A Mighty Wind

A Mighty Wind

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Sitting in church yesterday, thinking about Pentecost, not just the upper room and the “rushing mighty wind,” but the many tongues and how the apostles heard each language as if it were their own, I decided, in a distinctly non-theological way, that this is a feast of clarity.

To hear the many but harken only to the one. To walk in confusion but know the way. Of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit I suppose it is the second, understanding.

But there is an aural quality to it. That from a cacophony of noise came one still voice. From a meaningless melange of sounds came one true melody.

It was the gift of discernment. The mighty wind blew everything else away. What remained was what is essential. That’s what they received.

Screen Door

Screen Door

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The air is soft, the birds are singing, it’s time for the screen door.

A screen door breaks down the barrier between outside and in. It lets the air move freely between the two worlds.

Out go the dim lights, hot soups and thick socks of winter. In come the bright sun, cool salads and bare feet of summer. 

This is not our screen door; it’s the screen door of my brother- and sister-in-law in Portland.  We haven’t used our screen door since we got an energetic dog. Copper also sees a screen as a way to break down the barrier between outside and in — but in a more direct and less metaphorical way.

So I keep the back door open (no screen at all) and remember a time when the slap of the screen door closing meant summer and all of its freedoms.

Zoobiquity

Zoobiquity

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Authors Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., and Kathryn Bowers coined the word “zoobiquity” to describe their efforts to use animal behavior and the latest finds of veterinary science to solve some of the great puzzles of human medicine.

Take fainting, for instance. Turns out that animals faint, too, and can better elude predators when they do. It’s not just “flight or fight,” then, but “flight, fight or faint.” A important lesson — that stillness is another way to fight stress.

Or take obesity. It’s common in the animal world, and studies on dragonflies raise the possibility that the condition might be caused by a parasite, raising the more intriguing possibility that obesity might be infectious.

Natterson-Horowitz, a cardiologist and psychiatrist, has observed first-hand what fear can do to the human heart — and she honed her theories by learning about animal hearts, how restraint or fear of capture can kill an otherwise healthy bird or beast. She then applies this to what is known about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and a study that found a threefold greater risk of this among swaddled (i.e., restrained) babies put to sleep on their stomachs and exposed to a loud noise. The combination of noise and restraint triggers a slowdown of the heart in the young of many species, Natterson-Horowitz says, and calls for more collaboration among animal physiologists and pediatricians. “Powerful yet vulnerable, the heart-brain alliance usually saves lives,” the authors write. “But every once in a while, it can also end one.”

Zoobiquity is big-picture thinking at its best.

Piping for Police

Piping for Police

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Walked out of the office yesterday and right into a … bagpipe rehearsal. This is one of the wonderful things about city life, the strange little surprises of it.

Since bagpipes in concert often sound like bagpipes in rehearsal, bagpipes in rehearsal sound like, well, you get the idea. Let’s just say I didn’t linger in the alley.

A few paces later it all came together — it was a parade for Police Week. All up and down E Street, uniformed officers were gathering. My walk to Metro Center takes me right past the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, where the names of fallen officers are inscribed.

Turns out that today, May 15, is Peace Officers Memorial Day. A bad day to jaywalk, but a good day to be grateful for police protection. Oh, and a good day for bagpipes, too.

(The view from my alley.)

Cold May Day

Cold May Day

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As I write, the temperature hovers above freezing. 35 degrees on May 14!

Cold spring days are the smell of cut grass in nippy air. They are the crisp edge of morning when dawn is brisk as well as bright. They are lingering dogwood, preserved by the chill.

The seasons bump up against each other, one ready to begin and the other not ready to leave.

I know how this story ends.

The question is when.

A Mother, Driving

A Mother, Driving

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A woman who can have breakfast with her mother and dinner with her children is lucky indeed. But for me to pull this off required a 525-mile drive.

It’s not as odd as it seems to spend Mother’s Day driving. In fact, I’ve done much of my mothering from behind the wheel. I’ve soothed tempers, given pep talks, supervised fights, hammered out college choices and discussed everything from God to boys to algebra (though not necessarily in that order).

Like talking and walking, talking and driving offers great freedom of conversation. You are both looking forward, not at each other (at least for the child riding shotgun), and that frees people to say what’s really on their minds.

I was recalling some of those conversations yesterday — not just the ones where I was the mother, but the ones where I was the daughter, too. My mother and I have solved most of the world’s problems on long drives. And in the recollection of all those words flying lies great peace and strength.

So on Mother’s Day I celebrated not just the bonds between generations, the mother I have and the mother I hope I am, but I also honored that unsung vehicle of mothering, the vehicle itself.

One Thousand

One Thousand

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If it was a year it would be medieval. If it was a jackpot it would be negligible. If it was a score it would be … well, high. (Can’t seem to find a sport where 1,000 is even possible, let alone perfection.)

This morning, one thousand (1,000 in the Associated Press style to which I am accustomed but which I don’t always follow here) is the number of blog posts I’ve written since February 7, 2010. 

Not perfection, not even close, but a tidy sum — about 900 more than I thought I would write.  Because I seldom write on Sunday, it will be an even one thousand for two days running.

So today I’m savoring a number: One thousand, or even better, one thousand and counting.


(There are many more than one thousand grains of sand on this beach.)

The Resort

The Resort

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I can make it in eight hours pedal-to-the-metal. Eight hours from my house to my parents’ two states away. Eight hours from one role to another, eight hours from one set of duties to another. Eight hours of driving, thinking, listening to music, fiddling with the radio, eating pretzels, chewing gum and sipping tea (those last three to stay awake).

Yesterday I pulled off at one of my favorite rest stops, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and took a trail I’d never noticed before. It circled back behind the visitor’s center, up a little rise, along a path of soft, springy pine needles. At the end of the trail there was a panoramic view of the Greenbrier Resort, one of those fabled old-time places known for discrete luxury.

I looked at the white building and manicured lawn and wondered what I would do if I was there. Read? Swim? Bike? Have a massage or manicure? Pamper myself? Eat too much rich food?

I’m sure it would be nice, but not high on my list. On the other hand, I was delighted to have found this trail, to stretch my legs and take this tiny hike. So I stood for a while and savored the view. The drive is my Greenbrier, I said to myself, my one-day respite. During the eight hours I’m neither mother, nor wife, nor daughter. I am just me, out for a spin, exploring the person I used to be.

Earlier Kind of Morning

Earlier Kind of Morning

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As mornings dawn earlier and earlier, these last few cloudy days bring a brief pause, a few days that start as slowly as earlier, more wintry ones.

I love how summer mornings dawn bright and strong, with bird song and sunshine before 6. But I also appreciate the dim, still kind of morning.

The kind that gives you a chance to wake up slowly. The kind we have today.

Tweaking the Commute

Tweaking the Commute

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The general idea is to shorten the commute, find the cut-through, the shortcut, the (quicker) road not taken.

Lately, I’ve done the opposite, adding a longer walk in the afternoon and sometimes (today, for instance) in the morning, too; strolling to a Metro stop farther from my office, savoring the time I spend in the places in between.

En route I think of my great commutes in New York City, walking to and from midtown Manhattan from the Upper West Side and, later on, the Village.

The goal is to exercise, decompress, let the day begin (or end) on a vigorous, active, mind-toggling note. The reality is even better.