October 2016 REFLECTIONS ON LIFE

(Monday is Halloween, then one more glorious month moves on into history.)

REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA

October 10th marked Lloyd’s and my 23^rd wedding anniversary.  YIKES!

     After obtaining our marriage license at the courthouse in downtown Ellicott City lo those many years ago, we walked down the hill to Tersiguel’s restaurant on Main Street.  We have known the owner, Fernand, since this excellent French restaurant was located in another building about two blocks down the hill.  I had gone there frequently for lunch and dinner during my years in county government, and missed it terribly after the fire in the 80’s burned it to the ground.  For a few years Fernand operated a restaurant near the shot tower in east downtown Baltimore.  Then a few years later on Main Street he opened yet a third restaurant at its current location.  On that fall afternoon in 1993, Fernand was very happy to hear that we were about to be wed and sat us at a small table for two in a corner by the “Reynard” (fox) stained glass window.  For 21 years we returned to that same table for our anniversary lunch for 21 years.  The French entrees – lamb, fish, duck – and the fresh as fresh can be vegetables grown on the land where Fernand and his family lived were always scrumptious. Each year we accompanied our meal with a bottle of French Vouvray.

     Sad as we were to have our tradition of 22 years broken by the recent flood in Ellicott City, it took us literally no time to decide on our celebration restaurant for this 23rd anniversary - King’s Contrivance, another favorite for many years.  In addition to the excellent food and service, the scenery of the rolling green lawn with its stately trees, beautiful shrubs and flowers is readily visible through the solarium windows. We particularly love the awareness that we are dining in the childhood home of former Judge James Magill of the Circuit Court in Howard County.  He had strong feelings about preserving farmland in Howard County, and occasionally got me aside to share his wise thoughts about preservation legislation that I proposed as County Executive and which was then passed into law by the County Council.  To me the most memorable phrase of his judicial decisions was “When you let a whale through the net, you cannot block the minnows.” 

     After retiring from the bench, he studied to such a degree that he could, and did, read – in Greek - all of the Greek classics.  He also took up sculpting in marble and fine woods.  Lloyd and I have two of his modern sculptures in our living room, each about two feet tall - one in walnut which Lloyd gave me as a gift features a large egg shape enveloped in a likeness of a womb, and the other in pink marble entitled “Torso” which I purchased for Lloyd at one of the artist’s shows and had a label  “Happy Birthday, Lloyd” placed on it before we walked through the sales gallery together.

     Many called this brilliant and gentle man “Jamie,” though I could never bring myself to do so.  He was and always will be Judge Magill to me.

     Next year we will return to Tersiguel’s in their restored site on Main Street when, hopefully, there will be a greater respect for the power of water and the potential danger of run-off from allowing building on steep slopes and clear-cutting of trees near flood areas.

………

     I recall my writing months ago about my decision not to accept a position on any boards and commissions now that I no longer hold public office, choosing instead to carry out my commitment to various public policy issues as an individual.  I would join various organizations and speak out on social, economic, and environmental justice issues but not take a leadership position.   So in early 2015 when Mike Clark, who chaired the board of the Little Patuxent Review (LPR), a longstanding local literary publication, invited me to join its board, I responded that I was not going to accept any organizational board position.  I knew the founders of the publication, Ralph and Margot Treitel, who were original residents of Wilde Lake, Columbia’s first village.  Ralph personally delivered to me a copy of the first edition in which he had written an essay about me as a 30-some- year old new member of the Howard County Council.  Since then I have attended most of the unveilings of each of the bi-annual editions.  For many years now they have taken place in Oliver’s Carriage House in Town Center.  Each time I experience deep gratitude for the talent and often courage of the various authors of poems, short stories, and essays.  I can truly say that I walk away inspired each and every time.  Now that I am doing some writing of my own, mainly in these monthly e-newsletters, I treasure the role of LPR in our community even more. All of this to say that, with Lloyd’s concurrence, I have broken my vow to myself and accepted a position on the board of The Little Patuxent Review.  The decision feels very much in sync with my soul.

…

     Since my September issue, two men who exemplified the spirit of Jim Rouse’s Columbia have taken their last breaths on this planet - Bob Duggan and Gordon Livingston.  I first met Gordon as a peace activist, author, and psychiatrist.  He appeared to me as a conscience of our community.

       I came to know Bob Duggan shortly after I was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates representing Columbia.  I had heard of the Traditional Acupuncture Institute, TAI, though I had never entered their institute then located in the American City Building in Downtown Columbia.  After lunch at the lakefront with Bob and two others from the institute, we walked back together, and I was given a tour of their offices and practice space.  Dianne Connelly joined us in a discussion of their mission of integrative health care.  The next day I phoned and made an appointment with Dianne for an initial acupuncture treatment, thus beginning more than 20 years of life learning.  “To come to life more fully” was one of the first transformative benefits I realized.  I could quote Bob for paragraph after paragraph, and I choose this one that he related he had heard from a monsignor who had once been his teacher in seminary.  They had been visiting together in Rome after not having seen each other for some time.  Bob expressed regrets at their time together coming to an end.  The monsignor replied, “However much time we have is enough”.  Those words have held me in such good stead countless times during these 20 some years, including my time with Zach, who had met Bob on a few occasions when they had a great talk.

