photograph by anna traverse fogle
Each day, we take the same walk as the day before. Lily Bear knows which dogs she wants to bark at, and which she will choose to ignore. Even when we vary our schedule, everyone silently adjusting to changing light and weather, we pass the same dogs walking with the same humans. After many months of wandering the same sidewalks, I find myself keeping track of subtle differences even as the days blur together.
The Mexican heather a few blocks over flowered deep indigo, then faded. The rose bushes at the corner screamed in apricot and watermelon in early summer. In autumn, they raised their voices once more. Long midsummer evenings, we stood in the middle of the street with binoculars to watch the pair of yellow-crowned night herons in their enormous nest in a tall oak a few houses up. A dense storm muscled through one night; our majestic birds left. Had the mother laid her eggs yet? Would she and her mate return, or had the delicate eggs been shattered in a shower of falling limbs and leaves? I fretted for days. The little black-and-white cat who prowls our end of the block has been hunting with more determination as the temperature drops; yesterday we saw her, delighted, shaking a stunned chipmunk in her maw.
We spoke about the meditative aspects of experiencing the world around us mostly on foot, slowed down, observant. It’s not all bad. But no one would have chosen this path.
The leaves draw toward their annual copper-and-gold sunset. I know each tree like I know friends’ faces, and feel obliged to check in with them regularly. (Checking in with trees seems to me like one of the saner responses a person could have to existing in 2020.) In the midst of such tumult, it surprises me sometimes to look up and observe the natural course of things continuing unabated. Autumn has come. The nights are cool, and smell of woodsmoke. The leaves are turning. Revelations, all.
On one of those recent neighborhood walks, I bumped into an artist friend. We spoke (from across the street) about the meditative aspects of experiencing the world around us mostly on foot, slowed down, observant. It’s not all bad. But no one would have chosen this path.
Early in the pandemic, I remember people sharing stories and photos of the final live music shows they attended before everything shut down. I’ve enjoyed plenty of live-streamed music events during the pandemic, and hope this genre continues into the future. But I’ll also be very, very glad when attending an actual show makes sense again, when I can feel the bass hollowing out my chest. Remember that? We live in a city famous for its music, but the only live music I’ve seen in months has been on my computer screen.
This month’s magazine turned into a sort of music issue. For some months, Alex Greene has been talking about the story of how Led Zeppelin mixed their third album, aptly titled Led Zeppelin III, at Ardent Studios in Memphis, half a century ago. He tells that story masterfully here. Michael Finger was inspired to write a companion story about not attending a Led Zeppelin show at the Coliseum, also in 1970, when our executive editor was earning his concert-ticket money at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. Our Habitats feature this month has a Memphis-music vibe, too, although not a Zeppelin vibe: Chris McCoy brings us into the mid-century wonderland occupied by Grammy-winning producer Matt Ross-Spang. The place is very, very Memphis.
In this very strange year, many of the places that make our hometown so distinctly itself have felt out of reach. They’re still there, not far at all. But as it turns out, it was never about the places, but about the people in them. Maybe that’s why I’ve become so loyal to our daily long neighborhood walks. I love building deep familiarity with the trees and roses and birds, the chipmunks and the cats who eat them. But seeing the quirky cast of characters who all emerge as if on cue to wave hello counts for more than I ever might have guessed. For now, most days, this is enough.
