REFLECTIONS ON LIFE – JUNE 2019

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA

Bullfrogs have reached their melodious (at least to my ears) peak.  There must be at least a hundred of them in our two ponds.  I find their deep resonating mating calls so peaceful in the night. Not all of our neighbors agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtAdhpTKmgg

Wrens and sparrows built three nests on our home early in the spring – one above the light fixture affixed to the outside wall of the deck outside our bedroom, and two on the walls of our kitchen and dining room.  These latter two utilized forsythia branches to lend more support.  Then about a month ago we were mesmerized by the hatching and subsequent food deliveries by the parents.  Now these little birds flit around on their own among the three bird feeders on our decks and kitchen window.  What a joy to simply sit and watch them.

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As usual I attended the Juneteenth commemoration among the African American community in Columbia.  This year it was held in Town Center.  I was surprised to learn that the main speaker, the head of Howard Community College’s Library is from Ghana.  He was a wealth of information about the slave trade,  We had learned much about this when we visited Ghana ourselves right after our marriage 25 years ago.  We stayed with our dear friends Harriett and Jim Lancaster.  Harriet had served as the first director of the Howard County Department of Citizen Services in Howard County back in the 70’s.  Jim devoted a full week of his life driving us around the country, including the gate through which Ghanaians passed to board the slave ships. 

I am deeply gratified to see that our community college has chosen someone schooled in the deep history of the slave trade. We spoke, and formed an intention to get together sometime soon.  I can learn so much from him.

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

Next month Lloyd and I will head to the beach house on the coast in North Carolina with our kids and grandkids.  This will be our third year in the “new” house, the prior one having grown too small after almost 20 years.  Zach has never been with us in this house, but I can walk a very short distance down the ocean beach to where he played in the sand and surf.  He and his sister, Julia were the only grandkids when we first began this summertime tradition.  I can remember my daily morning walks with Zach along the ocean  (his idea). We spoke of such varied topics as the beauty of the sport of boxing (hitherto incomprehensible to me), the pull of the water returning to the sea, star formations we had observed from the deck the night before.  One memory stands out above all others - Zach’s demonstrating the style of Mohammed Ali by leaning up strong against a rope line out through the small waves.  Then those words that, although I came to love them, startled me upon first hearing:  “Grandma, that’s what I did with cancer.  I leaned back and leaned back and leaned back.” Rope-a dope!

Countless times since Zach died more than five years ago, when I am struggling with sadness about so much injustice, cruelty and hatred in our world, I remember Zach and emotionally “lean back and lean back and lean back.”  Then I become aware of all the love, beauty, and courage in our world.  It never fails me.

Thank you, Zach.

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOME TOWN

The Baltimore Sun                                                                   June 9, 2019

“John Waters deals with a life less shocking”     by Charles Arrowsmith

As a teenager growing up in Baltimore I first developed my love of good films.  What a perfect environment to nourish that love.  Barry Levinson lived to the north and John Waters to the east – one born a year before me in 1942 and the other two years after.  As a young adult I heard much more of Waters than Levinson who’s well deserved fame came several years later.

Waters, the king of nonconformists, says about the acceptance and popularity of his new book “Mr. Know- It – All, The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder” - “Suddenly the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me.  I am accepted.”

Last year Lloyd and went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, right across Wyman Park from where I went to high school, to see the extensive exhibit relating to John Waters exhibit.  No doubt he was “way out there” at times. When all is considered there is not doubt of his great creativity.

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY

“Take the silencer off gun control                                    Editorial

This is a national emergency and must be confronted as one”

The Washington Post                                                         June 2, 2019

When I first began serving as Howard County Executive in 1986, Vinny DiMarco, leader of Marylanders Against Handguns solicited me to be the first County Executive in Maryland to take a stand against the gun lobby by publicly supporting a bill to ban handguns in Maryland.  I agreed.

Now, many years later the damage by guns is beyond our worst imagination.

Lloyd’s daughter and her husband worked in the city office building in Virginia Beach where the mass shooting took place.  They were not in the office that day.

