Stars in the Darkness

 

"To take a walk at night in a city that has settled into silence and a darkness that has become far too rare is to return to something precious, something lost for so long you've forgotten to miss it."

--- Margaret Renkl, Graceland, at Last

Thus does Renkl describe the days after tornadoes ripped through Nashville in March 2020, bringing the city, already Covid-bound, to its knees.

Or did it? It was a lovely, early spring that year, as it was here, gentle and rainy, and neighborliness was flourishing along with the flowers. People lingered outside because there was only darkness to go home to — and they could look up and see the stars.

But then the power company arrived, and life was back to normal. It was something to celebrate, but I picked up on a gentle melancholy in Renkl's description. There is something to be said for stepping out of the routine, as long as you don't step too far. Because once the lights came on ... the stars went out.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

On Midwives and Texas

In my mind now are snippets of the music played in "Call the Midwife." Not just the opening tune, but the crescendo that signals a baby is about to be born, the whimsical notes that accompany Fred the handyman, and the ecclesiastical chords that sound whenever the nuns gather to pray.

All of this suggests that I watch a little too much "Call the Midwife" — and on that point I plead guilty — but there’s a reason why I do. And it’s worth mentioning on this day we’re all grieving the tragic loss of life in Texas.

"Call the Midwife" takes place in the East End of London in the 1960s. Watching it whisks me into a completely different world from the one I inhabit. It’s a world of poverty, to be sure, but also a world of community. It is not a world without violence but it’s a world where police are armed only with billy clubs and the only children who die are rare ones who, despite the best efforts of the midwives and doctors, do not survive a difficult birth. 

I started re-watching the show a few weeks ago when I was feeling under the weather because it never fails to buoy me up. And you can bet I watched an episode last night to calm myself down. The show distracted me from the thoughts swirling around in my mind so I could fall asleep. But now it's morning and the thoughts are back:

When will we do something about the gun violence in this country? Whatever it is, it won’t be enough. But it will be a start. And without it ... well, I just don’t know what will become of us.

A Tree Falls...

I had just finished the last chapters of The Library Book — which chronicles the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire, which reached temperatures of 2,000 degrees F. and glowed with a white-hot light — when I was awakened by a thud and a pop. 

The thud was a 90-foot maple, its trunk leaning for years and its roots weakened by this summer's frequent rains, finally giving up the ghost and toppling over. Next-door neighbors felt their house shake when it hit the ground. (Luckily no houses were damaged and a car that appeared to have suffered severe damage got off easier than it would have originally appeared.)

The pop was the transformer the tree took out on the way down. By the time I joined the crowd of neighbors milling around in the rainy darkness with umbrellas and flashlights, the transformer had burst into flames and half the street had lost power.

The fire fighters had to wait on the power company, and everyone had to wait for the chainsaw crew, which arrived, oh, about 3 a.m. Trucks are still idling on our street. 

A tree falls, a transformer blows, a neighborhood awakens. It was an interesting night, to say the least. 

Walkable Communities

An article in today's Washington Post describes what it says may be the community development of the future, as the pandemic has accelerated a trend toward telecommuting that was already in process. Called the Hub at La Plata, this mixed-use development makes it possible to walk to shops and live with one car — or even no car at all. 

An excellent idea ... and one that Reston, Virginia, where I (almost) hang my hat (you can walk to Reston from here) has been practicing for more than half a century. Though the New Urbanism roots of Reston have taken a beating over the years, there is still enough of the original plan to make you see the point and offer up a silent cheer for it.

I had just such a moment yesterday, when I fast walked on one of its many paved paths. Signposts directed me to South Lakes Village Center one direction and Hunters Woods Village Center the other. I didn't walk to either, but just knowing I could ... made all the difference. 

(A photo of Lake Anne taken from the top floor of Heron House, in Reston's oldest village center.)

A Change in the 'Hood

Last year this time two longtime neighbors moved to Hawaii and sold their house. This year, the neighbors across the street moved out, almost on the same exact day. This time the move was only two miles away rather than 4,700 — but the effect is the same: a hole in the neighborhood, in the fabric of life in this little corner of the world.

When John and Jill moved in, they had a baby about the same age Suzanne was when we arrived here. Now their baby is in high school, and his two brothers not long behind him. It is only life, of course, only time. But when it's the people you wave to on a daily basis, who you chat with at the mailbox, who are part of your life in the way that good neighbors are, it makes a difference.

