I have Often Walked

My husband and I are walkers, and we have a set of favorite places for our daily constitutionals.  Forest Park, just a short stroll from our Woodhaven home,  has miles of trails for exploring;  the sense of peace, tranquility, and solitude one experiences while lost in its depths is astonishing.  The city and its noise disappear as we wander in this urban wilderness.   You meet occasional fellows on horseback, or other trekkers walking their dogs, or high school track teams, students running in pairs; but often, we seem to have the park all to ourselves. The wide and generally well-tended bridle path makes it easy on the feet if the narrow, winding ones are too challenging.  This park, a site of the terminal moraine, moves in hills and troughs, altering the vista moment by moment.

The sunlight twinkles through the branches, setting the leaves to a blaze of color in the fall.  On mistier days, the fog lends an eerie mood, and changes the sounds of the woods.  And in the crispness of winter, the snap of twigs, or the crunch of hardened snow sets the squirrels scurrying.  The hardy winter birds fly to the tempting bright red berries on the shrubs, then wing off to their habitats.  And when glorious spring makes her entrance, the pale greens of the new leaves, the delicate blossoms on the cherry, apple, and dogwood trees, and the new growth on the evergreens deliver their eternal promise of renewal.

For a more brisk walk, there is also the running track at Victory Field.  Six laps around the course takes a half hour, and with our fifteen-minute walks to and from the park, we get a solid hour of hard walking – atonement for a good lunch.

At other times, we head out Crossbay Boulevard to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve.  The beautiful trail around the fresh water West pond is our favorite circumnavigation. The generous, wide and graveled path takes you past habitats for owls, snakes, and numerous birdhouses, perched high above the ground.  The occasional sturdy benches provide a place for repose, and taking in the serene vistas, watching the avian antics.  The shore birds, the geese, the swans, the ducks, the ospreys, the immense dark clouds of swift-moving terns, and countless species of winged animal stop on their migratory paths to rest.  There are always numerous amateur photographers toting their tripods and elaborate zoom-lens cameras to capture nature in flight.

If you just happen to be there on “landing day”, you can scan the sky with a pair of binoculars and see the numerous “V” formations advancing from the south west, one after another, heading to the pond.  We watched on one glorious spring morning while each group approached the water, gracefully landed, then as a unit, moved aside to make room for the next group, thirty to forty geese in a group.   It was thrilling to observe that timing, cooperation, and evident talent for communication.

In the fall, we had the good fortune to be present on a late afternoon when thousands of Canadian geese were preparing to head south.  We listened to the loud screeching of those birds, and like others on the trail that day, we found a spot and sat down in the grass.  There was a sense that these birds were organizing themselves with purpose, into flocks, maybe families, and I could just hear them calling out to one another, “Now don’t get lost, stay together until our group is called. “  After a time, the first groups began to rouse themselves and swirl upwards, flying in tight circles until they reached a certain altitude, then other groups followed, their squawking raising a mighty din.  Then came the miracle of light; the setting sun shone on the underbellies of the vast array of birds, turning them a bright pink/orange.  We, along with the other visitors to the park, sat spellbound, watching as they flew off, forming the telltale “V”s, heading into the sunset.  We knew we had experienced a rare gift of nature, the timing of that visit as serendipitous as it was magical.

Our recent visit to the Preserve showed us how the power of Mother Nature in the form of a storm called Sandy, could rearrange geography.  In one place along our favorite path, the torrent of rising water tore away part of the trail, breaking open a water-rushing channel from Jamaica bay into West pond.    The breach caused the former fresh-water pond to turn brackish with the infill of salt water.  Yet the birds were still there, though in greatly diminished  numbers, oblivious to the concerns of the ravaged communities nearby. Now, that severed trail must be walked in two distinct halves.

We have often walked miles along the Atlantic Beach at Rockaway, or Bell Harbor, or Breezy Point.  We park near 121^st. Street, walk to the Boardwalk,  and turn right to head West.  We stroll the boardwalk until it ends at about 130^th street, then continue along in the sand, and walk to Brooklyn.  Along the shore we admire the magnificent houses, the mighty turn-of-the-century clapboard wonders, intermixed with some houses of strikingly modern design, while far out at sea, we spot the many ocean-going container ships with their twinkling lights.

At the end, there is a huge breakwater of rocks right at the foot of the cyclone fence bordering Riis Park.  I think the fence was put there to protect the gentle minded from the nudist beach of sore repute that existed on the other side.  We always climbed the rocks and put both palms on the fence, touching Brooklyn, before we turned back.  It’s a great walk, and of a summer evening, we would often climb up onto a deserted life guard stand, and sit and watch the sun set behind us, and the moon rise over the Atlantic.  We watch the airplanes from Kennedy Airport taking off to the east.  A perfect perch where we relaxed until it got dark; and we would wend our way back, sometimes stopping at a lovely restaurant called Harbor Lights for a glass of wine.

After the storm, we visited and saw with great dismay the emptiness and desolation.  The entire boardwalk for miles along was gone, ripped away by the swift rising waters.  Left standing are just the concrete phantom skeletons of its supports.  All the first floors of the houses and apartment buildings are boarded up.  There was sand everywhere it shouldn’t be.  People struggled to shovel the sand drifts off their gardens and away from their doors.   And Harbor Lights was burned absolutely to the ground, along with about fifteen houses in the block surrounding it.  The only remnants are the stone steps leading to the former entrance and a forlorn sign.   And this was not yet in Breezy Point where the devastation was greatest.

We have often walked, and will continue to walk our special places, and watch the transformation of those areas into whatever is coming next for them.