The Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction

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Speaking of warmth without shade, I just finished reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, which explains that we are living through an “extinction event” caused not by an asteroid or volcanic eruption but by homo sapiens. Consider these facts Kolbert presents:

“Human activity has transformed between a third and a half of the land surface of the planet. • Most of the world’s major rivers have been dammed or diverted. • Fertilizer plants produce more nitrogen than is fixed naturally by all terrestrial ecosystems. • Fisheries remove more than a third of the primary production of the oceans’ coastal waters. • Humans use more than half of the world’s readily accessible fresh water runoff.”

Most of all, Kolbert writes, citing Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen, who named this era “Anthropocene” to indicate that it is shaped by humans, we have changed the composition of the atmosphere. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has increased by 40 percent in the last 200 years.

All of these changes are happening faster than our world can adapt to them. So, despite the noble efforts we’ve taken to save individual species or to rid our forests of knotweed or other invasive plants, the fact is that the world we’ve created is changing the planet on which we live. Here’s Kolbert again:

“When the world changes faster than species can adapt, many fall out. This is the case whether the agent drops from the sky in a fiery streak or drives to work in a Honda. To argue that the current extinction event could be averted if people just cared more and were willing to make more sacrifices is not wrong, exactly; still, it misses the point. It doesn’t much matter whether people care or don’t care. What matters is that people change the world. This capacity predates modernity, though, of course, modernity is its fullest expression. Indeed, this capacity is probably indistinguishable from the qualities that made us human to begin with: our restlessness, our creativity, our ability to cooperate to solve problems and complete complicated tasks. As soon as humans started using signs and symbols to represent the natural world, they pushed beyond the limits of that world.”

The Sixth Extinction was published in 2015. The situation has only become more dire since then.

(Dinosaur footprints from the coast of Portugal.)

Warmth Without Shade

Warmth Without Shade

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This morning I was walking by 7:15, but yesterday I left in the noon hour. It was warm, on its way to the upper 80s, and I searched for shade. Unfortunately, shade is nascent at this point in the spring.

Leaves are emerging, but tree cover is thin, no match for the sultry summery weather we’re having now.

It dawned on me as I strolled that there’s a reason we don’t usually have 90+-degree weather in April. The trees aren’t ready for it, and people aren’t, either.

Warmth without shade is a perversion of the natural order. But it’s what we have now.

(The Bow Bridge in Central Park, seen through bare branches. We’re further along than NYC, of course.)

The Deck Desk

The Deck Desk

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The news, never good these days, has taken a turn for the worse. International relations are in a shambles. What’s a body to do? Take to the deck.

It’s one of the first work-outside mornings of the spring and I’m back in business at my outside location. A brilliant jewel-toned azalea flames in front of me. To my left are two more azaleas in lavender and pink. In the distance, the soft trill of a woodpecker. And yes, a leaf blower, too. In other words, a perfect suburban morning.

So even though my work today is difficult, nature, as always, is a balm. I fall into it as if into a featherbed. It cushions and softens the tasks and my mood.

April 14th is early for working outside, but I’ll take every day I can of my deck desk.

Schlepping Stuff

Schlepping Stuff

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New York is a walkers’ city, which means people must schlep stuff around on their person. It is, therefore, a city of backpacks and satchels and messenger bags. In the Big Apple, people eat on the run or tote their dinners home in carryout containers.

When I lived in the city I lusted after a shoulder-strapped leather briefcase, received one as a gift, and have it still. Though I no longer use it I can’t bear to part with it.

Last week, I crammed everything I needed each day into my cross-body bag and the pockets of my coat. I could leave nothing in the car, of course, since I didn’t have one there. If I had, it would have been parked in an expensive garage.

Instead, I walked and took the subway. I watched New Yorkers stride about with everything they needed attached to their bodies, including … a cello.

Reservoir Trail

Reservoir Trail

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A return, a sigh, a backward glance. I’m home now, absorbing the trip to NYC. It lasted a work week, but my only job was to walk, tour and savor the city.