The house won't be sold till the spring, so for now it just sits there empty, a missing tooth in a lopsided grin.

(This is actually our house, but theirs isn't much different.)

All Together Now

I'm still being riveted nightly by the 18-hour documentary film "The Vietnam War." And I mean that literally — as in riveted each night.

It's interesting to talk with people about the show and the different ways they are watching it. Some started it a week ago Sunday, kept up with last week's nine hours as best they could but will admit to being a little behind.

Others are recording it and planning to binge-watch it later, seeing it as all (or most) of a piece. This is the television style of day, of course. To take control of one's viewing, watch as little or as much as one wants at a time, place (and with a delivery method) of one's choosing.

As for me, I'm watching the film in real-time.  Even night before last, when Claire and Tomas were over for dinner, I watched what I could and then caught up with the rerun, also known as an "encore presentation," which my PBS station runs directly after the first show of the evening.

While my viewing habits are in part dictated by lack of technical knowledge (including DVR technique), they are also generational. I like keeping up with the show on its own time. I feel a kinship with all the people watching at the same time. There's a communal aspect to this that soothes and heals.

And where did I develop this habit of communal viewing? From annual TV events like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Peter Pan,"  From watching "My Three Sons" with Mom and Dad (provided I brush my teeth beforehand so I could jump in bed the minute the show ended at 9 p.m.). And ... from watching some of the same evening newscasts that have been replayed on "The Vietnam War."

(Photo: CNN.com.)

Voting for our Feet

Some folks will pay a premium to walk in the suburbs. Just ask Merrill Lynch. When their lease was up in Rockville, Maryland, they chose to move to the new "mini city" of Pike and Rose — a decision that may have cost them 40 percent more than staying at their office park location.

It's a decision that's playing out over and over again in the Washington, D.C.-metro area and across the country. People are voting with their feet — or rather, voting for their feet. They're paying a premium to live and work where the vibe is urban and the body can move around without being encased in several thousand pounds of steel.

In some ways this isn't new at all. For centuries — heck, for millennia — humans have gathered to eat, work and walk. We do better when we're not tied to a desk or an untethered building in the middle of nowhere. We do better together (for the most part). And we do better in motion rather than stasis.


(Detail from the highly walkable city of Annapolis.)

Water, Water Everywhere

A rainy Monday, so maybe not the best day for a post about thirst and the lack of public water fountains. But an article in yesterday's Washington Post made me think about this endangered feature of communal life.

According to the International Plumbing Code, the number of public drinking fountains required in new buildings is down by half, the article says. There are a few causes. One is the consumption of bottled water, which has quadrupled in recent years. Another is fear of contamination, which ironically has grown since the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 began requiring municipalities to notify their residents immediately of any problems with their water.

But the lack of clean, safe public drinking water has actually hurt American's health by driving young people to consume more sugary drinks, the article argues. And a preponderance of plastic water bottles is hurting the environment.

This article explains why I have to hunt longer to find a public water fountain. And it also makes me remember the water fountains of my youth. The one at Idle Hour Park, which made a deep whirring sound and produced a trickle of water that seemed to have been drawn up from the depths of a nearby swamp. And the one in the hall of my grammar school, which we would be allowed to stand in line and use on warm spring afternoons. Imagine 400 to 500 kids drinking out of the same fountain! Still, nothing has never tasted as good as the water that flowed from that cool — and I'm sure unsanitary — tap.

Learning the Rules

I've been thinking about suburbia and suburbanites this morning — about those of us who make our homes in neither the city nor the country but in that place in between — and how we are the product of zoning laws, cheap mortgages and office parks.

I work for a law school but seldom think about how laws and policies have shaped the place I live. Even the open space I praise in this blog is mandated by regulations on density and the percability of soil. The same rules that give us a meadow isolate us from each other.

So what's a walker to do? Keep walking, I suppose. Because walking knits together the here and now with the then and gone. It also makes me care. And if we are ever to change the way we live we must first care enough to understand how it came to be.

Invisible Community

It was the hour before dusk on a day that felt more like summer than fall — prime walking time.  I drove past fast-walkers, slow-joggers, stray commuters like me, just heading home. I thought about the community of walkers, one that's often invisible to the amblers themselves but, ironically, quite obvious to the drivers.

The car-bound cover more ground. Their range lets them see the patterns in the strolls, the commonality of purpose. In one block is a lone faithful runner. In another, an old couple strolling slowly. They may not run into each other, but they are all there.

