Community/Interconnectedness

“We understand the assignment!”

This will be brief:

A huge fan of Kamala Harris since she’d run for president, I’ve owned a “Kamala” baseball cap since May 0f 2019. (Or as we say these days, “pre-COVID.”) After that debacle of a debate, I’d been wearing it— and having uplifting, positive, chance-encounter conversations with women of all ages. Lots of thumbs up, too. (from men, too, of course.) Within an hour of Biden’s history-making announcement, my hat and I needed to get to Harvard Square; a middle-aged man, walking in the opposite direction, saw us. And stopped, right there, on the sidewalk: “Wait! What? How did you get that so fast?”

Sweetheart? Women have been wearing this hat for centuries. We’re more than ready.

We understand the assignment.

T Is For Tia—and Also For Terrific!

Saturday, an exquisite, sunny day in greater Boston, I was seated on a crowded T car when a multi-generational, Spanish-speaking family got on and, miraculously, found seats nearby. Even the two little girls’ balloon-made unicorn and blue-eyelashed doll got seats. Not enough room for the whole family to sit in a row together, the older girl, maybe ten, and her unicorn sat on my side of the train and next to her aunt—I’m guessing that’s who she is. The doll, her sister—or maybe her cousin—her grandmother, and two hot, tired adults, a young man and woman busy on their phones, faced us. Like many grandmothers, Abuela sat in the midst of her family closely watching her family’s going-ons.

As the Green Line train screeched out of North Station towards Union Square, it became clear that the child beside me struggled with anxiety. Something my daughters and I know a little something about. Everything she saw out the dirty T window alarmed her. And so began a running dialogue in English: “Oh! A wall. I hope we don’t hit it. What if we crash? What if we roll over? What if we . . . ”

“Tia” intervened—also in English: “We are completely safe, ” she assured the stressed-out child in a firm, quiet, loving voice. “Smart people have already thought about every single thing, every single problem that you can come up with. They’re very well-trained, they know what they’re doing. And very smart, very hard-working mechanics work on these cars, too. They fix things. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

Now I know as well as “Auntie” that our T has a host of problems! But Auntie didn’t go there. She expertly did what nurturers are supposed to do: help a stressed child feel safe. Soothe. What I especially admired about this care-giver’s calming-technique was how she invoked an entire community of caring adults whose job it is to make sure everyone’s safe. Legions got your back! (Am I imagining it or did her “smart people” hint at the link between education and community and how you too, Mi Sobrina, could be one of those smart people who do stuff to help keep us all safe?)

This brief exchange reminds me of how blessed I and my daughters and grandchildren have been by our “Aunties” be they actual relatives or de facto Tias and Tios, who’ve jumped in, nurtured, soothed, offered much-needed advice. What a blessing!

What Part of Community (Path) Do You Not Understand?

Another guerrilla gardener has struck! Another delightful installation along Somerville’s newly-created community path, built strictly for bikers and walkers, this little glimpse o’ beauty near the East Somerville T stop. Power to the pinwheel planter! And kudos, too, GG, for that desperately-needed greenery you’ve encouraged. “Green the Green Line,” indeed! You rock!

For, as an avid bicyclist-activist—who shall be nameless—recently noted about that chain link, gravel, and asphalt-centric space, “I’m really excited it’s finally done. But why does it have to be so ugly?” An excellent question. And I’d sure our community path’s countless users ask the same thing. All the time.

But, hey: we don’t call ourselves Villens for nuthin’. In the spirit of Elfland (Remember Elfland?), in the spirit of Honk!, in the spirit of all the people who’d contributed sculptures, gardens, and other installations along the older and established Davis Square community path, in the spirit of those community activists who’d fought for a Green Line extension in the first place (How our two, new Green Line branches have actually worked out is a whole other subject), and , yes, in the spirit of taggers, too, let’s keep this guerrilla gardening going. And growing.

Let’s plot!

“Sensible and Human Things”

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atom bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting with our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep.

