When I lived in Seattle one of the things I missed most about the East Coast was the musical sound of songbirds.
Some diehard Seattle boosters may insist that Seattle has warblers of its own, and I’m willing to believe it. But in the six years I lived there I never heard one. The signature tune of that misty city is the quark and ratcheting caw of crows.
I’ve got nothing against crows. Although it’s a little spooky how smart they are. I read somewhere that crows can recognize human faces, and it doesn’t take much imagination to take that idea a step further and start to recognize the quirky personalities of the crows themselves.
But getting back to songbirds, the D.C. metropolitan area is serenaded by a variety of local songsters, such as mockingbirds and finches. Mourning doves wail in the shrubbery. Orioles pass through on tour. It’s a harmonious scene. If you grew up around here you could close your eyes and recognize the locale by the spring soundtrack.
On a recent trip to the Florida Gulf I noticed a few familiar bird calls. But Florida’s warmth and water attracts a whole different group of birds, not least of which are the ospreys and pelicans, hunters and clowns, neither of which could be mistaken for a songbird.
It’s a moveable feast at low tide.
Yet the birds that speak most eloquently to me when I’m in Florida do it silently. The herons, egrets and ibis, with their impossibly long necks, their graceful ballet moves, and their delicate manners, seem to embody a stillness that pairs well with silence.
I assume they must have vocal chords, though I’ve never heard a peep out of them. But that’s okay by me. Something in the way they move speaks volumes, without making a sound.
In the fall of 2013 the Washington Monument wore a cloak of metal scaffolding.
Tourists who come to Washington, D.C., to view the significant sights have their work cut out for them.
The city has no shortage of museums, memorials and historic sites. But one of them has been out of commission for the last couple of years.
Since the summer of 2011, when a rare 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the city and damaged several local landmarks, the Washington Monument has been swathed in a giant web of scaffolding while repairs were underway. Tourists during this time have had to be content with viewing the 555-foot-tall obelisk from the outside. But now the long wait is over, and they can get in line to ride up to the top and take in the view from the tallest structure in the city.
Whoop de doo!
I went up there once as a kid. If you live around here it’s one of those things you’re expected to do. Like visiting the Statue of Liberty if you’re a New Yorker, I imagine.
I have to say, the Lady’s view tops that of George’s. Washington is a pretty city to see on foot, in places. The river adds a lot. And there’s the Capitol and the White House and the Smithsonian Castle. But most of the scenic sights in D.C. are better viewed up close and personal.
Still, there’s no getting away from the fact that the Washington Monument is the top icon of the city. Even though it’s sort of…how can I put this? Boring. There. I said it.
I mean, compared to the Lincoln Memorial, or the Jefferson Memorial, or the rambling Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Washington Monument is just a pointy white pile of stone. And even if it is the most recognizable landmark in the city, that distinction has been maintained mostly through legislation that restricts the height of new construction inside the city.
Paris has its own similar restriction, enacted after a developer built the enormous and none-too-lovely Tour Montparnasse, which tops out at 689 feet, a bit higher than George’s pile. Of course, Paris’s defining sight is la Tour Eiffel, which, at more than 1,000 feet tall, would dwarf the Washington Monument if they happened to share the same turf.
But the Washington Monument is our own pointy place, and it was missed while it was convalescing, so when it reopened to the public today there was hoopla, and gladness in some hearts.
After all, the Washington Monument is unique in our fair city. Because while we have oodles of memorials, we have only one monument.
It’s big, it’s white, it’s not exactly thrilling, but it’s back in business.
Like a portal to a timeless era, Washington Square arch is an iconic landmark of Greenwich Village.
I was intrigued when I saw the trailers for the recent Coen Brothers movie Inside Llewyn Davis. The carefully composed images of Greenwich Village evoked the gritty glamor of the early 1960s in that neighborhood where poets, artists and musicians found cheap lodging and community.
