Gin Palace Lane

Waking from an afternoon nap, woozy, I pull back the curtains to already darkening skies. It's Halloween eve. I feel slightly depressed by the light, or lack of it. I slept too late.

I've been inside, alone, all day. I hear the echo of my recently deceased mother's voice in my head: you're such a hothouse flower. Go outside, get your blood pumping. Gin Palace Lane, then: it will be dry, and there's a good view of the low, rolling hills from there, and perhaps the trees will be showing some fall color. I eye the sky, harmonized like colors from a paint sampler: sand dune, snowfall, antique pewter. The clouds don't portend rain; this is just the color of the sky right before dusk these days.

Hauling my sleepy body out of bed, I pull on jeans, blue cashmere socks and a black fleece sweatshirt filched from my temporarily absent husband. Stuffing my phone and my first-generation iPod into the pocket of a rain jacket, I glance in the mirror by the door before I walk outside. My eyes still puffy from sleep, my hair slept on, I look slightly haggard. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to run into anyone I know on Gin Palace Lane.

It's just a slight curve to the end of Oldyards Close – my mother used to joke that with all the elderly people living on this cul-de-sac, it was accurately named – right onto Caullough Street and past the suburban development on the outskirts of town and then another right onto Gin Palace Lane which, instead of being a gas-lit Victorian-era road to ruin, as one might expect from the name, is a tree-lined one-lane country road that runs straight for a mile until it meets the ring road that encircles the medieval market town of Kingsterly. Round-trip, it's 2.5 miles, and I've been trying to walk it every day that my husband's been away on a business trip; it's sometimes the only time I get out of the house each day and see other people.

A mixed blessing, though, seeing other people out here. Cars speed by – legally – at 60 mph, and with my iPod on I sometimes don't hear them behind me. And then there's usually one solitary man, sometimes with a dog, whose eyes I try to avoid meeting. I'd prefer to take one of the wooded footpaths by the river, but it's been raining and the trails have become a mixture of soil and manure that acts like quicksand on the foot. Gin Palace Lane is paved, so it's dry and I can walk quickly.

I've missed this walk for the last two days because of the stormy weather. Last time I was here, I'd passed two teenagers, an overweight girl smoking and bitching loudly to her lanky boyfriend. They'd looked straight through me, and I realized that I'm now at the age where I'm invisible to teenagers.

"Walk on the Wild Side" comes on the iPod. Lou Reed's deceptively sweet voice fills my head and I think how weird it is both that he's dead and that he hasn't been dead for decades. He made it to 71, which is longer than most would have lived given his druggy lifestyle, and three years longer than my own mother, which feels fundamentally unfair. I'd copied the playlist onto my iPod from a mix tape recently unearthed from storage, made back when I was about 19 or 20, in college, struggling with studies and boyfriends and just existing, wondering what I was going to do with my life, all that chaos and drama and wildness.

I'm not sure I believe I'm the same person now. But I still love the music. It’s a path back to that time and person, whoever she was.

The low clouds don't allow much in the way of views today, but I stop and appreciate the 180-degree view from a rise in the road anyway. Ash and oak trees frame thoroughly tamed green hills divided into square parcels by hedgerows, pastureland, fields dotted with cows and sheep. There's an unfamiliar whiff of ammonia in the air, mixed with the vegetable odor of decaying leaves and smoke from burning yard waste that I associate with autumn. I think what I always think about this walk: how refreshing it is to be able to get out of gritty little Kingsterly into the bucolic countryside surrounding it so quickly.

Walking briskly now, and warming up, I unzip the fleece a little to cool off. In front of me, the oaks lining either side of the road create a rusty tunnel, the tips of their tallest branches bowing to each other above my head as the road rises again. As I contemplate the road ahead, a mud-encrusted dark-green Jeep whizzes by, and I stumble sideways onto the spongy verge. Then it's out of sight again, camouflaged by the trees and dirt.