[C.S. Lewis, 1948]

Climate disruption and endless war and global health issues and political unrest undeniably lurking, looming, can we be sensible and human? Can we, despite our fears and how numbingly and satisfyingly comforting it is to scroll, scroll, scroll, can we keep on keepin’ on? Can we co-create the just, equitable, radically-inclusive world we yearn for? Can we remember to be silly? Can we celebrate this precious gift of life. Loudly? And together. In a park, maybe, or having taken over city streets. Let’s sing together, not just “Amazing Grace” or “This Land Is Your Land,” but maybe something written in this century. (“Imagine”!) Let’s dance as if no one’s watching. Let’s shout out whatever/whoever is precious: our grandchildren’s names. “Guernica.” Mount Ararat. Blue Whale. Lake Superior (which, let’s face it, really is.)

Let’s be grateful.

Let’s get to work.

“Sorry!”

[Walgreen’s, February 3, 2020]

This week, as I continue to read the amazing On Repentance And Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, a snippet from one of my favorite movies, “A Thousand Clowns” nudged me. And, lo, fifty-nine years later, this cinematic moment is actually better than what I remember! (It’s “scientific.”)

Unapologetically sick and worn-out this week, I am delighted to let Jason Robards/”Murray” explains what he’s discovered:

Enjoy!

Lumi means “snow” in Finnish; it also means Light.

I’m not a dog person. Which means quizzical-verging-on-contemptuous looks from the numerous dog owners in my neighborhood as I briskly walk past their adorable fur balls without comment or gushing. (“Sorry. I really don’t mean to offend you. I’m just not into your pet, okay?”) But, serendipitously, the same week an intriguing article on dog tail-wagging came out, which examines the long-term relationship between dogs and humans, a blue-eyed husky named Lumi reminded me that “dog” backwards is “God.”

This spiritual awakening happened like this: I was in New Hampshire visiting dog-owning family and offered the opportunity to try snowshoeing. Which I instantly loved! Although walking on snowshoes is a lot like wearing the heaviest, most mud-caked boots ever, snowshoes allow you to trudge on fresh, deep snow. (Duh.) So silence-lovin’ me immediately saw how eerily quiet and reverent such unsullied walks could be. And if, given global warming, it makes sense to buy me a pair, I’m in. (How do I even figure this out!)

Not that our Saturday trek was all that quiet. Two parents, one granddaughter, two dogs, plus me meant a less than worshipful stroll. Especially when Lumi would suddenly stop to frantically dig some piled-high snowbank. And have to be scolded, again and again, “Leave it!” Huh?

Under all that pristine, glistening snow were woodland creatures—and Lumi could hear them?! That stopped me in my tracks. (Which probably looked like Grammy catching her breath.) It wasn’t just the sudden gestalt when recognizing the symbiosis between ancient humans and dogs unearthing what’s for dinner tonight that earned my slack-jawed awe. I stared at Lumi as if seeing God made manifest: “You heard chipmunks or field mice or . . . under all that snow? What an amazing creature you are!”

And dog-owners get this, right? They get to have moments when their pets remind them: “Actually, creation is not anthropocentric. Humans just assume it is. If we’re incredibly lucky, we humans may be in a long-term relationship with lots of life forms. Dog willing.”

What Am I Called To Do (with asterisks)?:

To listen another’s soul into a condition of disclosure

and discovery may be almost the greatest service

one human being ever performs for another.

Douglas Steere

As my father got more and more frail and his children and grandchildren had begun to take on the major responsibilities at family get-togethers, leaving him with nothing to do, he’d say, “Never mind. I’ll just sit in the corner and drool.” He didn’t drool. But sometimes a younger family member would pull up a chair, sit down beside him, and listen to his stories. Which were wonderful.

As I and the warring, climate-disrupted world we all inhabit get more and more frail, asking the Universe: “What am I called to do?” seems an existential/spiritual question with some asterisks:

* at almost-eighty.

