Staying Put

Staying Put

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I woke up this morning in a house I’ve been waking up in for half of my life. This would have been big news to the 20-and-30-something me, who moved from Chicago to Kentucky to New York City to Arkansas to Massachusetts to Virginia. Seventeen moves in seventeen years, as I once admitted in an essay.

But it’s been Virginia for decades. I settled down, as did many of my compatriots. About one of every five Americans moved in the 1960s. Today it’s only one of every 13, thanks to a combination of zoning laws, historic preservation campaigns and rampant NIMBYism, according to a recent Atlantic magazine article by Yoni Appelbaum (adapted from his book Stuck: How the Privileged and Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity). Mobility is freedom, mobility is opportunity — and these have been in short supply lately, says Appelbaum.

For years I might have agreed with him, or at least with aspects of his argument (which I realize is about socioeconomic conditions, not what I’m exploring in this post). I felt trapped here from the beginning: plopped down in the suburbs with young kids. As a full-time freelance writer, I had plenty of contact with interviewees and editors, but I seldom saw them. For years I raged against the ‘burbs.

But I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of staying put. “We marry ourselves to creation by knowing and cherishing a particular place,” writes Scott Russell Sanders. If I were offered any place in this country to send down roots, I might not have chosen this particular place — but I could do worse, far worse. Most importantly, the babies grew up and started families of their own, and two of them have settled nearby.

Now when I wake up in this house, I know I’m home.

One and Only

One and Only

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Peonies have been in beautiful bloom the last week or two. I’ve admired them in neighbor’s yards and on my table, a gift from my daughter’s new garden.

My peony harvest is much smaller: it’s an “on” year for the single peony plant in my backyard. A plant that has never thrived but also never died. Some years it produces one flower, some years none. It’s long since been surrounded by day lilies and iris, so there’s no room for it to roam, not that peonies spread much anyway.

This year it seems like a tease … or an invitation. Plant more of me, it says. Find a deer-safe patch of soil and create some more of my kind. It’s lonely out here.

Local Lizard

Local Lizard

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Yesterday, while writing in my “summer place,” a corner of the glass-topped table on the desk, I spied a lizard skittering along the boards. Our corner of Fairfax County is full of wildlife. I routinely see fox and deer, the cries of hawks and pileated woodpeckers fill the skies, and a few weeks ago I saw a wild turkey slowly crossing the main street of our neighborhood, on his way from one patch of woods to another.

But lizards have been in short supply. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one here before.

This little guy brought to mind the subtropical world of southern Florida, where lizards are king. I’ve spent many hours watching their tiny movements, their habit of bowing up and down, as if they’re doing tiny pushups. I bet there’s a scientific term and explanation for this, but I’m too lazy to look it up now.

What I can say is that I will be on the lookout for this fellow. Maybe he will become hawk food … but I hope not. I’d like to see him again. He brings with him a whiff of the faraway.

National Service

National Service

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Yesterday’s post was about Mom, and today’s is inspired by Dad, on what would have been his 102nd birthday. There aren’t many left of his generation, what’s been called “the greatest.” I don’t recall Dad having much to say about that moniker, but his World War II service was a defining feature of his life, and he rests now in a military cemetery.

He was only 20 years old when he climbed into the tail gunner’s seat of a B-17 bomber and flew on bombing raids from Britain’s East Anglia to Germany and back. He was lucky to arrive when he did. Casualty rates were much higher before fighter escorts began in early 1944.

What his generation had that subsequent ones did not is a call to serve that was impossible to ignore. If I was running the country, I would require an obligatory year of national service. Not only would it help repair the nation’s infrastructure (imagine all that young enthusiasm and muscle power) but it would also patch up the divisiveness that threatens to tear us apart.

Such plans have been proposed, I believe, but given the other problems besetting the country, aren’t high on anyone’s list. They should be, though … and I bet Dad would approve.

(The entrance to the mess hall at Horham, where Dad was stationed. Photo courtesy One Last Look: A Sentimental Journey to the Eighth Air Force Heavy Bomber Bases of World War II in England.)

White Carnations

White Carnations

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A day for mothers, for my daughters who are mothers, and for my own mother, gone ten years this October. I can’t complain; she lived a long life. But it’s never long enough, is it?

I have so much to tell her, so many questions to ask about her family, about aging with grace, about the hereafter, starting with … does it exist?

In the old days, when women routinely wore corsages, a pink carnation signified that your mother was living and a white carnation that she had passed away. What a lovely tradition, akin to mourning crepe and black arm bands, a way to tell the world that you are grieving, that you are, even if old enough to be grandmother, a motherless child.

(Alas, no carnation photos, but this pale pink rose is almost white.)

