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From a Distance

From a Distance

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As the country grows ever more politicized, reading the newspaper becomes an ever more fraught occupation.

I could dive right into op-eds supporting my views, and I often do, but today I didn’t want the echo chamber. I wanted what we don’t have, proof of wise heads.

So instead, I looked deep inside the front section. There was an article on how Congo has controlled Ebola: a sorely needed good-news story. Of all the nations in the world, Congo is the best at tracking the disease. One seldom hears that any African nation is “best at” at anything, so this was doubly good.

Then there was a bizarre piece on strife and lawsuits in the Buzz Aldrin family. His children think he’s losing it, so they have seized assets. He’s suing to have them back.

Buzz Aldrin, the article reminds us, is the second man to walk on the moon. He once described it as having a “magnificent desolation.”

Thanks to this phrase, I’m lifted beyond the Supreme Court decisions and retirements and the upcoming meeting with Putin. I’m looking at the blue marble. In my head, words to the song “From a Distance”:

From a distance the world looks blue and green
And the snow capped mountains white
From a distance the ocean meets the stream
And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
It’s the voice of hope
It’s the voice of peace
It’s the voice of every man…

Lucky Thirteen

Lucky Thirteen

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Just because we had a triple crown winner three years ago doesn’t make Justify’s victory in the Belmont on Saturday any less impressive. He was only the 13th horse to achieve such a feat in the last century. The first was  in 1919, there were three in the 1930s, four in the 1940s, three in the 1970s … then a 37 year drought till American Pharoah won in 2015.

Justify’s jockey, Mike Smith, says the colt has an “old soul.” Not sure about that, but the horse was subtle, sneaking up on us in the midst of other exciting spots news. The Stanley Cup finals, the NBA finals, the French Open, the World Cup. But he didn’t come from behind to win. He led all the way around the mile-and-a-half track, and he made it look easy, which is how all great champions do it.

Celia and I watched the race together in the basement, and we were both whooping and hollering. I like to think I schooled my girls in the important things of life: the thrill of horse racing, especially when a Triple Crown is at stake; the importance of hard work; and the need for enthusiasm.  Especially the latter.

(Photo: This low-res pic made possible by Wikipedia)

Good Night, John Boy

Good Night, John Boy

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I’m remembering Mother’s Days of the past, including my first as a mother, which was also my first day in the Virginia house.  I can remember another a few years later, including a meal at a now-defunct restaurant when the cleaning crew started sweeping around our table mid-meal because the girls had made such a mess — and we swore we wouldn’t eat out again as a family for at least 10 years.

I can remember so many other Mother’s Days with my own dear mother, and how I would sometimes have breakfast with her and dinner with my daughters.

Yesterday I hung out all day with the girls, laughing over old times and new times, buying and planting flowers, sipping Mimosas, sharing laughs and eating way too much yummy food. One of the highlights was when Celia unveiled this Mother’s Day card, riffing on my fave show (from eons ago), the Walton’s — complete with Capehart stand-ins (including dogs and cats). We roared over this one!

Feeling so grateful this morning, so thankful that these smart, funny, beautiful young women are my daughters.

Lesson in Resilience

Lesson in Resilience

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Martin Luther King “ran out of certainty but never faith.” This from an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. In it, Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick remind us that King had become unpopular by 1968. There was a great weariness in him. But there was also resilience. It’s the resilience we need to remember now.

One of the great surprises to me in all the MLK coverage this month is to realize how young he was: only 39 years old when he was assassinated 50 years ago today. Perhaps it was the weight of the weariness that made him look older than his years.

Here’s Kendrick and Kendrick again: “Fifty years later, it would look too familiar to the King of 1968 to see our continued economic inequality, hawkishness, backlash to civil rights gains, and racist violence from Charleston to Charlottesville. His response then was to resist exhaustion from the deluge of issues and to enlarge his work instead, hold firm his insistence.”

King’s insistence, his persistence, his grace under pressure, is a lesson to us all.

Easter Monday

Easter Monday

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Easter has its own rhythm, different from Christmas or Thanksgiving. Church comes first.

Yesterday, through some miracle of timing, Suzanne arrived only minutes after we did, which meant she could park her ambrosia salad, backpack, running tights and jogging shoes in the car and slide into the seat we saved in the big sanctuary.

