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Not So Super Tuesday

Not So Super Tuesday

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Yesterday began with a meditation session — a few minutes of peace that were quickly blotted out by the panic in the air. Had I bought enough staples at the grocery store? Should I pick up extra dog food? What about dried beans and noodles? And hand sanitizer? I hear there are runs on that in the stores.

At meetings and at the water cooler, talk of Covid 19 alternated with talk of Super Tuesday, with a similar degree of cheer, which was none at all. Disasters seem to be looming on both fronts.

One searches for a center of gravity, for normalcy, for what passes as calm. Is it better to be informed or stay ignorant?

At this point, I vote for the latter.

Doing Nothing

Doing Nothing

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A day that comes but once every four years ought to be celebrated. We ought to do things on this day that we do on no other. What could this be?

For me, it would be to do … nothing.

Copper is quite good at it. I could learn from him.

The Plague

The Plague

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And so it begins. The averted handshake at this morning’s Ash Wednesday service. The shunning on Metro of anyone who’s coughing or sniffling. The headlines and newscasts and public health warnings.

It will worsen, no doubt. There will be closures and restrictions, dire predictions. There will be confusion and panic. Truth will be elusive.

It’s no less than what other eras have had to bear, but for us it will be novel (in more ways than one).  Because we were raised with vaccines not quarantines.

I’m reminded of the ending of one of my favorite novels, Albert Camus’ The Plague:

He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city. 

By George!

By George!

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It’s the birth anniversary of our first president, and I went in search of his words, thinking they might shed some light on the craziness of our current politics.

Here is an excerpt from his farewell address — in one paragraph a plea for peace and harmony, in the next a desire for forgiveness, and finally a request for a well-earned rest.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 


…


Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.


Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Many Loves

Many Loves

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On a day dedicated to love, I think of my people and of love’s many faces. Of romantic love and parental love, the love of friends.

I think about the love we have for those who are gone, and the love we have for animals. The love we have for place, for movement, for moving through space, which I celebrate on these pages.

So many loves we are given. Loves that light the way. Even when we don’t see them, they are there.

3,000!

3,000!

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A few months ago, when it became apparent that I was closing in on the blog’s 3,000th entry about the same time that I would celebrate its 10-year anniversary, I stepped up my posting schedule.

I’ve always written a post every weekday and usually one on weekends. But once I realized how close these two moments would be I started posting every day.

When I did the math I realized it would be close, really close, but I would be off by four — 2996 posts on February 7, the blog’s tenth birthday.

So I had a dilemma. Should I actually post twice a day for several days? How obsessive was I going to be?  Apparently, thankfully … not enough!

It’s a Decade!

It’s a Decade!

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I’ve been looking forward to this day for months, but in the end it crept up on me. Here it is, though, 10 years since I began this blog on February 7, 2010.

I’m thankful beyond measure that I’ve been able to press on in this endeavor, even when time and troubles and life itself have thrown roadblocks in the way.

A Walker in the Suburbs is not fashionable, it’s not slick. It’s just a few words every day. But it’s a place to collect my thoughts, and it reminds me that if you stick with a project, in the end you have a body of work. As you can see from my first post (linked and pasted below) that’s all I ever wanted.
February 7, 2010
Blue skies today and people are stirring again. I went out early with the camera to capture the trees covered in white. Already the high branches are bare, blown clean of snow, springlike with swollen buds. The fir trees look like models from a miniature of the North Pole, their snowy covering like sugar icing. It’s colder today, about 15 when I woke up, and every so often a breeze blows the snow off the trees and creates a whirl of white, a brief flicker of snow fog. I think back two days ago to those first flakes in the Target parking lot. From those first flakes this white world was wrought. The snow has clung to every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow, crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words.
(Thanks to Celia for her wonderful congratulations sign!) 
There’s an App for That

There’s an App for That

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This morning I heard on the radio what I thought was a victory speech from my favorite candidate (or at least the candidate who would be my favorite if this was an ordinary election season). It was a hopeful, aspirational speech and held within it the promise of true change, both political and generational.

But before I could get too carried away I switched to the station carrying news headlines — and learned there was no clear winner yet in Iowa. The new app that had been heralded only a few days before, the technology that was to make the results more robust and trustworthy … was not working.

So the speech I heard was not only hopeful in terms of our nation’s future — but hopeful in terms of a victory that has not yet (and may not) happen.

As Alice would say, things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Happy Palindrome Day!

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Today’s date — 02-02-2020 — is not only a palindrome; it is a palindrome of all palindromes. One that applies in all date formats (whether month or day goes first).

According to those in the know, the last time there was such a day (11/11/1111) was 909 (itself a palindrome) years ago. And the next time it will come again is 101 (palindrome) years from now, 12/12/2121.

To make it even more special, today is the 33rd day of the year, and there are 333 more to go.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Modern Day MLK?

Modern Day MLK?

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We need another Dr. Martin Luther King, a modern-day voice crying in the wilderness. We need someone who has a positive vision and can motivate others to follow it; someone grounded in faith who has moral clarity. Someone who understands sacrifice and can inspire others to make one.

I think about how the world sometimes gives us the people we need when we need them. Abraham Lincoln to keep our nation together. King to lead the Civil Rights movement.

We don’t always treat our heroes well, of course. King and Lincoln were both assassinated. In their case history righted the wrong, and they ultimately received the honors they were due. But honor is not what they were seeking. It was a cause beyond themselves, a greater good.

It’s hard to imagine such a person appearing now, someone who could heal the partisanship, who could bind us together again as one nation. But I’m an optimist. I have to believe there might be.

(Photo: Wikipedia)