Well it was a cold day, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to sit for long, so I thought maybe I'd go for a walk and talk to the air or something. In any case, I wanted to go outside, though I was only half-serious about engaging the exercise. Nevertheless my walk took a couple unexpected turns and felt quite Jungian and dreamlike, so my instructor M recommended that I write it out as a dream, in the present tense, and interpret it that way.
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I grab my jacket and gloves and quickly leave. Sunny and cool. Yes I'll talk to the air or something...or not, whatever. I'll just try to be open. Breathe.
I turn right out of the gate, on the brick walk, moving east on Grace Street. I see M, my instructor, a wise and beautiful woman whom I admire, walking ahead of me. I think, oh good, she's talking a walk too, but I don't want to follow her. She turns right down the 23rd street hill.
In my pocket I fumble my phone. Earlier I missed a call from M, the electrician about my age, should I call him back? I'm supposed to be working on Ruah, not working on work.
I call him, we talk just for a second, he says he has to call me back.
Old houses I've seen a hundred times, I look at plaques and dates and names. The way dips down to 25th street and back up toward 26th. Sunlight is nice; it's cold in the shade.
I don't like my work, why don't I like my work, I'm annoyed, here we go again with my worries about work.
Hey a squirrel runs up the tree and sits on the lowest branch, about ten feet up. Stares me down. Really looks at me. Higher up, over the street, a dove perches, still and puffy, tail hanging down. I look at the squirrel. I hear a tap. Something else moves. I look, can't see it. I slowly adjust relative to the tree and finally see it. A woodpecker, a downy woodpecker or a hairy woodpecker? Probably a downy. It's pecking intermittently, working various angles at the joint between two small branches. Most of the bark is gone from that area.
I'm standing, looking. Craning my neck. I'm excited, not cold. Well, maybe a little. I slide into the sun, put my hands behind my head to continue looking up.
Is this loitering? Is anyone looking at me? Who is this creep?
Around the base of the tree someone has been feeding these critters; sunflower seeds everywhere. Two squirrels now. One chases the other around the tree and down and right past my feet. The chaser comes back, giving me a wider berth this time.
The dove hasn't moved. Is it asleep? How do birds sleep? Is it making micro-adjustments, smaller than I can see, with its tail and claws to stay perfectly balanced?
Hello, my name is David Vinson...nice to meet you.
I don't get much further than that. Still watching. Squirrel, dove, and woodpecker. Cars have passed, parked, started and driven away. I'm nervous, slightly embarrassed. Can I sit down? Not sure how long I can look up from this angle.
I slowly back away and continue walking east. Here's the playground. Anybody at the hoop? I guess I'll walk around Chimborazo and go back. Or maybe down to Gillies Creek and then back.
As I walk past the playground, to my right is the gully between Chimborazo and Libbie hills. I've noticed what look like paths down there before. The brush and briars are less thick this time of year...who does the property belong to? would it be ok to skirt the hill by way of the gully and come up chimborazo by the dog park?
What the heck, let's go down. I backtrack and descend below the retaining wall, down into the gully. Ivy, sticks, brush, vines, trash, what you might expect.
Here's a sandy bed, and bushes with some clearance. I can stoop underneath these bushes, but to follow the wash out would be difficult. Would need to crawl or hack. I'll just climb back up the hill side and scoot down from another angle.
Down. Here's a path, turns left, right, kinda runs out as the hillside drops sharply down southward. Looking left, just east through the bushes, I can see filmy water, bog-like. Is that water trickling down over some rocks I hear? A little scramble down, over a tree, under a vine, jump to the rocky, sandy creekside.
.....
Indeed behind me to my left a tiny cascade down to the creek. The creek, is it a runoff creek? a wadi, gully wash...running down from a...
A large concrete arch...20 ft high? 30 feet across?
I walk toward it...it's built into the gully, its bed filled in with sand, silt, and water...how far back does it go? Wait! its the Church Hill tunnel! The southeastern end of it. I squint...and can see a wall. It's bricked up back there, blocked up, closed up, yes I can remember being told about this. I had no idea it was here. Stalactites hang from the roof of the tunnel. The interior darkness of the tunnel, the peaceful trickle behind me, the sandy, rocky beach.
Voices behind me. I can see the new tall row-house style apartments on the steep slope of Franklin street. Should I leave? The voices sound old. They're moving this way, slowly. Their voices echo in the tunnel. I see two old men walking upstream, carefully picking their way around the mud. One is leading the other, older. They step onto an old tire to cross the brook.
We exchange greetings. The younger old man tells the older old man about the tunnel, a boiler explosion, the fireman that crawled out but died of his injuries, the unknown number of dead (less than ten) buried under the cave-in. He says he will be part of a urban hike the next day, tracing the approximate route of the tunnel, looking at depressions and landscape contours that are results of cave-ins.
They head back toward Franklin street. I head back up the hill, explore a few more paths, find myself behind a fence at a colorful graffiti covered warehouse below Libby Hill. The gully wash is dammed up at that point with a mound of rocks and soil. Where does the water go?
Back up, around and down again to the tunnel. I've got to show J this! He would love it! I make some sounds to enjoy the echo. I egress to Franklin St. this time, up Libby hill, time to go back to Richmond Hill.
Passing MW's house (aunt of an old flame), I scope out her outbuilding, formerly house for enslaved folks, according to B. Wait, the gable end walls extend higher than the roof line, and the roof itself has a very low slope. Just like J and G were describing, based on the Sanborn map, may have been the case at the partially remaining house at Rich Hill.
Emboldened, on my way back, I take a turn up the alley behind the 2300's on Grace street, to peer at three very well preserved outbuildings. Two are certainly houses for enslaved workers. Is the large one as well? It too has parapet walls on the gable ends.
Back to Richmond Hill. Just in time. I want to share this...but maybe I don't. Will I have to? I really want to show J, rather than tell him. Prompted by our leader, we pair up to share out experiences. I'm sitting next to M, my instructor. I tell her. She shares her walk story. The river. Birds. The large group shares a little. I agree with D, who says that it was surprising. J asks me what exercise I picked. I hesitate, uhh, I'd really like to show you rather than tell you. Everyone reacts, laughing, now you have to tell us.
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