I was some kind of excited when, at age twelve, I went with my Girl Scout Troop on an overnight trip to New York City in the early 1960s. We toured the United Nations, saw a Broadway musical and the Statue of Liberty. But what I was really looking forward to was seeing Greenwich Village. I’d read about the beatniks. I had a set of bongos. I aspired to be cool.
However, my hopes of breathing the air of Washington Square were squashed by the caution of the trip chaperones. Our tour bus did pass by the famous square, but we weren’t allowed to get out of the bus. Who knows what we might have inhaled?
The frustration I felt only made me more determined to experience the city on my terms. Five years later, in the winter of 1966-67, I moved into a small apartment on the Lower East Side. Suffice it to say I learned a lot.
By then the folk music scene had given way to upstart rock bands. There weren’t many bongo players around. But there were still a lot of scruffy young men wandering about with guitar cases filled with dreams.
When I watched Inside Llewyn Davis I was expecting to see something of that tumultuous time when civil rights and social justice were at the forefront of public discourse. But I hadn’t taken into account that this was a Coen Brothers film. The award winning duo has made some amazing films, among them Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and No Country for Old Men. Some even consider The Big Lebowski a great film. Who am I to judge?
I wanted to like Inside Llewyn Davis. It has the Village, folk music, Justin Timberlake. It even has a cat in a supporting role. But try as I might, I just couldn’t warm to any of the characters. Except the cat. The cat was cool, cooler than Llewyn, and considerably more likable.
The movie follows Llewyn Davis through one week in midwinter as he attempts to restart his career as a solo performer, after his former singing partner (spoiler alert) jumped off a bridge. The movie doesn’t spell out why this happened. But after an hour or so of watching the anti-hero floundering around from couch to couch, I didn’t much care if he jumped off a bridge too.
There are a lot of almost funny little scenes, slyly mocking the folkies of the early 60s, and the earnest fans who believed in them. There is a brief road trip sequence that channels the spirit of Jim Jarmusch, complete with an inscrutable drug addict and a chain-smoking Beat poet.
However, though I tried to care about this story of a lost musician, in the end it was just too much like work. When the film first came out the soundtrack inspired talk of the resurgence of folk music. But really, folk music never goes away. We take it for granted, assuming it will always be there, like that person who always knows the words at the hootenanny. Like Woodie Guthrie. And now he’s gone. Who could take his place? Not someone like Llewyn Davis. Unless maybe he takes up bongos.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel leads to yet more mystery.
As a child I was never drawn to read Nancy Drew mysteries. The whole whodunit genre left me cold. I was more interested in sob stories about brave dogs who died saving babies from burning houses, or tales of horses that somehow survived mistreatment and went on to win the Big Race.
Plain vanilla Fiction. That was my poison.
In truth, I thought the mystery genre lacked mystery. The implicit guarantee of a mystery novel is that the mystery will be solved, your questions will be answered. Monsieur Poirot will gather the suspects and explain everything in the final scene.
In real life, mysteries more often remain unfathomable. Even if the culprit is caught, the true motivation, the primal “why?” is rarely answered. But in a mystery novel, the author provides us with that satisfaction. For me the idea of this formula diminished my enthusiasm for the genre, in much the same way, I imagine, that the traditional romance formula repels some readers.
Not all mysteries are created equal, however, and a touch of mystery can be a potent ingredient in novels outside the genre boundary. I began to get a clue when I got caught up in Sherlock Holmes. I devoured Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s entire series like a box of Godiva chocolates. As fast as I’d finish one, I couldn’t resist digging into another. Later I dabbled in Agatha Christie, and few more modern authors whose works straddle the border between mystery and romance, and, in some cases, serious fiction.
But I was never really hooked until I found Kate Atkinson, whose work serves up the whole enchilada with extra hot sauce.
I began innocently enough, with “Human Croquet.” She had me at croquet, of course. As the plot wickets twisted and turned I followed giddily into the darkness, amazed and delighted to be led on by a writer so clearly in control of her craft and so deft in her character development.