U.S.A.  (I deliberated placing the following in Baltimore, My Hometown)

The New Yorker                                                         June 10 and 17, 2019

“Conduction ” by Ta-Nehisi-Coates

I have written of Ta-Nehisi in prior “Reflections on Life.”  Since then the subject of “reparations” for black slavery in our nation has come closer and closer to the forefront.  It is not uncommon to read about it in our foremost publications.  It is currently the subject of congressional hearings in our nation’s capital.

Earlier this month Lloyd and I drove with his sister, Jenet, to spend a few days in my daughter Chris’ condo on the beachfront in Ocean City.  Jenet rode home to Pennsylvania with her son who was staying nearby and Lloyd and I drove separately. While passing through the eastern shore town of Denton, I instinctively asked Lloyd to pull off the road and drive toward the Pocomoke River.  When we reached it, we saw a couple men fishing from the bank.  Under a nearby bridge decorated with magnificent depictions of slavery stood a young black man about 6’6” in height.  He was talking on his mobile phone.  I didn’t want to disturb him, but I did want to get closer to examine some art on the bridge’s concrete abutment.  As I got closer he looked up, and I said “Hello, I’m getting closer for a clearer look at these beautiful murals.  He put his phone in his pocket, and commenced a great conversation about the river and life in the little towns nearby.  I told him about the stories my mom told me about spending her summers on a tobacco farm owned by her father’s brother in nearby Calvert County.  After ten minutes or so, Lloyd, who had been checking out the fishing spots, joined us and we talked longer - beautiful exchange with this young man.  Although we each spoke of our own personal connections to the history of the area, the subject of reparations never arose.  Yet I knew, virtually without a doubt, that his family had cause for them.

I wonder whether Ta-Nehisi Coates ever visited Denton or the town of Prince Frederick in Calvert County where, as a boy my grandfather worked the family tobacco farm.

My experience in reading “Conduction” was as if I were there walking with the main character “to cross through Virginia by the North West Virginia Railroad and then, once in Maryland, link up with the Baltimore & Ohio and proceed east and north into the free lands of Pennsylvania, and on to Philadelphia.  There was a shorter route, due north, but there had been some recent troubles with Ryland along the rail there, and it was felt that the audacity of this approach, right through the slave port of Baltimore, would not be expected….”

“The slave port of Baltimore.” Those words on the page of “The New Yorker” burned my eyes and brought tears to them. Baltimore, my hometown, with all its painful past and present.  And yet it did give us Ta-Nehisi, who grew up there.  And even now it has the potential, through so many kids growing up there now, to bring more love and truth to the world.

The Baltimore Sun                                                       June 20, 2019

“Coates makes a case                                                   by Errin Haines Whack

Baltimore native testifies before Congress in support of reparations”

It is clear that Ta-Nehisi is extending his role as historian beyond that of an author.  We can only benefit from that.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES

A Great Read

On the recommendation of a friend, Lloyd recently purchased and read “Sapiens” (as in homo sapiens), a New York Times bestseller a few years ago.

Its author, Yuval Harari lectures in Israel. The book includes the Timeline of History below:

Years ago            Event

13.5 billion                The Big Bang

4.5 billion                  Formation of planet Earth

3.8 billion                  Emergence of organisms

6 million                    Last common grandmother of humans and chimpanzees

2.5 million                 Evolution of genus homo in Africa

2 million                    Humans spread to Eurasia

0.5 million                 Homo Neanderthals evolve in Europe

2000,000                   Homo Sapiens evolve in East Africa

45,000                                    Sapiens settle Australia

30,000                                    Extinction of Neanderthals

16,000                                    Sapiens settle America

Next time you have to wait an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year for some anticipated occurrence in your life, take a look at this chart and recall the virtue of patience.  

Morocco

Last month I wrote of the beauty of Morocco – its people, its souks (markets) in Marrakech, Fes, Casablanca, Tangier, its mosques, its sometimes seemingly endless desert lands, its magnificent Atlas Mountains.  I returned home with a mystical and romantic sense of the land.  Then the news of the two Scandinavian women being brutally murdered in their tent in the middle of one of the nights of their long and meticulously planned climb in those mountains whose winding roads we traversed with eight other travelers from various nations in our National Geographic touring van.  Evil and nature’s beauty intermingled.

