Creatures Among Us

 

My neighborhood is within the city limits of the District of Columbia but it has the distinct feel of an older suburb: single family houses with yards (albeit small ones), lots of big trees, and as it turns out, more wildlife than you might expect. This weekend, on my walk to CVS, I spotted this black vulture perched on the dumpster in the alley. There's a small, high-end grocer there which touts its butcher. I've never dropped any money there -- it's so expensive and my meat eating is modest -- but I'm guessing that the vultures value the scraps. 

It got me to thinking about the wildlife in our midst. We have the usual squirrels (both gray and black), raccoons, opossums, and rabbits, plus lots of crows, starlings, robins, blue jays, and the occasional goldfinch. Since the pandemic, we've seen more and more red foxes walking boldly down the street in the early morning hours. I hear that there are coyotes in Rock Creek Park though I've never seen one.  Nor have I been privy to the occasional black bear sitings; last summer there was one in the Brookland neighborhood in Northeast and another was captured in the northern reaches of Chevy Chase in the Maryland suburbs.

Still, it's always a bit jarring to see wild creatures in this setting, given the amount of people and cars. I caught this photo of a Cooper's hawk on our fence back in February 2021. 

For more DC centric wild bird content, you should definitely check out Popville (formerly known as the Prince of Petworth) and its intermittent feature, Hawks around Town.

I understand that deer like to live on the edge of the forest which has made them a bit of nuisance in many areas that abut the woods. I caught the photo of a big buck back in July 2020, just about a half a mile from my house in area where there is a small strip of woods between the road and a local park with soccer and baseball fields. 

I will leave you with a pic of these very good boys patiently waiting while their owner filled a prescription.

Snow

Like they needed this sign.

We got about seven inches of snow last week, spread out over two days (Monday and Friday), the first snowfall exceeding one inch in over two years. 

I gotta say that I don't really love snow -- I mean, I like how it looks when it's falling and every branch and every leaf has a lovely coating. But even 40 years after leaving my Southern childhood home and experiencing a couple of big snowfalls each season, I still haven't conquered the skill of driving in snow or developed a love of winter sport. Happily now as an empty nester, I don't have to fret about whether DC public schools will make the 5 am call to close or have a two-hour delay, or watch my kids go to bed with pajamas turned inside out in hopes that the next day will be good for sledding. And as a retiree, I don't have to trudge to the Metro, picking my way along the sidewalks which certain neighbors never shovel. In any case, I am happiest when it snows and then two days later, it's all gone.

I also don't have a lot of patience for the people who moved here from Buffalo or Chicago or places where the snow piles up in feet rather than inches. You like snow -- good for you! But stop berating the locals for the inevitable rush to the grocery store, the fact that the city generally shuts down when there's more than a couple inches, and when people skid off the road into a ditch. (Okay, maybe bully those drivers for not driving more carefully or just staying home.). It's tiresome and honestly no one cares.

I tried to get some pictures  of the snow but it's hard when all you really want to do is stay inside, cuddled up with a good book and a mug of tea, and maybe exert oneself enough to make soup or cookies.  But what could be more peak DC than a teeny tiny snowman (snow person? snow creature?) with a political yard sign or an icy sidewalk.  

In any case, I am hopeful that by the time you read this, the temperatures will be back above freezing and all of this white stuff will soon be a distant memory.

Reflections on MLK Day

Funeral procession for Martin Luther King, Jr., April 9, 1968

There are dates in history that are seared in our minds -- John F. Kennedy's assassination, the moon landing, Nixon's resignation, the failed launch of the Challenger space shuttle, and 9/11. I was too young to remember JFK's death and I slept right through the moon landing, even though I had asked my mom to wake me up so I could see the astronauts take those first steps. The others are vivid in my memory.

My first memory of a public event was Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968, not so much because I knew he was a great man who had been murdered, but because my parents left us with a babysitter that afternoon so they could join the tens of thousands who walked in the procession through the streets of downtown Atlanta. A couple of years later, I was miffed that my grandparents, who came to hear me present a report on King Henry VIII to my 5th grade class, were more interested in the fact that my classmate, Dexter King, the younger of MLK's two sons, was lying on the floor under a table in the living room section of our classroom, than in my carefully researched work. 

These memories are of course colored now by my grownup understanding of King's work. And thankfully given that his birthday is a national holiday, this is not forgotten (although sometimes terribly misinterpreted in bad faith). Today, the airwaves and newspapers will be full of tributes and I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty of "I have a dream" and "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" as the appreciations roll out.  

But for me, the words of Dr. King that resonate most deeply, with both admiration and some measure of embarrassment, are from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written in April 1963 after his arrest in the course of nonviolent demonstrations against racism and racial segregation. In his letter, addressed to the city’s white clergy, King admonishes them for doing too little too late – for not throwing their shoulders behind the wheel, for not using their power to bring about true justice.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season..."

