I got used to the discipline of regular physical activity back when I was a dancer, and I still just feel better when I keep up some sort of daily exercise. Running is out because of a back injury relic from my dancing days. And so I walk. I go at a brisk but relaxing clip, four miles an hour, and I cover about three miles almost every day.

Until September I lived in a house only two minutes’ walk from the Atlantic Ocean at one of the prettiest spots on earth. I’ve described the park many times on this blog (see this, this, and this), and I’ll describe it again just by listing its major picturesque attributes: lighthouse, cliffs, breaking waves, islands, boats of every variety, beach, grass, fields, picnic areas.

Walking there was always beautiful, ever-changing because of weather and light conditions, despite the repetition of route. When I sold my house and moved from that place at the end of August, I knew I’d miss it.

And I have. But actually, not all that much. After seven years of walking there, I guess I’d plumbed its depths and now I have the memory of that seaside park in my head as a companion whenever I want to conjure it up. But I hardly ever think of it, because now I’m in a new place.

That is, my new place is an old place. I’ve rented an apartment in the New England town where I lived for twenty years while I raised my son. Why here, when I left this area seven years ago, thinking I’d never want to return?

I’m not planning to stay all that long, actually. Just long enough to regroup among friends, and then to make a decision about a more permanent place to live. And it’s that “among friends” part that draws me here now.

My walking route isn’t especially picturesque any more, except in the way that almost all New England towns are: older homes, even the modest ones with a certain style and grace; tall trees; a very human scale to things. I walk in a residential neighborhood for the most part, the one in which I used to own a home, and I can see that home, freshly painted a different color than before.

The spectacle of nature is more muted here than on that seaside walk, but my path leads me elsewhere—into my mind, and often to thoughts of people I knew who used to live here, some of whom still do.

I wasn’t acquainted with everyone in the neighborhood. But still, over twenty years, I knew quite a few. Several of the homes I now pass belonged to certain young couples I knew back then who were part of an epidemic of divorce that swept my group of friends in their mid-thirties. Most of them live elsewhere now. This was the street where I pushed my son’s stroller on many a day, keeping a sharp and hopeful eye out for other young mothers to meet with and talk to about that perennially fascinating topic, our children and the up-and-down experience of motherhood itself. This is where I followed my son on his first tricycle forays, heart in throat (mine).

And then there are the homes of friends who died. Two of cancer and one of an especially quick form of ALS, all within a relatively short time of each other and all just a few houses away from each other.

It seems a long time ago, and it was—ten years for the first, eight years for the other two. There, in that yellow house, the husband of the first still resides, remarried now for several years. A porch has been added; the dog is gone. That gray bungalow, where another friend fought so hard to live but lost her battle, is owned by a young couple with small children. There are bikes on the porch. The blue one next door to that, where I saw a vibrant woman turn into a motionless rag doll in a manner of months, is rented out to strangers, and looks shabby.

But the walk isn’t sad, for all that. If you live long enough in a town you must know such stories. And there are other, much happier stories, too. The friends I still have, one of whom has just become a grandmother. The houses that have been fixed up. The new and state-of-the-art playground at the school, filled with many more children than its predecessor ever was. The old friends whose marriage almost foundered a few years back but who stuck it out and are happier for it.

It’s very cold now but often sunny, and near the school track is a small wooded area. Right now there’s been a fresh snowfall, and the light is brilliant, though slanted in the way of winter in the north. This is the place where, years ago when my own marriage was ending and it was mid-winter, I would walk the repetitive circles of the track and note how dark it had become even at 3 P.M., and think of Frost’s poem “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.”

The poem came to mind because it had been put there; it was one of many I had been required to memorize in grade school, not really understanding what it was about (see this). Like many of Frost’s poems, it’s deceptively simple; it seems almost to have been written for children.

You’re probably familiar with it too. Here it is:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I thought of that poem so often back then that this tiny patch of woods by the track have merged with Frost’s deep woods in my mind. And the poem seems especially right for winter solstice, when we have “the darkest evening of the year.”

Of course Frost, being a poet, isn’t just talking astronomy here. He’s speaking metaphorically, about a time when a person is weary enough to rest (or even to contemplate wanting to die), but rouses him/herself with a call back to life.

I’m fortunate right now that, even though it’s midwinter, my life is not dark at all. I’m very grateful for that, because at a few other times in my life, I’ve been “one acquainted with the night” (and please see this for my parody of that poem). So I’m pausing here for a short while, and watching the woods fill up with snow. My plan is to keep some promises, and go quite a few miles before I sleep. And even to have some fun along the way.