Nepal

“The Washington Post”                                                  JUNE 2, 2019

“Mount Everest is packed.  Whose fault is that?

We hype adventure – to deadly effect says Michael Kodas”

Very poor judgment aside, where is the respect for the natural beauty of nature being viewed from afar? I cannot help but wonder whether some of these “adventurers” even see the beauty.  The international border between Nepal and China runs bisects the summit. The monks of Nepal could teach these climbers.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

Lloyd and I marked the summer solstice at 11:54 a.m. on our back deck facing south and overlooking the larger of the two ponds beside our home.  We stood in awareness that the sun had reached its highest position on this day with the longest period of daylight. I love the synchronicity of the longest day of the year, when the Northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun at its greatest angle. The direct opposite occurs on my birth date, December 21 --winter solstice -- when this part of the globe has its maximum tilt away from the sun.  Sometimes when I am in somewhat of a state of confusion and my purpose in life is not clear to me, I summon up the image of this astronomical contrast.  I remain in silence and stillness for a bit.  Then it becomes clear to me.  I am here to spread love.  Actually, I believe we are all here for that purpose.  We simply forget it.

A friend sent me the following Van Gogh inspiration earlier this month.  I have watched and listened literally hundreds of times, transported each time back to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and then up into the starry night.

I hope it will bring you the same peace it has brought to me.

Starry Night

Peace on earth.

Across the 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

PS - My monthly Reflections episodes, the Dragon radio show I record at HCC, can be found at http://dragondigitalradio.podbean.com/category/reflections-on-life/.

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE –MAY 2019

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

Connection to Dragon radio- for recording of Liz’ “Reflections” please go to the end of this newsletter.

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Last night, after returning home from Mr. B’s Columbia Film Series at the Community College followed by a light outdoor supper at the gloriously beautiful lakefront, we received a phone call from Lloyd’s daughter, Carolyn. She and her husband are long time employees of the Virginia Beach government. Listening to Carolyn last night and reading the front page of the Washington Post this morning we are so deeply aware of how random death can be.  We are also aware of being deeply blessed this morning.   Carolyn works on the first floor of the building where the shooting took place – her husband, Smitty in an adjacent building. Miraculously, both had been on leave for a few weeks.

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This is a special season here in our home.  It is the time of the Columbia Festival of the Arts with its abundance of music, dance, film and more.  Our community literally comes alive with the arts.

In addition, there are two other excellent arts events separate from the Festival and equally great: the launch of the latest edition of the Little Patuxent Review and Howard Countian, Nancy Davis’ current exhibit at the Horse Spirit Arts Gallery located in the old Savage Mill @ 8600 Foundry Street, Suite 2063, Savage, MD 20763

On Sunday, June 2, from 2-4pm at the Oliver’s Carriage House, 5410 Leaf Treader Way, Columbia, MD 21044, the Summer Issue of the Little Patuxent Review (LPR) will be launched.  This Review is the longest standing publication in Columbia, exploring literature and the arts.  For the past few years, I have been honored to serve as a member of the board of this excellent publication.  A reception with refreshments will follow, giving everyone an opportunity to meet the authors, as well as the editors and staff of LPR

The Horse Spirit Arts Gallery was destroyed in both of the recent floods in Ellicott City, rebuilt after the first, only to be destroyed again in the second.  The owner, Robin Holliday, then moved her very popular gallery to the Historic Savage Mill at 8600 Foundry Street, Suite 2063, Savage, MD 20763. She and her husband, former head of Howard County LGBT community, have transformed this space into another beautiful art gallery.

The current exhibit features paintings, including many large landscapes, by long time Howard County resident, Nancy Davis.  Nancy, Lloyd and I have worked together on environmental legislative matters in Maryland for many years.  She was a founder of the Maryland League of Conversation Voters, one of the most effective such organizations in our state, close to 50 years ago.  Nancy’s love of the environment stands out in her artistry.  Her work will be on exhibit at the gallery until June 16.

Both Lloyd and I look forward to attending many events as part of the Columbia Festival of the Arts.  We were both members of the County Council when the existing county arts council was formally designated as the Howard County Arts Council.  It was Lloyd who took the legislative lead on requiring that the allocation of any state or local money be controlled by the Arts Council itself, rather than by county officials.  I and other councilmembers signed on to this provision.