 

“I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents….all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.”

Ouch. 

So today, when you hear the words delivered at the March on Washington, on receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, or any other occasion, remember that we (and particularly those of us who are privileged) are called to do more than just honor Dr. King. We are also called to do more than write checks, read and reflect, and go to the occasional march or protest. These are all fine but they are not sufficient. The work of justice requires us to get off the sidelines and get into the thick of it now, and not when most convenient; to speak up even when it may seem embarrassing or feel impolite; to listen and support our neighbors who are fighting for things that many of us take for granted.

One of the most meaningful things I've been doing in retirement is becoming more actively involved in the Washington Interfaith Network, an organization comprised of dozens of houses of worship across DC, where we are challenged to build deep relationships -- across race and across faith --  and work productively to build affordable housing, improve the conditions of public housing, strengthen opportunities for Black homeownership, address threats posed by climate change, and address the epidemic of gun violence that is shattering many communities in Washington. 

The work can be slow and it can be frustrating, but even so, it is also soul strengthening. It's something else to sit in the sanctuary at Metropolitan AME Church and listen to the powerful words of its pastor, Rev. William Lamar, surrounded by others who are in common cause. It's stirring to listen to the choir at Varick Memorial in Ward 7 and then cheer on neighborhood residents as they demand specific actions of city council members. And it is joyful to celebrate WIN's wins with people from all these different congregations, most of whom I would otherwise never meet.

We are still a long way from Dr. King's vision of the beloved community. But engaging in direct action and doing more than, as he said, "mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities" seems like a pretty decent start.

Monument Monday

When the world went into lockdown in March 2020 and many of us shifted to working from home, I started sending an email every morning to the staff of the small federal agency where I was executive director. My "good morning team" messages were meant to keep us connected to each other. Sometimes I tried to be uplifting; other times, I took a more prosaic approach,  wishing happy birthdays; sharing information and resources of observances such as Hispanic Heritage Month or Juneteenth; eliciting comments on podcasts, books, and TV shows; and asking people to post picture of their pets and their summer vacations.  Pet content always elicited the biggest response -- alas, I have no pets.

As it turns out, having something to say every single damn day is harder than it sounds. As the weeks dragged on, I scrambled to keep it fresh. Out of desperation, I started the Monument Monday contest in which I would share a photo of what I thought was a somewhat obscure local monument, awarding points for the first correct answer.  While I thought this might encourage people to get out and about at a time when there was little else to do, it turns out that it simply taught folks how to use Google image search.

At any rate, in the spirit of Monument Monday, today's post is about a monument that I had no idea existed until I stumbled upon it during the Beyond Granite: Pulling Together exhibit in August.  The memorial to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence is on a small island in Constitution Gardens (on the north side of the Mall, between the Vietnam Memorial and 15th Street).  Conceived as part of the many Bicentennial celebrations that took place in 1976, it wasn't actually authorized until 1978 and not completed until 1984.

As monuments go, it's pretty modest, consisting of a series of smooth granite blocks etched with the actual signature of each signer, plus their state, hometown, and profession. There's no additional signage or commentary on the events that led to the declaration or the back stories of these men, whom history now tells us were both visionaries and deeply flawed individuals. In any case, the setting provides a wonderful spot for quiet contemplation, whether your thoughts run to evaluating the success of the American experiment or considering what's for dinner.

New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year when news content is full of best of lists, retrospectives, predictions, and suggestions for New Year's resolutions. I guess I should be happy that there is a counterweight to headlines about bombings, disinformation campaigns, and the effects of climate change.  Even so, I find that these stories make me feel inadequate. I read 60 books this year but not a single one from the New York Times' 10 best books. Oppenheimer was the only one of the Times' 10 best movies that I saw and honestly, I didn't love it. And I only think I heard one song off of Rolling Stones' top 10 from the year but that's only because I saw the Barbie movie. (Full disclosure:  I don't even know who some of those artists are.)

When it comes to making New Year's resolutions, I am decidedly on the fence. NPR's Life Kit has helpfully provided a list of 50 (!) suggestions for things I could be doing to make my life better.  Thankfully, I can check some of these off my 2024 to do list:  e.g., get married, decide whether to have kids, and quit my job. There are some chestnuts here around diet and exercise, plus a few that don't appeal at all (get into birding). 

The experts say that writing things down or worse yet, posting them to social media, creates a stronger mechanism for accountability than just having an abstract goal in your head. That makes a certain kind of sense but in my experience, it's not the list writing that does the trick when it comes to creating new habits or using my time more fruitfully. I just need that switch to go off in my head. It's either going to happen or not, and I couldn't tell you why that switch sometimes goes off and sometimes, it remains stubbornly untouched.

One thing I will publicly commit to is to publish something here every Monday in 2024. I hope you'll come back and better yet, leave me a comment or invite a friend to read along as well.  Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and peaceful new year. 

Until next week......