On one of many excursions, I briefly relived one of my all-time favorite running routes. I would roll out of bed a little before 7 a.m., lace up my shoes, and make my way, half-asleep, to the Central Park Reservoir trail.

Back then you could run around whichever way you liked. Now, it’s counterclockwise only. No problem: counterclockwise gave us this splendid view of the San Remo Towers, lording it over their wedge of Central Park West.

Did I really live and walk here? Yes, I did. And for five perfect days, I did again.

Mozart’s Manuscript

Mozart’s Manuscript

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Many years ago I played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, No. 21 with my high school orchestra. Yesterday, I saw the autographed manuscript of that work. I saw the paper that Mozart touched, the ink that flowed from his pen, the harpsichord on which he composed.

The man and his genius came alive at this Morgan Library exhibit of these and other treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg.

The exhibit was for listening as well as looking. A looped video featured excerpts from the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute, the Requiem, the Jupiter Symphony, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik … and more. It even included a snippet from the No. 21 piano concerto.

The combination of visual and auditory brought a shiver to my spine. It was a complete immersion in the power of creativity.

Yet even with all of this, the display that stayed with me most was a manuscript page scribbled with notes and numbers. From what the experts could tell, Mozart was trying to figure out what he made, per measure. Some of the most sublime music ever composed was written to pay the bills.

Urban Density

Urban Density

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Ah, there is so much to say about visiting Manhattan. So much that when I first sat down to write today I didn’t know where to begin!

But I did/ do know this. Such richness, such crazy, jarring richness, is made possible by something we don’t have in the suburbs: urban density.

Here into less than 22.6 square miles flow three to four million people every day. Here are museums, concert halls, restaurants, libraries, universities, even cherry trees (take that, D.C.!). Here are all sorts of people rubbing shoulders (and sometimes bumping into) all sorts of other people.

I sample the city as if it were an exotic yet comforting stew, spoonful by delicious spoonful.

(It’s easier to photograph cherry trees than urban density. All that jostling, you know)

Live from the Met

Live from the Met

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From the time I was a little girl I’ve heard on the radio, “Live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City” — and last night we were there, in the very place.

Truth to tell, for most of my life that announcement prompted an immediate change of station. But lately that has not been the case. Living with an opera lover is starting to rub off on me.

Last year for Christmas, I gave that opera lover two tickets to Verdi’s “La Traviata.” I hoped he would take me along. And he did!

So we took the train to New York City and last evening walked six blocks downtown, entered Lincoln Center and were swept up into the crowd. It was a chilly Tuesday and the place was packed. Some women wore long gowns and some men wore tuxedos, though most were dressed more casually. In other words, it was an audience writ as large as New York City. And it was as enthusiastic as the city, too. Arias and choruses were greeted with applause and shouts of “bravo” and “brava.”

The beauty and pathos of the music would touch even the stoniest of hearts. Here was the human condition in voice and song — performed in a city that appreciates it.

For some people, attending a Met opera is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I hope it isn’t for us.

For a Few Days

For a Few Days

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It’s almost as if the suburbs knew where I was going. Yesterday, a few hours before leaving on a train for New York City, I took a walk in the neighborhood. The redbud, dogwood and tulips clamored for attention. See how beautiful we are, they seemed to say. Why visit the concrete jungle?

Because it’s energizing and life-enhancing. Because it’s where I lived for five and a half years — at a time in my life when half-years counted.

I haven’t lived in the city in decades, but I’ve missed it and longed for it and visited it as often as possible. All it takes is a return — a getaway like the one I’m on now — to rekindle that excitement.

The suburbs threw everything they had at me yesterday. But I left them anyway — for a few days.

A Day Late

A Day Late

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The Easter Bunny hopped in a day late, weather-wise. He arrived on Easter Sunday, but he missed Saturday’s blue skies and 85 degrees.

Instead, he ran into rain, wind and clouds.

By the end of the day, though, the sun made an appearance and a stiff breeze dried out the lawn so the kiddos could romp and play after dinner.

It wasn’t a picture-perfect Easter Sunday. But it didn’t have to be!