For this is the real key to a successful mystery story, or any story really. Some readers rave about labyrinthine plots, or gory crimes, or whimsical humor, and all of these elements certainly help create a mood. But what brings us into a mystery, what makes us care who did it and whether or not they get caught, is the characters.
Atkinson’s characters are fully realized and believable. Love ’em or hate ’em, they are compelling and convincing. Her first novel, “Behind The Scenes at the Museum,” named the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year, put her on the map and bestseller lists where she’s remained ever since. That book is a family saga that centers on the life of young Ruby Lennox and the mystery at the heart of the novel is layered with humor and pathos.
Once I read “Scenes” I realized there was no turning back. I swiftly plunged into “When Will There Be Good News?,” followed by “Started Early Took My Dog.” The pleasure in these books is compounded by Atkinson’s breadth of cultural references. The way she weaves Emily Dickenson into her work simply takes my breath away.
Currently I’m totally engrossed in “One Good Turn.” I’m in no hurry to get to the end. I’m savoring each page like a fine wine, enjoying the color, the aroma, the mood lifting thrill of the words, the comic turns, the subtle slight of hand. Eventually I’ll know what’s going on. For now, I’m happy to be lost in the mystery of it all.
Rock falls in ultra slo-mo beside the tumbling Lower Cascades.
The slabs of stone curve impossibly high above the ground, looming like some silicate tidal wave about to crash.
We were hiking in Hanging Rock State Park in Danbury, North Carolina, where lime green buds swelling in the damp spring air lit the forest with a glow of energy. I had come to see a few of the state’s multitude of waterfalls. We visited three in the short time we had earmarked for outdoor exploration, and each one offered a different note in the music of water flowing over stones.
Yet though I was delighted by the waters, I was astounded by the stones. Hanging Rock State Park occupies some 7,000 acres in the Sauratown Mountains, sometimes described as “the mountains away from the mountains,” a range east of and apart from the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. Ancient quartzite rocks worn down through millions of years frame every view with dramatic weight.
Blue Ridge haze to the west.
The beautiful oak and pine forest is interwoven with dark swathes of Canadian and Carolina hemlock. Groves of wild rhododendron, azalea, mountain laurel and galax flourish in the damp understory. We were there too early for the blooms, but the promise of spring was abundant and intoxicating in every direction while massive rocks chiseled by time into impossible sculptural forms and graced with the delicate tracing of lichens, moss, and ferns kept me spellbound.
The Hidden Falls slip down stone stairs centuries old.
I had been keen to see some of North Carolina’s waterfalls after reading about them in various online guides to the state. But my itinerary wasn’t limited to natural sights. There was also what some might call the baseball agenda.
In my growing passion for the game, I’ve begun to branch out, adopting a kind of when-in-Rome policy. Thus, when we learned that the local Class A minor league Greensboro Grasshoppers would be playing the Delmarva Shorebirds while we were in town, I was determined to see a game. It did not disappoint.
The Hoppers currently rank number 2 in the Sally League, but I had a feeling that no matter what happened on the scoreboard I would enjoy the experience because of Babe and Yogi.
Nice work if you can get it.
Babe and Yogi are two frisky black labs who work as batdogs for the Grasshoppers. They retrieve the bats at home plate efficiently and cheerfully, and add charm to the easy-going minor league atmosphere.
Even though there was a light mist falling throughout the game, the fans lingered and cheered, especially when the game went to extra innings and Grasshoppers pulled out the win in the 11th inning with a walk-off hit.
And then there were fireworks. Not just fizzling little streaks of colored light either. Booming rockets of exploding color for five solid minutes. Totally awesome, even if it was minor league. It was an up close and personal experience, like getting close enough to waterfalls to feel the spray on your face, or climbing hundreds of steps carved in massive stone old as the planet.