The sax at the end of "Walk on the Wild Side" does its dying-bee finale and the Talking Heads' "Drugs" begins. There's a soft rush at the beginning of the song that I mistake for the sound of another car coming up behind me. I swivel to make sure I'm not about to get knocked into the thigh-high nettles and blackberry bushes, but there's nothing behind me but a country road washed with the milky light of approaching dusk.

The music is making me feel both nostalgic and protective of my younger self – wishing I could go back in time and give myself a few words of advice (not him, not her; yes, change your major; it's going to turn out ok, it's just going to take a while) – and at the same time amused by the debauched, blackly humorous songs on this mix. I don't remember making the tape, but I remember the time: college classes, mid-terms, tiny rooms in shared houses, student poverty, lots of partying, lots of drama. I turn up the volume. TINK, duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH, TINK, duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH…All I see/is little dots dots dots dots dots/Some are smeared/and some are spots/Feels like a murder but that's alright

About a quarter of a mile out in front of me, at the top of the rise, a tall figure in red appears. The figure just stands there, backlit by smoky setting-sunlight in the arboreal tunnel, and then disappears over the back of the rise. Somebody said there's too much light/Pull down the shade and it's alright/It'll be over in a minute or two

As I get slightly closer and rise with the road, I glimpse a second, smaller person next to the redcoat. A trace of relief now: on this road, in my experience, couples are the best people to run into. But then they vanish again, a curving undulation of the road making them seem to dematerialize. I'm charged up...don't put me down/Don't feel like talking...don't mess around/I feel mean...i feel o.k./I'm charged up...electricity

I love how David Byrne sings "electricity" so that sounds like elecTRICitaaay.

There's a retro black-and-white sign at a T-junction on my right, a figure eight shaped like a black cat, with little ears on top and a tail at the bottom. "The Figure 8 Cat Hostelry. INSPECTIONS WELCOME." The cat hotel is at the very end of the drive. I consider cutting my walk short and turning in there, checking out any resident cats – in keeping with inspections being welcome, you can see into the cages from the road – but decide instead to stick to my 2.5 miles. I'm at least a quarter of the way by now. The boys are making a big mess/This makes the girls all start to laugh/I don't know what they're talking about

As I reach the top of the rise, I see a group of four teenagers in the shallow hollow before me at the bottom of the hill. It's three girls plus the figure in red, which I now see is a tall, husky guy in a red coat. They're huddled in a circle at another T-junction, a road I know leads to a deserted farm littered with rusted out tractors and pieces of machinery that look like implements of torture. The public footpath runs through it, and the last time I'd walked there with my husband, I'd joked that it looked like the farm in Breaking Bad where the character of Jesse is enslaved, cooking meth.

The group is either looking at something on the ground or in deep discussion. They're apparently unaware of me, and I think I'll be able to just pass them, invisible in my adult ordinariness. From the back I can see that the girls are dressed like all teenage girls are this season: skinny jeans, plaid shirts, ankle boots. Not unlike the way my friends and I used to dress at their age.

The guy is in red Converse high-tops that match his coat, which looks like something a marching-band leader would wear. The sleeves are braided and – god – are those brass buttons? Could he possibly be trying to evoke Adam Ant? Surely they're too young to even recognize his name, much less emulate his style?

My favorite part of "Drugs" comes on now: The boys are worried, the girls are shocked/They pick the sound and let it drop/Nobody knows what they're talking about

The genius is in the way Byrne sort of wails that last line – Nobody knows what they're talking about – outraged, freaked out, like he's about to just lose it and start free-style screaming. And then that low, chilling chuckle at the end.

