This morning I started out in the Moutoux Shed Patch and headed down Groves Hill, then past the School Patch and the Route 7 Hillside. Walked past the stand and out the driveway and took a left on Route 7. Headed west toward Thelma's, not really knowing how far I would go, but I walked along the northern edge of the Front Field until I got to the furthest point of the Thompson property before turning off of Route 7 and heading back through the most northeastern corner of the Thompson Field, where the road to the stand used to be at the top of the hill. I cut across the whole back end of the field, making my way diagonally back toward the front of the farm. It tickled me to look down into the woods and see that the irrigation pipes that extended to the Brooks Field were still on the slope on the other side of the stream. I don't know if those pipes ever really got put together (doesn't seem like it) but those forty foot lengths of aluminum have stayed in those woods, undisturbed, for about 50 years. When I got back to Route 7, a little bit west of the driveway, I headed back east toward Beulah Road. Took a right on Beulah until I got to the Moutoux driveway, decided not to go to Parents to look at the field since we haven't seen any geese yet this winter, and headed down the driveway back toward the top of Groves Hill.
This was a two mile walk through memory, on my two good knees and two not great feet. But it was the first walk I have taken by myself in the extended neighborhood in well over five years, I am guessing. My new knee is going to take me back to all the trails and sidewalks that I knew so well, and they will seem new to me after all these years. Except not really.
So, here is where I really went, even though that first description is entirely true. I walked out of our house at the top of Blueberry Hill and headed past the Common House and down the road, through the deer fence and onto the farm property. Went past the School Patch and Rt 7, past the stand and then headed left onto the brand new bike/pedestrian path that is on the highway side of the monolithic sound wall that separates the stand from the road. Went west on that path until I got to a sign that said "Sidewalk Closed" so I took a left into the road that dead ends at the end of the path that goes through Middleton. Crossed someone's yard, quietly, went across the swale full of big rocks that is part of the storm water retention pond and marched along on the paved path to Middleton Ridge Road. From there I could see between some houses, down into the stream valley that is the back of our farm, and I could see the pipes on the hillside that made me smile. Back to Route 7 and up toward Beulah Road, passing the farm and the latest incarnation of a school and up to the corner where I took a right and noted that where there were once two narrow, winding lanes, there are now four lanes because of all the various accommodations for turning. Took a right on Maymont Drive and then a right onto Newcombs Farm Road and I was home again.
I have written about this topic before, how there are maps overlaid on other maps everywhere I go, since we still live on the same property and drive on the same roads. Sort of. Chip told me there is a word for this. I will have to ask him to remind me again. But where other people see a six lane highway heading towards Tysons Corner, I still see the cornfields that were on both sides of that road less than 50 years ago. Between here and the Springhill Rec Center, we pass the Weissman Field directly across the street, E.E. Thompson's, Bradley Thompson's, Hazleton's, the Berry Field, the Hawkins Field (that one just took me ten minutes to remember), then the Jewetts on the left and Howard Lowe's and Paul Lowe's on the right, then Odricks, then the Duck Pond and finally Charlie's. There are still people alive who would remember all of those names, but there is no real reason to remember them. There is no reason to keep track of this sort of detail. And yet I do.
So how did I feel as I walked on these paved surfaces, passing these monstrous houses, looking at the unimaginative landscaping, feeling a little bit glad about the way the deer had eaten a band around the middles of the arbor vitae? I felt okay. I have been here the whole time. I have watched all of it. I would not have chosen these houses and these roads, nor would I have wished that all the overgrown fields had stayed the same. There were certainly better choices that could have been made, but no one who is trying to make money off of developing land is going to make the best choices. We who built Blueberry Hill made better choices, but we still took out steep hillsides and lots of trees, rearranging the topography. And next door, they erased the Moutoux Orchard and put gigantic houses right next to each other. If you use up your emotional energy on grieving those changes, you make it hard for yourself to keep moving forward.
I am always amused and glad that the stand looks just as it did about 50 years ago. It is such an anomaly. It was weird when it was built and it is still odd and we have 300 CSA customers who pull into the parking lot each week and probably don't think about how strange it all is because they are focused on walking back to see the beautiful vegetables. But they are looking at something that doesn't have any layers of maps on top of it. It is one place that still has the same function as it did two generations ago. This makes me happy.
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