Since almost anyone who walks in the suburbs drives in the suburbs, we have many chances to see beyond our routes, to know that even if we feel alone, we are not. There are others hitting the pavement too. And in some strange sort of way, we are one.

A Community of Voters

I voted after work, entered the almost empty gym of Fox Mill Elementary School as the new, earlier darkness was settling over the suburbs.

It brings back memories, this polling place: all the trips I've taken there, many with one or several kids in tow, introducing them to the mysteries of the voting machine, giving them a sense of civic responsibility.

Today, as for the last many years, I voted alone. But not really.

When I gave the clerk my name and address, she smiled: "I think everyone on Fort Lee Street has voted today."

Really? I said, with a grin I didn't think I could muster. I felt a sense of silent community with my neighbors. Pride of place? Not exactly, but close.

Yes, I voted. And I wasn't the only one.

(What I saw on the way to the polling place.)

Sweet Charity

Her name is Lois. She works at the McDonald's where Dad's coffee group convenes. Always cheerful and friendly, Lois didn't like to smile. She would hold her hand in front of her mouth to cover up  her missing front teeth.

A few weeks ago, the guys (and the few gals) who meet to solve the world's problems over a cup of senior coffee (the same as regular coffee but it costs only 59 cents) took up a collection to buy Lois a new set of teeth. Lois accepted the gift, got the teeth — and a new life to go with them.

I didn't meet her, but I did read the thank-you note she wrote to her customers and friends. She said she can't express the happiness she feels now, being able to smile without embarrassment, without wondering what everyone is thinking when they see her "ugly teeth." "You gave me back my life, my joy, my confidence," Lois wrote.

The note was photocopied so that everyone could read it. But they have already received all the thanks they need — it's right there every time they buy their coffee. It's right there in Lois's smile.

Stewardship

Passing through the woods last evening on a quick walk before dinner, I crossed a bridge that Tom built. It's a very humble plank bridge (not the one above) that took him no time to throw together.

He did it to help us (and other ramblers) over a slippery crossing near Little Difficult Run. Other neighbors have mapped the paths, cleaned the creek and taken chain saws to downed trees, leaving the logs neatly stacked along the trail.

I think of a line from Frost: "Whose woods these are I think I know." The forest paths we traipse are either neighborhood common land or Fairfax County stream valley park. They belong to all of us. But they belong more when we care for them. The bridge wasn't about craftsmanship; it was about stewardship.

The Morning After

In Lexington, Kentucky, the new mayor-elect, Jim Gray, took my father out to McDonald's a couple weeks ago. Until Dad fell last month, he had been working on Gray's campaign, and he felt bad that he wasn't able to squire the candidate around to some retired-guy coffee groups as he promised he would.


But no problem, about a week ago (and more importantly, a week before the election), Candidate Gray stops by the house, picks up my dad and drives him to the coffee groups. How many votes did Gray snag that morning? Maybe half a dozen. Frankly, I haven't heard of such a neighborly act from a politician in a long time. Maybe ever.

I couldn't vote for Jim Gray, of course. And in our corner of the world the election wasn't as dramatic as it was for much of the country. But I like to think that there are hundreds more Jim Grays out there today — I'd like to think that at least in a few places, the good guys won.

Unseen Connections

In The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig, Paul Milliron pauses for a moment to muse outside his one-room schoolhouse:

"There at the waiting pump I could not sort such matters out totally, but even then, I am convinced, began in me some understanding of how much was recorded on that prairie, in those trails leading to the school. How their pattern held together a neighborhood measured in square miles and chimneys as far apart as smoke signals."

This passage makes me think about all the connections that are stitched into a community, often invisible and tenuous but there just the same. These connections are particularly hard to discern on the outer edge of a major metropolitan area. But I figure if Doig could see them on a prairie I ought to be able to feel them — and to sing them — in the suburbs.

The Power of the Porch

Tonight I was on one of my brief after-dinner strolls when our neighbors called from across the street. They’ve just finished a front porch across the width of their house and they wanted me to see it. So I sat on their porch swing and we talked for 45 minutes. This is remarkable because in 21 years it’s the longest conversation I’ve had with Bob and Donna. In our suburb, as in many, backyard decks and patios are where you sit outside on a pleasant evening. Imagine all those people suddenly flipped, sitting in front of their houses where they can see their neighbors, rather than behind. Then multiply this by millions of people across the land -- and you have one way to build community, to bring us face to face with the people we live closest to.