     Your spirit surrounds us, Bob and Gordon.

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

     Lloyd and I now have three grandkids in college.  Zach would have graduated from the University of Maryland last spring.  He had wanted to have a career in journalism. I believe he would have been quite gifted at that, AND, no matter how much so, he could not possibly have had a greater impact on so many lives than he did in showing all of us, so many of us, how to live and die.

     During this past month, as in every month, I am aware so often of all I learned and continue to learn from Zach.  That awareness was particularly strong when Lloyd and I visited Calvert County and returned to the roots of my Mom’s family, the Monnett’s.  My daughter Chris loved my mom very much.  She and Zach’s dad, John, gave Zach her surname as his middle name.  Zachary Monnett Lederer.  My first grandchild, my greatest teacher.

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOMETOWN

Lloyd and I spent two beautiful sunny days in Baltimore this month.  One was to visit the Patterson Park pagoda where my mom used to play as a young girl.  There are plaques on the pagoda marking the years when certain nationalities dominated the immigration waves - Germans in early 1900’s when my grandmother, Martha Elizabeth Schaub, came to this city with her parents.  She later married my grandfather, Laurence Lucien Monnett, from southern Maryland and gave birth to my mom, Helen Marie Monnett, in their home on Barry Street very near the Baltimore harbor.  We also visited Calvert County on the Chesapeake this month where my grandfather worked on a tobacco farm owned by his family who came here from France in the late 1600’s.

Our other day visit to Baltimore was to see the U.S.S. Zumwalt, a new large stealth ultra modern destroyer visiting the harbor for four days.  It was accompanied by the Navy Blue Angel team. Lloyd served in the navy in the mid 50’s including a four-month tour of the Mediterranean. Most of you know how anti-war I am, AND it would be less than honest for me to say I didn’t see beauty in those planes soaring and swooping over the harbor as Lloyd and I enjoyed a delicious lunch at a harbor side restaurant.  Conflicts in my mind.

A recent article in the Baltimore Sun reports on the return of the ship, Pride II, to its home harbor after travelling the east coast and Great Lakes to promote maritime education.  Upon return from the 3,000 mile voyage, the ship’s cook, Philip Keenan, said:  “It’s a tremendous opportunity to stay present and to be in the moment, because that’s all there really is.”  The Dali Lama could not have said it better.

Baltimore is Among the Most Lethal of the Nation’s Cities When It Comes to Shooting Deaths

Shoot to Kill

“He was about 13 years old.  Growing up in Baltimore, he knew it was wrong to shoot a man. Still he didn’t feel remorse. What he did feel was that his crew had new-found respect for him.”

More than any article I have read, this one gives me a clearer picture of just how huge is the task ahead of us to heal Baltimore.  It can be done.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA)

It was such a joy to read on the front page of The Baltimore Sun on October 28 that the BMA has been given the international distinction of assembling the U.S. entry into the 2017 Venice Biennale, arguably “the oldest and most prestigious international art exhibit in the world and often referred to as “the Olympics of the art world.”  We still have so much to do in the city in the areas of social and economic justice.  It is encouraging to see that we are still recognized for our great museum.  As I have written before, I have a particular soft spot for the BMA, having more that occasionally “slipped out” of class in the nearby high school I attended to visit this museum and expand my appreciation and knowledge of the arts.  Looking back, I think it has held me in good stead.

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY IN OUR COUNTY, STATE AND NATION

Howard County

I am very supportive of Question A on the ballot because it provides a good first step in reducing the impact of money on politics.  I must say that it simply defies logic for any of our County Councilmembers to even consider voting for the $100,000,000 TIF, a pure “gift” to Howard Hughes to build garages, and other projects necessitated by their development in Downtown Columbia which have previously been paid for by the development company itself

STATE

Prison Justice:

I have written in past months of my deep respect and admiration for Maryland’s Attorney General, Brian Frosh. The Baltimore Sun editorial below supports his plans to make injustice in our prison system a priority during the 2017 legislative session in Annapolis.

Health Care:

Vinny De Marco, who has been a tireless and very effective advocate for greater economic justice in our health care delivery system spoke at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center this month on his plans for the upcoming legislative session.  Thank you, Vinny, for countless hours of hard work on behalf of others who cannot always help themselves.

Letter to the Editor of the Baltimore Sun

Dr. Andy Lazris, Ellicott

Health Care Held Captive

I have had the good fortune to hear Dr. Lazris speak a few times in our Columbia Community.  This man, whose daughter graduated from Wilde Lake High School last year with our grand daughter, Katerina, shows such wisdom and courage in advocating forcefully and by example for greater economic justice in the delivery of health in our state and nation. 

