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Joy in Mudville

Joy in Mudville

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I have to laugh at myself every time I write a sports post, which has been more recently than usual lately. But it’s certainly worth a shout-out that the Nationals have won the National League Championship and are going to the World Series!

It was only two weeks ago that I was gushing about the wildcard berth D.C. had won in the National League playoffs. Now they are the National League champs!

Of course, their next assignment is a difficult one. Even I’ve heard of the Astro’s prowess. But for this town, with its losing football team, impeachment proceedings and month-and-a-half-long rain drought, this is very good news indeed.

It looks like rain today … and there’s joy in Mudville, too.

(Nats Park photo: courtesy Wikipedia)

Indigenous

Indigenous

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As various news stories are reporting, there is no Columbus Day in the District of Columbia this year. Instead, there is Indigenous People’s Day.  Rather than weighing in on either side of the matter, I thought I would riff on the word indigenous itself.

It comes from the Latin “indigena,” meaning native, and I like thinking of it that way. That which is original, that which is true. Which can mean the plants that grow or the people who plant and tend them. Indigenous speaks of a connection to the land.

If we think of indigenous as native, though, then are we not all indigenous peoples? Every single one of us?  We may hail from the mountains or the prairies, the cities or the small towns. We may have grown up in a house or an apartment or a far-off yurt.

But each of us belongs somewhere. And belonging can unite rather than divide us.

Reaching Out

Reaching Out

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Last night at a neighborhood gathering I learned about the tragic death of a young father whom I’d met on a walk about a year ago. I only spoke once with him and his wife. They’d just bought a house whose former occupants I knew, and had just found a little snake when I happened by.

I assured them the snake wasn’t poisonous and that these things happen around here. (I’ve found snakes in our house a few times.) The couple was friendly, and for once I wasn’t hurrying so we could talk. We chatted about the neighborhood, I met their darling 6-year-old twins, and I’d think of the family often when I walked past their house.

Over the summer things didn’t seem right there. The house and yard looked abandoned, with tall grass and unkempt hedges. The couple was from India, so I thought maybe they’d taken an extended vacation to visit family.

But last night I learned the truth. The husband died suddenly months ago. The wife is staying here with her children, with various relatives coming over to help. Life has changed radically for this family.

Once I took in the news with its sadness, its revelation of that which we understand though seldom acknowledge — that life can change in an instant — what I was left with was the inadequacy of superficial knowledge.

We walkers in the suburbs think we’re keeping an eye on things, but really we see just the barest outline of it all.  To be fully plugged in means more than just walking through; it means staying put, listening, talking — reaching out.

Morning After

Morning After

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On the morning after Congress announced the beginning of impeachment proceedings against the 45th president of the United States, I picked the newspaper up off the driveway as I usually do, knowing, before I opened it, how much there would be inside to read.

I had been glued to the television the night before, uncharacteristically watching news instead of a British soap opera, and yet I had to have more of it this morning. This is the way things are now — that after two and a half years of craziness, there will be even more.

Sometimes I think that we’ve all become addicted to craziness, that we won’t know what to do if we ever again have a bland status quo.

But then again, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that for a while.

(A blurry Washington, D.C., seen from above and afar. Looks a little like an Impressionist painting, doesn’t it?)

The Golden Hour

The Golden Hour

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I almost bailed at the last minute. Standing on the platform in Crystal City, worn out from the usual, I almost jumped on the Blue Line train, which would have connected me to the Orange Line and home.

But I stuck to the plan I’d come up with earlier, which was to drain the last drop from the day, to walk around D.C. in the “golden hour,” the one favored by photographers, when light slants low and fetchingly across the landscape.

So I hopped on a Yellow Line train, rode a few stops north into the District, and exited at L’Enfant Plaza. I strolled east down the Mall toward the Capitol, then pivoted and walked west, directly into the setting sun. I missed the bustle of the lunchtime crowd, but the light made up for it.

It created an aurora behind the Monument, dramatic and striking. But I preferred what it did to the red sandstone of the Smithsonian castle, how it warmed and illuminated it, changing it from dour to delightful.

Ambling through the Enid Haupt Garden with its orchids, magnolias and dhobi trees, I felt like I was in some Mediterranean palace. The red stone was terra-cotta and the splash of the fountain was the distant sigh of the sea.

Back in Business

Back in Business

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The Washington Monument took a beating in the 2011 earthquake. Visitors inside the observation deck at the time were jostled and struck by falling mortar, and the temblor cracked the obelisk, displacing old stones. 