The sermon was more honest than others I recall. It was as if the priest was trying to convince himself of the significance of the empty tomb. His conclusion: there must be something to it, because of all the good people we know who are gone, and because of the incompleteness of life.

A cynic — heck, even a realist — could easily counter these arguments. Of course, there are good people in the world, but that doesn’t mean there’s a God and an afterlife. As for incompleteness, that’s why we have irony.

But I was touched at the honest homily. The priest is one I’ve seen for years, and he looked noticeably older this year, walked with a cane. Maybe he’s working out some things in his own mind. Whatever the case, I appreciated his candor.

In the end, he said, it all comes down to faith.

And so it does.


(Detail from the Cambodian monastery at Lumbini, birthplace of the Buddha)

A Woman, Writing

A Woman, Writing

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This morning I passed a woman in the lobby. She was sitting in a chair, writing in her journal.

Not tapping on her phone, not scrolling down the tiny screen. But engaged with the paper and the pen.

I noticed this not only because I believe in it and practice it, but because it is so rare.

When you address the page, the page does not talk back to you. It absorbs your words, the wise and the silly. It gives you space, a blank expanse without spell-check or word complete. For that reason, it is serene, even empowering.

Today is International Woman’s Day. I just wrote and posted a story to celebrate it. But when I think of Woman’s Day 2018, what I’ll keep in mind is not a year of marches and #metoo. It’s the quiet communion of writer and page. It’s the image of a woman writing.

(Pensive, a painting by Edmund Blair Leighton)

Many Questions, No Answers

Many Questions, No Answers

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It’s a Monday that doesn’t feel like a Monday, and I’ve been reading about the Parkland shooting, listening to the young voices, learning about the cracks that Nicholas Cruz slipped through.

That we starve social services of the funds they need to help the mentally ill is a given. That our nation is awash in guns is another given. And then there are the deeper causes, the values we no longer hold dear, the center that no longer holds.

How to bind these wounds? How to mend these broken hearts? Especially when solutions are labeled liberal or conservative, and when those labels prevent us from talking honestly about what has happened and what can be done.

How to come together for the common good?

I fear we’ve forgotten how.

Year of the Dog

Year of the Dog

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It’s Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dog, the eleventh of the zodiac. I read that the Dog is associated with the earthly branch and the hours 7 to 9 in the evening. When it comes to yin and yang, Dogs are “yang.”

This doesn’t mean a lot to me. When I think of the Year of the Dog, I think of our dog, Copper, and I think of every year.

Copper is treated like a little king in this house. He lounges on beds, has grated cheese sprinkled over his kibble, and is walked frequently. His barks and whines are tolerated well, as are his middle-of-the-night requests for basement access (this only when it’s raining).

When it comes to Copper, much is given … but much is received. Copper is loving and snuggly. His big soulful eyes seem to know all. And when he jumps on the couch (like so many of his antics once forbidden and now tolerated), he pushes his back up against my leg. I’m his security blanket. But often, he is mine.

Changing Places

Changing Places

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For some reason the management company that owns my office building has set out furniture and plants, set up a coffee bar, a wine bar, hung fabric sculptures on the wall and set potted plants in the corners. When I left last night, a singer was crooning in the lobby.

We’re not sure what’s behind this sudden show of largesse, though some of us suspect rental fees will be rising soon. Is it to build community? To advertise art (some of those fabric sculptures are for sale)? To humanize?

I had the idea for this post before I heard the news from Florida. Seventeen dead in another school shooting. Can we trade this world for another? Because I’m not sure I want to live in this one anymore. Can I put chairs in my lobby and art on my walls? Can I pretend I live somewhere that I do not?

Golden Hearts

Golden Hearts

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Last night I watched pairs skating and thought about love, the glancing touch, moving together, moving alone.  Head-spinning and heart-stopping. Can there be a more perfect evocation of romantic love than these dancers on ice?

Cut to a commercial, followed by another scene, another Olympic venue. The once-vanquished hero returns to scenes of former glory. He had spent some dark days, was challenged by young competitors, worked hard and risked much.

Can he do it again? He bounces on his board and takes off on his last run. And he is flying, cork-screwing, skittering in the air, defying death (it seems to me) with every swoop and curve. And yes, he has what it takes, he wins the gold.

Afterward, he smiles, pumps his fists, makes his way into the crowd where he finds … his mother. And he falls into her arms, sobbing.

Another kind of love.

(Photo: Wikipedia)