REFLECTIONS ON LIFE
June 2017
REFLECTIONS
ON HOME IN COLUMBIA
Welcome summer. Spring
2017 is no longer.
A few additional living creatures have joined the menagerie
surrounding our home: deer (eating any lilies or geraniums within reach), fox
(always reminding me of the one I spotted from quite a distance on a walk in
the Cotswolds), humming birds getting nectar from one feeder outside the window
above our kitchen sink and another outside the window by the table where Lloyd
and I eat most of our meals. Several
other avians have joined: bluebirds,
doves, and woodpeckers. Almost forgot the lightening bugs like the ones I once
collected in a jar with holes punched in the lid when I was a kid, and yes, a
few mosquitos. Lingering in bed some
mornings without moving even an inch, we can spot up to twenty different creatures
simultaneously.
The seemingly ever-increasing number of squirrels continues to
entertain us. I read in the Post this month of the death of the Smithsonian
“squirrel expert,” Richard Thorington. His daughter spoke at a celebration of
her father’s life at the National Museum of Natural History: “Both Darwin and my father stated always that
if you’re really going to be a scientist you have to start with observation,
with watching things, with knowing what you’re seeing out there…. and if you
don’t know, then really taking the time to write down what you’re seeing,
rather than immediately deciding what’s going on.” On first reading this article I immediately
thought, “what a great piece for ‘Reflections on Home in Columbia’ this month and my squirrel
watching.” Then I realized that, although that past-time is a significant
element of my summer days, this quote of the squirrel expert’s daughter reaches
far beyond not only that practice but other areas of knowledge oft considered
completely unrelated - let’s say like public policy and politics. It’s truly imperative for us living in the
United States, or anywhere else on planet earth for that matter, particularly
now, to pay close attention to what’s going on in our nation and world and
discuss it with our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. I believe it would be
wise for us to also heed Darwin’s
words and take the time to really “know what we’re seeing out there” rather
than immediately deciding what is. Yet
another reminder that simply everything is connected.
***
We have been relishing the annual Columbia Festival of the Arts
this month. It intermingled with the
ongoing celebration of our new town’s 50th anniversary. Jim Rouse’s creation, Columbia, Maryland,
was engulfed in beautiful music, dance, art, and films.
Lloyd and I each composed an essay in a recently published book
edited by Columbia pioneer, Bob Tennenbaum,
entitled “Columbia, Maryland
– a Fifty-Year Retrospective on the Making of a Model City.”
It was just released to coincide with Columbia’s
50th birthday celebration.
This 400-page book loaded with historic full-color photos and maps,
contains essays written by 64 well-known local authors, none of whom have been
paid for their contribution. It covers
diverse topics such as the physical, economic, and social planning as well as
continuing development of this, arguably the most successful new town in our
nation, if not the world. Lloyd’s
chapter is entitled “The Politics of Early Columbia: 1965-1990.” Mine is “Columbia’s Future and Jim Rouse’s Dream.”
With the generous $45,000 support of the Columbia Association,
400 copies have been published. We
believe you would value owning a copy.
Lloyd is the treasurer of this non-profit venture. If you reply to this newsletter, he will
reserve a copy for you. We believe you
will be happy that you did. The price is $45.
We know that sounds pricey, and we believe the publication is well worth
it.
***
The Little Patuxent Review (LPR) launched its Summer Edition in
June including two essays about Jim Rouse’s new town by local author, Susan
Thornton Hobby, and archivist, Barbara Kellner, as well as an interview about
the Columbia Dream by Linda Joy Burke, another accomplished local author and
poet.
I continue to value
serving on the board of this publication.
I learn so much from its members, many local writers themselves. Here is
the link to sign up for the LPR Newsletter:
***
Harper’s Choice Village Center
is sponsoring a celebration of the work of early Columbia artists, John Levering and Wes
Yamaka, with an exhibit of their works.
Both of these creative and insightful artists have departed this
earth. Their magnificent art lives on with
us. Lloyd and I will be lending several
of our pieces to the exhibit including the Levering painting “Sandpipers” which
hung over the entrance to their shared gallery, “The Eye of the Camel” in the
old stone building adjacent to Oakland Manor.
We also loaned some of our pottery created by Zelda Simon, including a
beautiful soup tureen with a glaze pattern which she dubbed “Lloyd’s pattern”
because he bought so many pieces from her.
This exhibit took place earlier in the month at the Columbia Center
for the Arts in Long Reach. Sometimes
when an occasion like a birthday party or wedding crept up on me, I would phone
Zelda, and she would leave an appropriate piece of pottery out on her front
porch for me. I would pick it up and
leave a check for payment under one of her flowerpots. When the Eye of the
Camel shut down, Zelda became the owner
of “Sandpipers”. A few months before her own impending death, she gave
it to me as a gift. Needless to say, it and her pottery are priceless to me.