The monument was closed, then opened, then closed again.  It’s been three years since anyone was allowed up in it, but it’s back in business today. Coincidentally, I happened by the monument last evening, just in time to snap some shots of our spiffed-up national icon.

Here’s what Robert Winthrop said at dedication of the Washington Monument in 1885:

“The storms of winter must blow and beat upon it … the lightnings of Heaven may scar and blacken it. An earthquake may shake its foundations … but the character which it commemorates and illustrates is secure.”

Farewell, Express

Farewell, Express

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Yesterday I picked up the Express newspaper offered to me by our Vienna hawker Bobbie. I don’t always get this abbreviated, tabloid giveaway version of the Washington Post. But when I don’t have the parent paper or something else to read, I pick it up. And I always take it if Bobbie offers it to me. He’s a kind soul whose feelings might be hurt if I did not.

But sometimes when I do have the parent paper and Bobbie holds out the Express, I pick it up … then gently place it on top of the trash can at the entrance to Metro. I don’t throw it away — no one has read it yet! — but I do put it up for adoption.

That’s what I did yesterday, not even glancing at the headline. Then, on the way home, I saw a copy of Express someone had left behind on the bus. “Hope you enjoy your stinking’ phones” said the headline, which caught my eye, then below, the small print: “Add Express to the list of print publications done in by mobile technology. Sadly, this is our final edition.”

As you can tell, I’m not an everyday Express reader, but I’m a common-enough one to mourn its passing. There was an irreverence about it, and it was informative, too. Now, another print publication bites the dust, 20 journalists lose their jobs, and a community culture goes away (because Express hawkers drew commuters together).

I’ll let Express have the last word here. This is from a small item on its inside front cover:

Nation Shocked! Shocked!
Traditional print news product abruptly goes out of business
In news that scandalized a nation, The Washington Post Express abruptly shut down Thursday, citing falling readership and insufficient revenue. Apparently, everyone riding the D.C. Metro now looks at their phones instead of reading print newspapers. Express editors will miss the newspaper and its readers very much. It has been a pleasure and an honor to provide commuters with this daily dose of this odd news.

Still Green

Still Green

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An evening walk after rain, fir trees dripping, sky a mottled blue with pink around the edges.  I take my time, and Copper wants to saunter, too.

It’s slightly cool and very moist. The sound of gurgling from the neighbor’s fountain matches the general wetness, though I notice that our driveway seems much damper than the street.

Two doors down I spot a bluebird flitting from branch to branch, flashing its bright plumage in the dusk.  A few steps away a giant arborvitae towers over a small culvert that is fenced off with split rails and a tough vine that sports purple flowers earlier in the season. In the meadow, a soft mist is gathering in the twilight.

Copper and I turn around under the large maple that will be flaming scarlet in a month or so. But for now … it’s still green.

Holding On

Holding On

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What helps the beach state remain? I’m asking myself that question today, as I feel it slipping away.

I was off to a good start on the way home: a plane so empty that each passenger had his or her own row of seats.

Then a late-day landing that showcased the Washington Monument and the Capitol, the graceful spans across the Potomac, the compact graciousness of the place.

But today there was the long commute into Arlington, the work call that came in before I reached the office, the emails, the to-dos that piled up when I was gone.

Welcome back, they say.  I try not to listen. I hold onto the beach state for dear life!

Small Fry

Small Fry

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I tore through Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ memoir Small Fry in a few days. It’s honest and it’s titillating, since Lisa’s father is Steve Jobs, and his paternal behavior is quite strange, to put it mildly.

Steve has little to do with Lisa and her mother (who he never married) in the beginning, and only acknowledges paternity under duress. Eventually, he has a relationship with Lisa, albeit an unusual one. They skate together, have dinner together and in high school Lisa even lives with Steve and his wife and son. But it’s a relationship fraught with uncertainty and even meanness. Steve won’t admit he named his Lisa computer after his daughter. He belittles Lisa and refuses to pay for her last year of college. Lisa has the final word, though, in the way of all memorable memoirists.

What I liked best about Lisa’s writing was when she described the California of her youth, the sights and smells of the land she came alive to: “Here the soil was black and wet and fragrant; beneath rocks I discovered small red bugs, pink- and ash-colored worms, thin centipedes, and slate-colored woodlice that curled into armored spheres when I bothered them. The air smelled of eucalyptus and sunshine-warmed dirt, moisture, cut grass.”

It reminds me of George Eliot’s line: “We would never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.”