everyone else. I would walk around the farm, and this time of year, I'd go to the back field. Probably hang out on the railroad track for a while. There's a brook that runs through the woods on the other side of the tracks. A few more weeks into spring and the brambles start to grow, and the mosquitoes come out. But March is when everything is just starting. I'd take a book with me. I'd sing to myself a lot. I would walk up the brook with my pants rolled up. 

I remember taking a friend back there - although now I don't remember much else about our friendship. A few conversations we had, sitting on top of the round hay bales. 

Walking over the golf course hills today reminded me of the Sound of Music scene on top of the mountain. As I walked through a similarly soon-to-be overgrown path away from the chirping frogs, I sang a few lines, getting louder as the frogs faded away. I did a little Maria-spin on the top of the hill. 

I realized I don't spend much time in DC trying to be away from people. Particularly outside. I don't explore the nature that is so close to my house, and I don't get in touch with the part of myself that felt so grounded and at home in that moment. 

Not to romanticize this moment. I was just most glad to feel grounded and connected by this brief moment outside, feeling the air, listening, finding the wild cherry trees in the grey woods. 

--- I go to the hills
when my heart is lonely

I know I will hear

What I've heard before --