REFLECTIONS ON LIFE

SEPTEMBER 2017

REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA

I begin this message with a stronger than usual clear and deep realization that everything, absolutely everything, is connected in our universe.

This year we have been commemorating the 50h anniversary of Jim Rouse’s new town of Columbia with numerous gatherings, performances, retrospectives and perspectives.  Films have been produced and books published.  I have previously written about the books. This month the films were shown – one paid for by voluntary contributions from members of the Howard County Citizens Association and produced by Richard Krantz, a Columbia resident who also produced a film for Columbia’s 20th anniversary.  The other was produced by Howard Hughes Corporation and featured various builders of Columbia’s structures – residential and commercial.  I viewed both films and learned from each of them.  Lloyd and I were interviewed for the Krantz film, which, in addition to featuring Columbia’s gems, also shines a light on potential pitfalls that require our attention, such as becoming an elite community affordable only to those in the upper middle class and above. May each and every one of us never forget Rouse’s words: “a place where the CEO and the janitor can live in the same neighborhood”. You can view this film entitled “Columbia at 50” by going to YouTube and looking for “HCCA Presents: Columbia at 50—A Bridge to the Future.”

Since the unveiling of these two films, both Howard Hughes Corp. and Howard County government have made know their interests in being selected as the next home for Amazon. 

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From the window above the headboard of our bed some gaps have appeared in the virtually solid green formed by the maple leaves.  Through it we can catch glimpses of the stars and moon at night and the sky, blue or gray, in the morning.

Going about our day we see a growing carpet of leaves beneath the tree.  I can remember so clearly rolling around in piles of such leaves, sometimes being completely covered by them, in my childhood Baltimore neighborhood

Although some of our most plentiful bird species that feed on insects and nectar have migrated, the blue heron is in its prime time and visible from our windows and decks by the ponds alongside and behind our home.  Sometimes one of these majestic creatures will stand as still as a statue for up to an hour before spotting its prey in one of the ponds and darting so quickly as to be nearly invisible. The fully-grown cattails and other growth around the ponds provide perfect camouflage for this fish predator. What a great example of patience.  The milkweed plants around these ponds are now dried out and virtually devoid of monarchs.  The hummingbird feeders outside our kitchen, dining room, and bedroom windows are cleaned and packed away for the winter.

On several September evenings, Lloyd and I have enjoyed dinner at outdoor Clyde’s in the lakeside pavilion.  We love the now virtually constant flow of walkers, runners, and bikers around Lake Kittamaqundi.  We eat dinner earlier than usual on those evenings in order to get a seat with a good view of the lake. Sometimes, before getting settled at a table, we join other walkers in a mile+ stroll around the lake.  At about 6pm one recent warm evening, having placed our order with the waiter, we heard the unmistakable sound of a gaggle of geese heading in for a landing on the lake. After swimming around for about half an hour, they took off in a perfect V formation. Following several swoops and swirls, they headed up higher in the sky, still in perfect formation though with greater spaces in between.

At times like these we ask each other what would be our impression if we came upon this magical place for the first time on our travels.  Thrilled, enchanted, grateful.  Just as it is. 

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

In several of my earlier monthly Reflections I have written about the beautiful walks Zach and I took along the beach in North Carolina on our family summer vacations.  I also described the way he explained his deep respect and admiration for Muhammad Ali as a strong human being willing to suffer being banned from professional boxing because of his public opposition to the Viet Nam War.  Anyone who has watched Ken Burns’ recent documentary about this war may respect Ali even more today for his courageous stance. Zach would demonstrate Ali’s style on the beach for me, accompanying this great show with a recitation of some of his poetry: “Float like a butterfly.  Sting like a bee.” The Washington Post’s recent book review of  “Ali--A Life” says it like this:  “Ali’ stirs together the sweet and the spicy, the gifts and the failings, the charm and the rage, the grace and the greed, the pride and the ego.  Together, they made Ali the transcendent athlete of his age.”  I am going to ask Lloyd to order this volume for us.  Zach, my first and wisest teacher and on the subject of Ali, will be with me as I read it.

THE WASHINGTON POST                October 1, 2017

“How Ali transformed the worlds of sports and race”

Zach attended the University of Maryland in College Park for one semester.  His brain cancer re-emerged during winter break and he never returned as a student, although he continued his role as assistant basketball coach.  We now have two grandkids attending the University in College Park – one a sophomore and one a junior.  They loving visiting the locker room in the basketball center on campus where the walls are adorned with Zaching paraphernalia and photos

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOMETOWN

Both of my parents were born and raised in Baltimore.  As young adults they were also engaged there.  My dad gave my mom a silver ring embedded all around with small diamonds.  I never recall seeing my mom without that ring on her left finger until not long before she died at the age of 94.  While she was still quite aware, she gave me and my two sisters – Martha and Mary – a piece of her small collection of jewelry.  Mary, nine years older than I, was the recipient of that ring.