The Festival has developed a reputation far beyond Columbia as an excellent arts venue with hundreds of volunteers working to make it a success each year.  I believe that in these troubling times, we must support the arts more strongly than ever.  The Arts truly do feed our souls.

……..

Often I have written of the very tall pine tree with its long graceful branches right outside the window by my bedside.  You know, the one through whose branches the squirrels frolic. Each morning it continues to be one of the first, if not THE first thing I see upon opening my eyes.

After these few years of my writing “Reflections” I have not yet mentioned two other special trees nearby, though not visible from our bed.  Planted on the bank of the pond visible from the window above the head of our bed when we are standing, are two tall, graceful river birches.  We brought those birches home with us from Annapolis during the legislative session almost 20 years ago. Mike Busch,

the beloved Speaker of the House who recently died, had a custom of placing a small gift that had a connection to Maryland history or public policy on each delegate’s desk before session began one day each year.  In that year, the gift was a small (eight inch) river birch.  One of the delegates didn’t want his so Lloyd, who had come on to the floor after that day’s session ended, saw one empty desk on which a delegate had left his birch.   He put it in his vest pocket.  We brought both baby river birches home with us at the end of the week and Lloyd planted them on the bank of the pond.  They grew slowly for the first several years. We had to trim back the tall grass surrounding the pond.  Then, suddenly, one spring day a few years ago I noticed these two majestic birches standing tall at the foot of one of our ponds.  Now, when looking at them I automatically find myself reminiscing about my 20 years in the legislature. I have never regretted even a moment of that time.

………….

Lloyd and I loved all of the hours we passed outside in our yard during the month of May:

Setting up our fountain by the downstairs deck:

Admiring the grace of the stalking heron

Shivering at the strength of the large snapping turtle’s jaws

Admiring the skill of the robins’ nest building

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

For years Zach carried this piece of paper, which he printed by hand, with him in his wallet.   It wasn’t until Zach left this earth that his dad told me about it and made a copy for me.

The Zaching Against Cancer Foundation is continually growing, and with that growth Zach’s personally planned outreach, which he intended to have carried out by this organization. 

This year’s Zaching Against Cancer Gala was held at the Xfinity Center on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland, where Zach himself had worked on the floor as a manager at Terps basketball games.  A woman who received help from the foundation when her husband died of cancer leaving her with two very young girls spoke of the very personal touch the foundation gave to all three of them.  This is what Zach had explicitly made clear.  He wanted to be sure to help with the “little things” as well as the big.  In this case the foundation paid for a weeks vacation at the beach after the pain and shock of losing their strong, healthy dad.

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOME TOWN

The Baltimore Sun                                                     May 31, 2019

“Baltimore Symphony abruptly cancels concerts, cuts season 

Orchestra also reduces musicians’ pay, citing deep fiscal problems”

                                                                                      By Luke Broadwater

Is this horrifically ironic, or what?  In recent Reflections I have written about the increasing world acclaim being bestowed on Baltimore’s symphony orchestra.  Many of us living a stone’s throw away from Baltimore are attendees, if not subscribers, to this great orchestra.  We cannot let this financial problem stand.

Concurrent with this astounding announcement, Baltimore City and the State of Maryland are approving multi-million tax breaks in the form of TIF’s to big developers in the city and surrounding counties, including Howard.  We simply cannot stand by and watch the Baltimore Symphony fail.

“Carrots and sticks to keep the Preakness in Baltimore”           Editorial

I have also written of my very fond memories going to the racetrack at Pimlico with my dad, Barney Gilner, when I was just five years old and his Parkinson’s disease was still in such a sufficiently early stage that he could drive us there. I also have later memories of going to “the track” for Preakness celebrations as an adult.

I am gratified, though not surprised, that Delegate Cheryl Glenn from Baltimore is one of the legislators taking the lead on preserving the Preakness, one of the “Triple Crown” annual U.S. horse races, in Baltimore.  She and others are also supporting the necessary improvements to the racetrack to facilitate that continuation.  When I was in the legislature, I worked closely with Delegate Glenn on issues of social and economic justice.  I am so grateful to her for carrying on that priority, for Pimlico is indeed an issue of economic justice. Thank you, Cheryl.