* that doesn’t add to my carbon footprint if I choose to witness/show up/minister.

*that would actually make a difference yet which I, on a fixed-income, can afford.

(You get the idea.)

Lately I have been pondering some ways we potential droolers might be useful in this unimaginably challenging time. Let me count the ways (so far):

Like the wonderful Steere quote, we can listen as others share their grief, their fears, their suffering.

Like my father, we can share own experiences; we can offer a long-view perspective. No, let’s be clear, there has never been a time quite so fraught (my dad’s word) as this. Yet surely our stories contain some nuggets the present generations might appreciate? Dare I say learn from? (Some buy-in’s probably required. Someone willingly chose to sit beside my father. Someone needs to ask us to recount the time when . . ., right?)

We can speak to the non-binary-All because we, too have suffered. We, too, have experienced unmitigated joy. And here we are. Our breath of experience adds more to the spectrum of What Being Conscious Is About, the All of it, its spectacular, wondrous, terrifying, maddening, unlimited array of experiences.

And, finally, this: I have seen what Love can do. Love is thoroughly embedded in that All; Its all-embracing power continually takes my breath away. It feels naive—silly—to write that, now, as wars wage everywhere. Everywhere! Yet over a lifetime, in the midst of conflict, when I remembered to speak or to act from a place of Love, everything shifted. Improved. Softened. This I know at almost-eighty.

Where is Love in Gaza? Where is Love in Ukraine? Yemen? The streets of Haiti, the streets of vandalized San Francisco? That’s impossible to say. What I can say is this: some of us along Elder Path may want to listen to your grief, your rage, your fears. Grateful to be able to experience this “greatest service one human being ever performs for another,” we can hear you with Love.

Moving Day

Years ago my Mets fan son-in-law, he and my daughter toying with the idea of leaving The Big Apple to live in Boston, did a really smart thing: he rode the T.*

“Nope,” he declared, when he finally made it home.** “Too many young people.”

He wasn’t wrong. With its 64 colleges and universities, greater Boston’s demographics are definitely skewed. Some MovingDay/Labor Day weekends, when thousands of people under the age of twenty-five return to this part of the world, I celebrate our region’s abundance of youthful energy. Some years: not so much.

This year, for an abundance of reasons, I teetered. (Pretty sure that our planet’s burning up has made me a little cranky.) But Friday, aka Moving Day, in late afternoon, as I walked in my neighborhood, its sidewalks strewn with all the stuff—like dish drainers and books—no one could deal with after a long, hot day of hefting boxes and furniture, I overhead this:

She: “So how was it?”

He: (Blustery, upset): “It was. . . ” (Stops. Considers; calmly) “I had an experience.”

She: (Pauses; warmly) “Right.”

*The T is what we greater Bostonians call our (ancient, ailing, maddening) public transportation system.

**Did I mention slow, too?

“Hot Enough For Ya?”

Due to some fortuitous timing this week, a writing assignment arrived as if a prayed-for thunderstorm on a torrid summer day. What a gift! A new friend, Tom, drawn to the intersection of theater and truth-telling and brevity, encouraged me to write a five-minute play about climate change. (Tom’s helping to organize such a national festival.) So the same week when it’s this part of the world’s turn to endure a terrifying heat wave, I’ve been given the opportunity to write “Hot Enough For Ya?” (Believe it or not, this stringent attempt at truth-telling may be less than five minutes. Don’t blink!)

But here’s the thing: What most excites me is this: that generous gift. I was trying to explain why I’d felt so moved by this serendipity to a group of friends last night. “It was like the Universe was being kind, or my Muse showed up, or it was kind of like grace or . . . ” my voice trailed off.

A dear friend—whose childhood had been vastly different from mine—offered another version. “‘Krisha‘s mercy,’ it’s sometimes called.”

I love that!