An American Pope

An American Pope

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He grew up in Chicago, went to college in Pennsylvania. Opinions are divided about whether he roots for the Cubs or the White Sox.* But one fact is clear: Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV, the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.

In the hours before white puffs of smoke appeared above the Vatican roof, I’d been refreshing my news feed. There was a buzz, a sense of anticipation. People were gathering in St. Peter’s Square. News seemed imminent. When it actually happened I was away from a screen, grabbing a bite of lunch before driving to an appointment.

What matters, of course, is that it did happen, what most thought never could: an American pope. It seemed miraculous enough to have a pope from Latin America. And with Pope Leo we have that too: he’s spent decades in Peru and is a naturalized citizen of that country.

An internationalist, a linguist, a builder of bridges, Pope Leo XIV also chose a name that bodes well. His immediate predecessor is known for his emphasis on Catholic social teaching in the encyclical Rerum Novarum, and on the importance of combining faith with reason, as he revitalized the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. (I learned these facts in my recent class; who says the liberal arts aren’t relevant?)

Now, the new pope begins the task of leading a fractious church. “Evil will not prevail,” he said in perfect Italian as he stood on the balcony and stilled the raucous crowd in the square. “We are all in the hands of God.”

*The matter has been resolved since I wrote this post: Pope Leo is a Sox fan.

(The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception sits next to the Catholic University of America, established by Pope Leo XIII.)

The Hilltop

The Hilltop

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The rain had stopped, the library books were due, so yesterday I returned them. There are several ways to reach Georgetown from Metro, but I took the Key Bridge route. It’s the most impressive way to walk to campus, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Georgetown sits on a bluff above the Potomac, which is why it’s called The Hilltop. When you approach it from the bridge, Healy Hall looms ahead like a castle, like the National Historic Landmark that it is.

Once in the District you’ll need to walk up, either by trudging an impossibly steep street (which was under construction) or by taking the Exorcist Stairs. I chose the latter, and made quick work of it. They are creepy even at 10:30 a.m.

But as soon as I reached the top, I was transported. The campus is leafy and green. It’s finals week, and preparations are already underway for graduation. Students clustered in study rooms in the library and hung out on Healy Lawn. The morning was picture-perfect. I don’t get to campus very often. Maybe I should change that.

A Shy Guy

A Shy Guy

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In honor of Brahms 192nd birthday today I just listened to a podcast about the composer. I learned that he was shy, self-conscious, and hard on himself. No wonder I love the guy.

Brahms was such a perfectionist that he spent much time, especially later in his life, hunting down and destroying the music he’d written earlier. Pieces he considered sub-par did not make the cut. Who knows how much more of his music we’d have if he hadn’t been so self-critical.

It took Brahms 20 years to write his first symphony. He kept a bust of Beethoven on his desk, just to ratchet up the pressure. The result? Some of the most sublime music this side of heaven. Turn up the volume when you listen to this piece, the finale of Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture.

(A clean-shaven Brahms. He didn’t grow a beard until his mid-40s.)

Digital Decluttering

Digital Decluttering

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I use an ancient email provider with limited storage space. I like it this way: I’m not as pelted with ads as I would be if I used Gmail … plus I’m forced to clean out the coffers from time to time. This is one of those times, prompted by a barrage of “storage almost full” warnings. In fact, the other day, my warning color moved from yellow to red. Time to delete!

So I entered the time capsule. Because yes, my inbox is a time capsule and an emotional minefield. Not only did I find plenty of emails from my dear friend Nancy, who we lost almost a year ago, but I found plenty from the girls in various other stages of their lives. Another kind of loss, not nearly as final of course, but still a reminder of time passing.

What I’ve learned in the purge is what I’m reminded of most every day, it seems: the power of relationships. The voice of a friend on the electronic page, the consistency of connections through the years. How rich is this loam of friendship; how honored I am to run across it in digital or actual form.

(One advantage of digital clutter: it weighs less than the other kind.)

Writers, Up!

Writers, Up!

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On Saturday, the Washington Writers Conference, which I help plan, was followed by the Kentucky Derby, which I never miss. The result: a harried trip around the Beltway from North Bethesda home.

This year, it was especially important to watch the race. The favorite, Journalism, was sharing the field with a horse named Publisher. As it turned out, a horse named Sovereignty won. Journalism placed and Publisher was fourteenth.

Shortly before the race came the famous command “Riders, up,” which means it’s time for jockeys to mount their steeds. What I’d been experiencing all weekend was something similar. It was, Writers, leave your house and join us for discussion and inspiration. Writers, take a deep breath and pitch your ideas to agents. Writers, find community, fellowship and lasting connections. In other words … Writers, up!

(Photo: Bruce Guthrie)