A deep “thank you” to you, Dr. Lazris

When My Times Comes, I Want the Option of Assisted Death

How inspiring it is to have Bishop Desmond Tutu join the ever-growing number of us calling for Death with Dignity, which will be a health priority again this year in the Maryland Legislature.

Another Baltimore Sun editorial

Evergreen’s Mission…We need all the competition we can get on Maryland’s health exchange but also the innovation the state’s lone health co-op has provided.

Dr. Peter Beilenson has done so much to provide economic justice in our health care system.  May he find a way to continue to do so.

Education:

Washington Post

Why future officers should study Shakespeare

Liberal arts should matter to the service academies as much as STEM

…and I would add to all fields of education.

Baltimore Sun

Top schools on PARCC exams very geographically

Sun analysis of math and English scores ranks Baltimore area schools

Can we really consider it new news that “test scores are often closely correlated with a family’s income and educational background”?

We particularly need to keep this in the forefront here in Howard County.

Transportation:

Rescuing Metro

This Washington Post

The troubled transit system needs a long-term dedicated funding source, not naysaying politicians.

U.S. National

Immigrants to be held in jails deemed unfit by Justice Department

ICE expands is use of for-profit, private prisons cited for deaths, poor care

We must stop this gross social and economic injustice

REFLEXIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE U.S.

Sweden

Washington Post

Lyrical laureate:  Nobel deems Dylan prize-worthy

     The Swedish Academy, in my opinion- though I realize some literary minds disagree - demonstrated deep wisdom in seeing poetry in the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s songs and accordingly awarding him the Nobel Prize in Literature.  At this time, our time on planet earth, there is so much beauty and so much horror. Perhaps, just perhaps, this recognition will ripple out and out through our planet like a rolling stone as the times they are a changin’ and the answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Mexico (via Calvert County, MD)

     Lloyd and I had the good fortune through the generosity of friends in Columbia to spend an October weekend at North Beach on Maryland’s western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, not far from where my grandparents met at the boat dock as I described on the prior section on Baltimore in this e-newsletter. Walking through town one afternoon, we came upon a small cottage with two elderly men sitting out on the front porch.  We stopped to say hello and noticed right inside the front yard fence a large butterfly bush laden with monarchs, just as I described them in an earlier newsletter on the milkweed plants around our pond.  The men told us that hundreds of them settled on that bush every fall.  They were shocked and pleased when we told them those monarchs were en route to the central Mexico mountains in their annual migration.

     It has not been that many years, circa 1975, since the Monarch Butterflies overwintering sanctuaries were discovered in the Mexican state of Michoacan, 50 miles northwest of Mexico City. The story of the discovery was published in the August 1976 edition of National Geographic Magazine.  Every autumn hundreds of millions of these orange, black, and white beauties migrate thousands of miles from eastern Canada and the United States to the mountains of Central Mexico, where they spend the winter.  In February they commence their return flight north. 

(Google to learn more about their incredible multi-generational journey.)

     In 1999, Lloyd and I travelled to central Mexico and visited several towns: Patzcuaro, known for its elaborate and extensive celebration of the Day of the Dead, and Morelia where Lloyd located a driver who was willing to take us to visit the monarchs’ wintering site.  Fortunately, the site had not been commercialized.  Walking from the car to the steep hillside leading to the large evergreens, we passed several handmade rickety wooden stalls where local women were selling bottles of juice and roughly carved walking sticks used to assist in the climb.  I bought a stick about four feet in length and one inch thick which had been hand carved to a semi smooth state.  It served me well on the climb up and back down, and now rests in the entry hall of our home against a table upon which lives the Barbara Kingsolver novel, “Flight Behavior,” about the effect of climate change on monarch butterflies.  After about a twenty-minute climb, we reached the area of maximum monarch density.  The branches of the tall evergreen were drooping to an almost vertical position due to the weight of tens of thousands of butterflies.  As we walked, several monarchs alit on our jackets and slacks.  Within minutes of our stopping at an optimum viewing location, Lloyd was literally covered with hundreds of these magnificently beautiful creatures.  In my mind’s eye, I can still see him clearly, a perfect model for a Diego Rivera or Frieda Kahlo painting.

Everything is connected.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

Super moon

     The October full moon on the 15^tth and 16th was the first of three “super moons” that will close out the year 2016, continuing in November and December.  Super moon is the unofficial term when a full moon coincides with its closest approach to earth (perigee) in its oval-shaped orbit, making it appear four percent larger in the night sky and often taking on an orange hue.  Super moons appear larger because they are a bit closer to the earth.  When we look toward the horizon we are looking through a greater thickness of earth’s atmosphere than when we look overhead. The greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction of the horizon scatters blue light most effectively, but it lets red light pass through to your eyes, creating an orange hue.

Earthsky.org, Columbia PATCH

Washington Post 

There may be 10 times as many galaxies in the universe as scientists thought.

      Now there’s a moderate and manageable goal to which I can expand my awareness of the universe during daily meditation – 200 billion galaxies!

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

Are drifting through my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Across the Universe

~Lennon and McCartney

Be well and love life.

~ Liz