Message Received

Every night for the past week or so, hours before dawn, a nearby robin begins to chirrup. And wakes me up. Now I’ve learned from countless dark-night-of-the-soul tossings and turnings that if I allow myself to think about anything negative, I will anxiously stew and stew and never fall back to sleep! So instead of focusing on how pissed I am to be awakened, I listen. With curiosity. “What do you want me to know ?” I sleepily ask that unseen, winged creature. For surely such relentless urgency deserves my attention, yes?

That his song is varied, complicated, intricate in my first half-awake discovery. Could it be that what I’m hearing is a sales pitch cum love song? An enthusiastic, juicy details, over-the-top description of his outstanding nest-building and sexual prowess? And when I hear a phrase repeated, it’s because, like any skilled sales person or lover, he’s sensed a theme, a riff, a woo he’s realizing has enormous appeal. So: repeat that bit. Of course!

But, dear robin, why this pre-dawn performance? Is it that the early bird gets the mate? Or are you, like my forsythia blooming two months early, thrown off kilter by climate change? Do you no longer know when dawn arrives? Are you, like all creatures great and small victimized by my species, deserving of my deepest compassion? Or does your pre-dawn performance mean something else?

I do know this: You, singing from a nearby branch or nest, and I, warm and dry in my luxuriant bed, both occupy the same tiny plot of land. You and I are neighbors. You’re relentlessly, emphatically here!

And that’s what you want me to know.

One Small Step for Sisterhood

[“My” Walgreen’s; February 3, 2020]

My husband and I have lost a step or two; we joke that soon we’ll “take all day” to walk to the bank, the post office, the library, the Market Basket right down the street. Until a week or so ago, we would have added “and our drug store” to this fortuitous list of convenient neighborhood services but: no. Because Walgreens will now only sell the FDS-approved drug Mifepristone in states where abortion is legal, we’ll be shlepping to the CVS in Porter Square from now on.

Which, frankly, is a pain in the ass. Or, rather, the knees, the back, the quads, etc. Strolling a couple of blocks for more extra-strength, 10 mg. melatonin? No big deal. Hiking a mile to fetch this now-a-staple in my post-pandemic, anxious life? Not a walk in the park.

But when I consider my outrage at the overturning of Roe, when I read articles like this? I’ll manage just fine, thank you very much! My anger—no, rage—will put a kick in my step. And with every step I’ll hold my sisters in the 24 states that have banned abortion or are likely to do so in the Light.

Deep In My Heart I Do Believe

In 1966, I joined a handful of other Wheelock College seniors to research cultural opportunities for greater Boston children. We interviewed the well-dressed and pleasant middle-aged woman in charge of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s children’s concerts; we probably met with her counterpart at the Museum of Fine Arts, too. (Who can remember?)

What I do remember, cringy-vividly, was our meeting with Mel King, then director of a settlement house in the South End—which housed a children’s arts school. Given those pre-civil-rights-movement times, given how little Wheelock interacted with Boston’s Black and Brown children in those days, our meeting now seems a miracle! But someone at Wheelock recommended we interview the tall, remarkably tall, gracious, long-time Boston activist. Who may have given us a tour of the art school; I don’t remember.

But I know this: as our time with him was coming to an end, having heard of the others we’d already interviewed, he’d said, “You know, a street festival is a cultural opportunity for children, too.”

I thought about that life-changing remark last night watching the Huntington Theater’s latest production: “K- I- S- S- I- N- G.”

“Could you or I ever imagine seeing a play at the Huntington Theater written by a woman of color, directed by another Black woman, with an all-people-of-color cast?” I would have loved to ask that lovely man. (Who died in 1983.) “Or, like that foundational street festival, that this cultural opportunity reflected and affirmed and, yes, celebrated the lived experience of the majority of the people sitting in that audience? And that this majority would mean that when it was announced that Roxbury-raised Thomika Bridwell, understudy for “Dot,” would be stepping in tonight, Ms. Bridwell received a hearty hometown shout-out?” (She was amazing BTW.)

I certainly couldn’t.