Recently Lloyd and I met up with Mary and her daughter, also Mary, for lunch at Clyde’s.  After our meal, while still at the table, my sister removed that most precious ring from her finger and handed it to me saying “I want to give this to you while I am still alive.  This ring embedded in small diamonds has been on my little left finger since, where it will remain there for the rest of my life.  I love that this beautiful family experience took place overlooking Lake Kittamaqundi.

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I recently went for a ride through Edmondson Village and Edmondson Ave. neighborhoods of West Baltimore with my friend, Mary Lou, who had been a frequent playmate of mine when we lived very near each other during two of our elementary school years.  About 25 years ago we bumped into each other several times in Howard County where we had each moved with our families.  She worked as a nurse in the Howard County Health Department when I held elected office. Then about a year ago we arranged to reminisce over coffee and a bagel.   My daughter, Chris, Zach and Julia’s mom, happened into the shop and got to meet my childhood friend. I occasionally take a ride alone through those areas of Baltimore.  Sometimes Lloyd goes with me. I asked Mary Lou whether she would like to do that with me sometime.  This month we finally took that drive.  We started at Edmondson Village on Edmondson Ave. (Route 40).  Although all the names had changed, we recognized all of the stores we, occasionally with our moms, had frequented.  Hochchild Kohn’s, at that time a large department store with a “notions” department where my mom occasionally sent me for thread, snaps, hooks and eyes; Arundel ice cream shop; Tommy Tucker’s Five and Dime (which I had never remembered when I had previously driven through by myself, and on the corner, Wehland’s Drugstore with a long fountain counter and high stools serving ice cream sodas among other delights.  Then we went across the street to the movie theater that had a bowling alley on a lower level; Hess Shoes with live monkeys in the window and x-ray machines to detect whether the potential purchase of a pair shoes was a good fit (we now understand how healthy that was for us!)

 Although I have driven through these places more then a few times, it was a totally different and moving experience to share this visit with someone who had lived there at the same time as I. So much fun and joy, mingled with some wistfulness.

We proceeded to drive behind “the Village” to the local roads where we had played with friends – Rokeby Road, Flowerton Road, and eventually Walnut Avenue and Side Hill Road where we respectively lived.  We recalled roller-skating with our skate keys tied around our necks, sitting on the steps of our homes and those of other kids in the hood exchanging “trading cards” with pictures of mountains, flowers, or horses and other animals.  Mary Lou recalled playing Monopoly on the living room floor of my house where I lived, single family shingled with a large wrap around wooden porch. She also clearly recalled climbing a tree in our back yard.  I had forgotten this tree, a large Chinese red maple, which I had loved because it was so easy to climb.  At approximately seven years old, I would sometimes climb that tree and sit in the crook of its branches for half an hour or so, quietly contemplating I now know not what.

My mother and father and my sister, Mary, lived there until she started residential nursing school when I was eight years old. Three years earlier my other older sister, Martha, had moved out to enter the novitiate of a Pennsylvania motherhouse for nuns of the Immaculate Heart of Mary order.

After Mary Lou and I had driven through our immediate neighborhood several times, we headed to Wildwood Parkway off of Edmondson Avenue past an apartment where I had lived with my mom when I was in high school. Then we made our way back to Edmondson Ave. and my parish church, Saint Bernadine’s and the parochial school I attended for grades 1 through 8.  Mary Lou and her parents attended St. Williams Catholic Church a little further west on Edmondson Ave.

We parked the car and walked toward the large grey stone church to see if it was open. Two guys sitting on a stonewall surrounding the church said they didn’t know, and then another guy appeared with a set of keys on a big ring and asked if we would like to go in.  We said yes and thanked him.  He walked around to the sanctuary at the front of the church and up the granite stairs.  We followed.  After unlocking the doors and letting us in, he flipped several switches and turned on all the lights.  We checked the marble steps where I so frequently received Holy Communion and checked out the carved wooded cl set where I had made my first confession.

This Edmondson Avenue area of West Baltimore has developed into a place much more and way beyond my childhood community.  I now know through reading “The Beautiful Struggle” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, that he too lived near this area.  The map in the front of his book shows Leakin Park right down the street where I grew up and where I played, at times by myself.  Roughly fifty years after I played in that beautiful large park, Ta-Nehisi described it as “the place where the bodies were buried.” Where is the justice in my having had such good and fond memories and he having haunted ones?  I know.  There is none.

Ta-Nehisi has written other books, among them “Between the World and Me,” about which Toni Morrison has said  “This is required reading.”  I would be so brave as to add “particularly right now.”

The Washington Post very recently published a review of his latest publication, “We Were Eight Years in Power.”

The Washington Post                      October 1,2017

“The Obama era’s faded hope”

Baltimore recently gained another distinction, this time on its football field where the now familiar image appeared on our TV screens of some players “taking a knee.”