Tomorrow is another Earth Day, and we celebrate once again the miracle of our lovely planet. Sometimes I think it’s funny that it’s called Earth, when that substance is such a small part of the whole. The precious earth which provides our food and the trees that keep our air breathable occupies only a thin layer above the dense stratum of solid and molten rock that make up most of the planet. Yet each year we pave and pollute more of it, as if we thought that more earth can be manufactured. Humans can be such short-sighted beings.
On Earth Day, and every day, I am grateful for the trees and the rocks, the dogs and the waterfalls, the fireworks of life.
And still hoping for an 11th inning miracle for us and our season on this planet.
Summer dropped into town for a quick visit this past weekend.
Weather mood swings are part of the landscape around here, but this particular bounce coincided with the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms surrounding the Tidal Basin, and the parade to celebrate same.
These events draw mobs of tourists even during years when the weather’s cold and dreary and the blossoms either refuse to cooperate or open early and vanish before the first eager visitors step off the metro. It can be a frustrating experience to travel hundreds of miles only to find the star attraction down for the count.
Nothing says D.C. like the iconic view of the Jefferson Memorial framed by cherry blossoms.
But this year the blossoms stayed under wraps longer than usual, due to our Winter Without End. And as a result, when the temperatures climbed into the 80s on Saturday, a perfect explosion of blooms drew a perfect explosion of visitors. Local media went wild posting pictures of the spectacle, and the spectacle of people admiring the spectacle. It was a real love-fest. Sort of like Woodstock but without the music and the mud. Record crowds rode bikes, pushed strollers and took the metro to join the throngs shuffling around the narrow walkway beneath the famous trees. Yay! Right?
However, you just can’t please some people.
Today The WashingtonPost ran a story about the trash all these visitors left behind. The much larger than usual crowd naturally left in its wake a much larger than usual amount of empty water bottles, food containers, etc., so much that the usually hyper efficient National Parks maintenance crew was unable to stay ahead of it. They had difficulty even getting access to the trash cans because of all the people. And, it must be said, the trash was neatly piled. There was simply too much, too fast, to be removed quickly.
It’s unfortunate that some visitors may focus on this minor glitch in what was otherwise one of the most spectacular cherry blossom displays of recent years.
It’s human nature to get overexcited when things get off to a great start. The sun shines, the blossoms open, the mood is Aquarian and full of goodwill to all. And then, oh well. Into each life some trash must pile.
Baseball fans get this. The Nationals, who were off to a glorious 7-2 start before the weekend, had their noses rubbed in the dirt in Atlanta in three wish-we-could forget-them games. And to add injury to insult, Ryan Zimmerman got his thumb broken in the middle of it. There was no comedy to the errors either.
But, unlike the Cherry Blossom Festival, which lasts only a few weeks, the baseball season lasts six months. At least. There’s plenty of time for the Boys in Red to regroup, take out the trash, and play some great ball.
The sound I’ll be listening for is that telltale kaboom, when you know it’s leaving the park. That’s the sound of summer, when it’s here to stay.
I shot this portrait of my brothers Sam and Josh in 1959 with my first camera.
When I was nine years old I got my first camera through an offer on the back of a comic book. It wasn’t a Nikon.
However, although the camera was limited, it allowed me to take my first steps in the mysterious dance with time that is photography.
Not everyone feels driven to capture the fleeting moments in which we exist. But these days it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing someone taking a photo with their phone or camera or other device. The volume of images being made at this point in history must surely be the largest ever. And yet I wonder, of this bounty how many will be cherished in years to come?
As someone who grew up when “taking a picture” usually meant a break in the action, and often honored a significant event or gathering, the modern mania for documenting every passing second of one’s passage through life, including, but certainly not limited to, endless portraits of pets and pals, as well as selfies, I am bemused by my fellow humans and often delighted by their photos.
Still, the question remains: what will become of all these images? In the past, historians and archivists laboriously catalogued and preserved precious photos. But when the pixels pile up like grains of sand on a beach, will sheer volume be enough to guarantee a footnote in history? Or will these digital images be lost to oblivion like so many virtual sandcastles?