Attending so many arts events during this celebratory time in Columbia, while walking
around town, I can see in my mind’s eye as clear as day Jim Rouse in his
signature green sports coat. We must and
will keep his spirit alive.
***
Lloyd and I have both been blessed with good health. We were
each independently visited with ailments at the beginning of this year: arthritis in his lower back, bursitis in my
right hip. It put quite a crimp in our
daily walks. During spring, we each
responded well to our prescribed therapy and are now “back on the road
again.” Though in our case it’s “back on
the sidewalk and pathway.” Some
drivers-by still beep their horns. Our plumber, who made a house call this
week, said “I see you guys walking on Cedar
Lane all the time.” Yes.
It’s true, and we are so grateful for it.
REFLECTIONS
ON ZACH
This week we attended one of the annual events commemorating
Zach’s beautiful and deeply inspirational life, an annual golf tournament and
luncheon at Turf Valley. During the program following lunch, which
highlighted the activities of the Zaching Against Cancer Foundation, formed by
Zach himself along with family members, friends, and some of his coaches from
high school sports, Lloyd and I were sitting at a table near the front of the
room. As several participants spoke of
the inspiration Zach continues to spread among cancer patients, mostly kids and
their families, and the help the Foundation is providing to so many of them, a
very large photo of Zach was projected on the wall at the front of the
room. He was wearing his ever-present
broad infectious smile and still had a full head of thick dark hair. His big steady eyes gazed directly into those
of each and every one of us in the audience looking at him. It was the same smile that greeted me each
morning of our annual family week at the beach when Zach would knock on our
bedroom door at 6am to wake me for our daily walk along the beach. We walked along the surf and watched the sun
rise over the ocean’s edge, our conversation ranging from his first bout with
brain surgery as a 10-year-old, inspirational sports figures (Muhammad Ali,
Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), to science, philosophy, spirituality,
travel, good movies and food.
This August will be the fourth year when Zach will not be
physically present with us at the beach.
We will be engulfed in his glorious spirit. Our seven grandkids are
getting older – all in high school or college now. We continue to eat all our
meals in the beach house, families taking turns at cooking dinner. I believe everyone is aware of Zach’s clear
and bright spiritual presence among us.
On Saturday, July 8, from 3 to 8pm, our orthopedist, Dr. Clark
Brill, is sponsoring a musical benefit for Zach’s foundation. We would love you
to come by and join us and bring a lawn chair. $20 per person with good
food. Hope to see you there. The address
is 9487 Camel Driver Ct., Columbia
REFLECTIONS
ON BALTIMORE, MY HOMETOWN
I took two books written by Baltimore-born-and-bred author,
Ta-Nehisi Coates, with me for reading when Lloyd and I spent a week in June
driving along the coast of Maine. We
decided to make reservations for the first three nights and “wing it” for the
other four. It worked out great! What a beautiful state with such friendly
people, although to me the lobster can’t rival Maryland’s blue crabs which my
Dad hand-fed me while I sat on his knee at 4th of July family
gatherings
The books are titled “The
Beautiful Struggle” published in 2008, which I had read previously and “Between
the World and Me” (a New York Times Bestseller for which Coates won the
National Book Award) published in 2015. Coates is a national correspondent for
The Atlantic, my favorite monthly magazine (The New Yorker is my favorite
weekly.) Coates personal story had a
monumental impact on my understanding of the life of this young black man who
grew up in Baltimore about 40 years after I did. He is now among the most acclaimed current
authors in our nation.
Some of his scenes in the Baltimore area are precisely important
locations of my own childhood: Edmondson
Ave. where I attended Catholic elementary school and St. Bernadine’s Catholic
church. (My older sister, Martha, walked me to school when I began first grade
- there was no kindergarten. Then she
returned home and left on the same day for Pennsylvania to enter the order of
nuns, Immaculate Heart of Mary, that taught at my school. I did not know about her impending departure
and didn’t see her again for two years until my mom and I went to visit her in
Scranton, Pennsylvania.) Edmondson Village, a half mile from my home – one of
the first large strip shopping centers in the country and the location where I
went for ice cream, clothes, movies, and bowling. Leakin Park – a beautiful large metropolitan
park where I frequently played with friends and sometimes alone approximately
from age 6 to 12. Ta-Nehisi described
this park in his day as “where the bodies were buried” (a not so veiled
reference to the then rapidly growing serious street crime.