The Washington Post              September 30, 2017

“Birthplace of anthem at center of NFL protest debate”

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY: COUNTY, STATE, AND NATION

Howard County

Our County Council recently took the vote on legislation introduced by Councilmembers Ball and Terrasa.  It was a bill that would have repealed the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) approval that was passed earlier this year by a vote of four to one, Teresa being the only one voting in opposition. This financing in the amount of roughly $90,000,000 will go to one of the largest and most profitable development entities in our nation, Howard Hughes Corporation.  This is at the same that our Department of Education’s free and reduced meals program, a leading indicator of poverty in our nation, is growing rapidly, approaching 50% of the students in some of Columbia’s schools.  Pointing out and protesting the numerous grave injustices at the federal level, does nothing to promote economic justice at our local level of government.  Living in one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., we are abandoning the low-income families, particularly the kids.

Our Board of Education has received the Superintendent’s proposed changes to the school district boundary lines.  It is crucial to economic and social justice that these lines be drawn democratically and serve to improve the economic mix of the schools’ populations.

Maryland

I recently attended a meeting of “Indivisible” in Howard.  This is one of the progressive groups that sprung up in the wake of our national election.  I am very impressed by their organizational skills and grasp of so many issues, including social, economic, and environmental justice.  One of the topics of this meeting was protecting the security of our voting systems, which is gaining more attention now in the face of Russia’s recent history. Having led a similar effort in the Maryland Legislature a few years ago with great assistance from Johns Hopkins professor of Computer Science, Avi Rubin, and having met with only partial success, I made a comment during the recent meeting in Howard Co on this issue.   In doing so, I described myself as “one of the most radical members of the legislature”. After the meeting ended, a man and woman approached me with expressions of deep concern on their faces and said, “You shouldn’t disparage yourself like that by using a word like radical.” I thanked them for their concern on my part, and then referred to Google re this word. “Definition of radical – (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature…denoting or relating to the roots of words.” They replied that they had thought it meant something along the lines of hostile and irresponsible.  I suggested that they check out the base of the word.  “Rad” means to go the root, as in radish.”  It’s one of those words that we have allowed the right wing to sabotage.

As a lit major, I love words.  So do I love people who are taking the time to get out and get involved to save our nation and planet?

U.S.

Guns:  If what happened in Las Vegas is not sufficient motivation for Congress and the state legislatures to enact strong weapon control, I can’t even begin to imagine what would

Hurricanes:  Puerto Rico is a protectorate of our nation whose people are citizens of the U.S. just like we are and, therefore, equally entitled to emergency services as we residents of Maryland and the other 49 states are.  Clearly they have not been treated as equals.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES

In a recent TV interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates concerning his latest book “We were eight years in power” to which I referred at the end of the section above on Baltimore, My Home Town, the interviewer asked him what he sees ahead for our nation.  Ta-Nehisi replied, unfortunately though without hostility “Chaos”.

Reading The Washington Post and other publications during the past month, “chaos” tragically appears to apply to our planet as well.

GERMANY            RUSSIA       FRANCE            U.S.         BURMA    CHINA

         

NORTH KOREA    MEXICO          SPAIN (Catalonia)         BANGLADESH   

“SAUDI ARABIA:  In my recent reading of the Washington Post, this is the only nation from which we received very positive news.  Women in that nation will finally be allowed to drive!

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

This year our planet’s autumnal equinox occurred on September 22 at 4:02pm.  When I checked Google for a better understanding of this phenomenon, I was moved by the beautiful description of the similarity between light and darkness both within us and within the universe.  That led me to strengthen my resolve to limit my time before the TV now awash in “dark” news. We already never turn on the TV before six, with the exception of weekend baseball, basketball, or football for Lloyd.  I believe it’s very important to be aware of what’s going on in our nation and planet. I also believe – or rather KNOW – that we can damage our very souls by too much “sitting in front of the TV and watching,”

We decided to invite a few like-minded friends over to observe and venerate the time when the sun crossed the equator, heading south. A few moments before four o’clock we gathered on our back deck facing the sun.  The clouds dispersed just in time for a super quick glance through our sunglasses.  Some had brought a poem or story to read.  Some spoke their own few words.  Some remained quiet.  Each reading helped us to “get it” at a deeper level, the cycles of darkness and light in our universe and within ourselves.

THE WASHINGTON POST           SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

“Gravitational wave from black hole collision is sensed in U.S. and Italy”

“When two black holes merged 3.8 billion light-years away, their violent union sent shock waves through space and time.”

…and it is not unusual for me to experience a month as an extremely long time.

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I now end this message with a stronger than usual clear and deep realization that everything, absolutely everything, is connected in 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.

Past issues of this newsletter can be found on my blog at http://lizbobocolumbia.blogspot.com/.