The Sun’s choice of words in this editorial is spot on. “The fate of several Northwest Baltimore neighborhoods depend on it.”

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY

HOWARD COUNTY

The Washington Post                                                      May 24, 2019

“Spurning Harriet Tubman opens a new front in the nation’s monument wars”                                                                                 James Hohmann

On Memorial Day last Monday, I attended a ceremony to honor our veterans at the Harriett Tubman School two miles from our home.  Members of the county NAACP, including me, were present along with many African American veterans, among them my dear longtime friend, Millie Bailey, age 101, who was honored there.  The event had been organized by another dear friend, Bessie Bordenave.  The sun was shining and the beautiful red, white, and blue U.S. flag was blowing in the wind while we all – black and white - sang the national anthem together.  I was aware of a deep sense of hope that morning.  Having read the Washington Post article cited above just a few days prior, I reveled in that sense of hope.

STATE OF MARYLAND

In the section of these Reflections relating to Home in Columbia, I wrote of Lloyd’s and my 20 years spending three months of each of those years in Annapolis.  Although I was “the delegate,” Lloyd put in almost as much time as I did, with the exception of a week or two golfing or fishing in a warmer climate.  He voluntarily lent his support and deep knowledge of environmental, fiscal and other issues.  His most valuable “find” was the words “the lender has no responsibility to the borrower” buried in the last pages of a 50-page document supporting the passage of a bill supported by the mortgage industry.  I read that quote on the floor of the House, and the bill failed by a margin of one vote.

U.S.A.

The image below from the May 13, 2019 edition of The New Yorker may well be the saddest image I have ever laid eyes on in a publication to which I subscribe.  I asked myself “why?”  My answer to myself:  “because it is so true to life.”

The Atlantic                                                                         May 2019

“Elegy for the American Century”                                   by George Packer

I have written before that “The New Yorker” and “The Atlantic” are the two periodicals I read cover to cover – weekly for the former and monthly for the latter.  I found this article difficult to understand in places.  Yet I was drawn by the creative – and truthful – way in which it sets forth a report on “the decay of Pax Americana.”

            

REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES

MOROCCO

The Baltimore Sun                                                               May 12, 2019

“Morocco is a trove of Jewish history”                              by Leanne Italie

Although I wrote in April about Lloyd’s and my two glorious weeks in Morocco, when I read this article in the Baltimore Sun, I knew I must include it.  During my almost 50 years living within a stone’s throw or in the center of Columbia, I have experienced the blessing of meeting and befriending many Jewish people, some of them rabbis.  My life to that time had been as a Roman Catholic, and Judaism was quite unknown to me, even though much of my Catholic schooling was based on Jewish history.  These friends have had a profound impact on my life in many ways.  I want you to know that you and I were together in Morocco when I read this article.

Planet Earth

The Washington Post (editorial)                                                       May 31, 2019

“Seas may rise faster than we thought

The outlook for the health of the planet has gone from bad to potentially devastating, scientists say”

If this doesn’t wake us humans on planet up, I don’t what will.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

The Washington Post                                                May 29, 2019

“100 years after Einstein’s theory rose”                    by Joel Achenbach

Could it be a coincidence that “the first photo of a black hole just this year” would coincide with the 100^th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of relativity?

Einstein is remembered mainly for his deep scientific genius.  His wisdom was equally deep.  “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”  If we humans could learn to truly grasp those words, we would be living in a much different world.

The Washington Post                                                                   May 26, 2019

“An astronomer’s poetic soul meets Dante’s scientific mind” Maria Bartusiak

I believe you will be spellbound – as I was – in reading about this Englishwoman born in 1867 whose life’s quest was to closely examine all the astronomical references in Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”.  …”he never had a waxing crescent moon rising in the east at sunset (a mistake made so often in literature).  Dante scholars came to appreciate her findings.

Across the 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

PS - My monthly Reflections episodes, the Dragon radio show I record at HCC, can be found at http://dragondigitalradio.podbean.com/category/reflections-on-life/.