Recently the Enterprise Foundation, founded by Columbia’s own
Jim Rouse, hosted a display in its Columbia office on Little Patuxent
Parkway. The Foundation works for
economic justice in the housing policies in the county, state, and nation. The display demonstrates graphically through
maps how certain neighborhoods were “red-lined” to prevent racial
integration. My childhood neighborhood
of Edmondson Village was a prime example of redlining after I had finished high
school and moved out of the neighborhood.
Baltimore was formative in my life: its streetcars and later buses, its market
and shopping centers, its parks. My Mom
was born in 1904 in a row house on Barry Street very near the Baltimore
harbor. When she was in her 70’s, my age
now, she would pack a lunch and take the bus to Baltimore, pre-Harbor
Place. She would sit by the docks amidst
memories of her childhood. Although I have never met him, (I intend to some day)
Ta-Nehisi’s writing speaks to me not only through the pages of his books. They speak to me also through crystal clear
memories of my childhood.
REFLECTIONS
ON PUBLIC POLICY IN OUR COUNTY, STATE, AND NATION
Howard
County
Baltimore Sun Editorial
June 26, 2017
Our View: Howard County’s
acting superintendent has an excellent plan for handling public information
requests – put it all in public view
As a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing
Howard County, I sponsored a bill, which passed into law and held our then
Board of Education to comply with the state’s open government laws. Now it does my heart good to read of Acting
Superintendent Maratirano’s proposal – both practical and idealistic. Hopefully our local school board will show
the wisdom to keep him on in a permanent capacity.
MARYLAND
The Washington Post June
14, 2017
“Somebody’s got to do something.”
The Baltimore Sun June
4, 2017
Dan Rodrick’s: “Still,
there’s a bright side to the decision to pull out of the Paris accord in the
form of immediate pledges to live up to the agreement. The pledges came from political leaders in
cities and states that already have made progress on carbon emissions and
renewable energy. The pledges came from
corporations and academia, too.
Among the environmental achievements listed by Rodrick’s is “the
state’s adoption of the California standards for motor vehicles setting limits
for ozone-depleting emissions stricter than those the federal government
requires”
In one of my last years serving in the Maryland legislature, I
was the lead sponsor of this bill.
UNITED
STATES
News stories about two fearless women – a generation apart
The Washington Post June
16, 2017 (editorial)
This month we commemorate the 100th birthday of the
former publisher of The Washington Post. “We hold on to Mrs. Graham’s courage
of her convictions as we continue pursuing the kind of accountability
journalism for which The Post has long been known….She was a shrewd business
executive in an industry where few women of her generation were able to
rise…but what we will remember most about Mrs. Graham is that she was fearless. In times like these, that might be her most
important lesson of all.”
By Sally Q. Yates
The Washington Post June
25, 2017
With about half a century between her and Katherine Graham,
Sally Yates, served 28 years in the U.S. Justice Department, culminating as
acting attorney general for a brief time this year. “While there is always room
to debate the most effective approach to criminal justice, that debate should
be based on facts, not fear. It’s time
to move past the campaign-style rhetoric of being “tough” or “soft” on
crime. Justice and the safety of our
communities depend on it.”
Katherine Graham and Sally Yates: two intelligent, courageous, dedicated, and
fearless women to whom we owe deep gratitude
REFLECTIONS
ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES
NIGERIA
The Washington Post
June 29, 2017
After reading this horrific article, I sat very still, closed my
eyes, and focused on being able to even begin to comprehend such
suffering. I failed.
PAKISTAN
Power shortages
The Washington Post June 29, 2017
“Intense heat during Ramadan arouses frustrations over country’s
chronic water and power shortages”
Another horrific living condition. I vow to make a conscious effort to be filled
with gratitude each and every time I turn on one of the numerous faucets in our
townhouse, which is not particularly large by Howard County standards, and
clear, clean water flows forth.
REFLECTIONS
ON OUR UNIVERSE
From the familiar vantage point of our bedroom bedside window we
have been following Jupiter in the clear night skies. The spinning of planet earth on its axis
creates an appearance from our bedroom as if Jupiter were moving to the west.
***
As we go about enjoying summer both at home and on day trips, we
hear so much talk in anticipation of the solar eclipse, which will take place
on August 21. The following article from the Washington Post explains that
“Solar eclipses are thrilling to scientists because these events reveal even
the innermost part of the sun’s corona in brilliant detail.” I’m light years away from being a scientist,
and I, too, am definitely thrilled in anticipation. Lloyd does qualify as a scientist, and he is
equally thrilled. Below is one of the
many articles that have been written on the subject.
Washington Post June 6, 2017
“When the moon passes in front of the sun, the world goes
still. The wind dies down. The temperature drops. Birds are silenced mid-song.”
Go to the NASA website for a map of the eclipse’s path above the
United States.
Enjoy and be in awe of our universe!
***
“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