On an autumn afternoon like this one, when I was 16, my friends and I had been tripping on shrooms all weekend, had in fact picked the liberty caps ourselves (poorly; I'd ended up in the hospital later), in cow fields much like those surrounding me now. That day had featured a long, trudging march down a rural road, and I'd felt sick and washed-out, coming down from the high, or waiting for the next one to kick in. We were heading to someone's house, probably in hopes of getting drunk and warm, discussing the universe, how we fit into it. I remember most of all the misery of the wet cold, the aimlessness of the grey day and of life in general, the long walk that seemed like it would never end. Life then had felt like being encased in an unprickable bubble.

I'm charged up...I'm kinda wooden/I'm barely moving...I study motion

The group has broken its circle and is now turning towards me. They don't look like they're from around here. From my passing acquaintance with the town, it seems like the local girls run either to fat or drug-induced anorexia, while the guys are usually slightly backward-looking footballers who put back a lot of ale and cigarettes.

No, these four are well put-together, their boots and plaid shirts fashionably rather than authentically rural. They have an air of sophistication distinctly lacking in the locals. They aren't carrying cans of lager; like most teens I pass hanging out on this road. In fact, none of them are carrying anything, not even school bags.

I study myself...I fooled myself/I'm charged up...it's pretty intense

It seems very abrupt that they are now walking towards me, arrayed in an almost military-style line, four abreast, the redcoat Adam Ant farthest away from me on the right. They have quickly spread out, spacing themselves in such a way that they have essentially taken over the road, forcing me to move to the left, almost onto the verge, to avoid them.

I'm annoyed. It's rude, if not menacing.

I'm charged up...don't put me down/Don't feel like talking...don't mess around

Closest to me, on the left end of the marching line, is a short, petite girl in Amy Winehouse-style eye makeup: liquid black eyeliner heavily applied with a swoosh at the corners. Her face is pale like Amy's was, her eyes and hair a dark brown that's almost black. The two girls in the middle seem to be modelling themselves on Kate Moss – straight blond hair, thin – and Christina Ricci, plumper and more buxom, glossy brown hair twisted into a long side-parted braid. Faux Amy stops now, turns to me, says something. I know that at this point I can still pretend I haven't heard and keep on walking, but something warns me not to do this. I stop, turn towards them. All four quickly form a loose semicircle around me.

I feel mean...I feel o.k./I'm charged up...electricity. That's what I call it. And then that chuckle again.

I take out an ear bud, regard faux Amy without a hint of friendliness. "Sorry?" My voice is intentionally overly polite.

"Umm… Do you have the time?" faux Amy asks in an answering-politely-yet-offhand-voice, as if she'd just made up the question and could have instead asked the name of the road, or how to reach the town or where the cat hospital was located. Any of which would have made more sense than asking the time.

"Yes… just a moment." I feel around in my pocket for my mobile, thinking it's impossible that four teenagers don't have one phone between them. Pulling it out, I fumble and almost drop it, which makes me look more nervous than I'm already trying to pretend I'm not. It doesn't help that I'm sweaty and a little out of breath from the walk. Or that they are standing too close. As I open and consult the phone, I look through downcast lashes at the group around me and wonder is this how it happens? not really knowing what I mean by it.

"It's just after four," I say, as briskly as I can manage, and snap the phone shut. I try to intercept faux Amy's wing-tipped glance, but she glides her eyes away quickly toward the others, as if meeting my skeptical eyes would reveal whatever it is they are up to.

The relevance of the time now strikes me: it's 4 pm on a weekday. If they are on their way home from school, why aren't they wearing their school uniforms?

"Ok, thanks," faux Amy mumbles.

The group hesitates, stepping back slightly and turning to each other. It seems like they are silently conferring again. Without waiting for their next move, I put my phone back in my pocket, replace the dangling ear bud and walk through and away from them, not allowing myself the luxury of a backward glance. "Backyard Ritual" has just started, and Miles Davis's trumpet is taking a clean, high swipe at my brain while in the background the atonal, sickly notes of something like a wind chime bring to mind the first harsh rush of a hit of acid. When I reach Cursden Hall – what is it with the place names around here? – I turn around and head back down the hollowed-out tunnel of a road.