In the new televised version of Carl Sagan’s classic science series “Cosmos,” Neil deGrasse Tyson at one point uses a photograph to illustrate the concept of space/time. He describes how light moving through space could be carrying images from all of history, so that, in theory, if you could travel faster than the speed of light (big if) you could conceivably catch up with your past self and perhaps have a chat with your long lost parents or whomever. Right. In a sci-fi universe all things are possible.
Here and now, in our everyday “can-I-put-you-on-hold?” universe, time isn’t so easy to stop, much less slow down enough to catch. Unless you own a camera or better yet a really smart phone.
I didn’t get a “real” camera until I was in college, where I learned to use a dark room and went through a phase of trying to take “artistic” photos. But film and darkroom chemicals and paper had to be bought, and money was scarce, so I never shot photos with the kind of wild abandon that kids today take for granted. As a result, the few photos I have from those early days actually are precious to me. And the older I get the more precious they become.
Some people think photos are a waste of time and space, a self-indulgent exercise in vanity and self-promotion. Surely some of them are. Maybe a lot of them. I went through a period in my cocky youth when I rarely if ever took photographs of anything. I was into letting go of possessions, living in the moment, all that Zen crap. I’ve had plenty of time to kick myself since then.
Thus, when my kids came along, I went nuts with the photos. I’ve got shoeboxes full of them. Sometimes I can barely stand to look at them because each one brings back a world of memories. And you know how it is with memories. They’re always blended, joy and pain woven tighter than a starlet’s red carpet gown. Lights, cameras, tears.
I have tried to stop taking so many pictures. I’ve thought about why I do it, and I believe it as a lot to do with the recognition that all of this — life, the universe, and everything — from ice cream cones to puppies and roses — cannot last forever. But a photo? Those shoeboxes will be orbiting Neptune when I’m long gone. And time traveling me of the future will be so happy to open them and see those faces I will never forget.
This photo, also shot with my first camera, shows one of my Dad’s early efforts to share his passion for trains. The cat, Meow, was another of my Dad’s ideas. The bear rug under the train set was given to us by someone Dad had helped move or something. Details are sketchy. But there it is. Proof that for a while we had a bear rug.
Even though I rode a bike at a young age, I knew I was a girl. Check out the footwear.
Contrary to popular mythology, I didn’t learn everything I know from my cat.
I was schooled by the lyrics of Broadway musicals. In our house when I was growing up, these classic gems of melody and harmony and wit were played regularly on the tiny turntable in the living room which served as our entire “sound system,” the same system that played “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hounddog” and “Bye Bye Love.” And along with learning all of Elvis’s moves and the Everly Brothers’ songs, I learned the words to all the songs in My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, and, perhaps most beloved, South Pacific.
Set in World War II, that Rogers and Hammerstein romantic drama included some genuinely thoughtful songs about prejudice and gender issues. The most memorable of these, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” eloquently expresses the pressure societies exert to ensure that rigidly held conventions remain unchallenged, as the American Lieutenant sings to the island girl he loves: “You’ve got to be taught, before it’s too late, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
Last week when I read in the news about the eight-year-old Virginia girl who was asked to leave the Christian school in which she was a student because she failed to “dress and act like a girl” I was appalled. Of course private schools make their own rules. And that’s their right. But as a former tomboy myself, I was shocked and dismayed to see yet another example of how little we’ve changed as a species.
I grew up as the only girl in a family of five kids in the ’50s in Northern Virginia. I wore my brother’s hand-me-downs for much of the time, except to school of course, where girls were expected to wear skirts or dresses. Thing were different then. But outside of school and church, I wore pants. Try riding a bike in skirts, fellas. Talk about drafting.
Close to Washington, D.C., the area tended to be less conservative than much of Virginia, but even so, traditional views were still in force. Title IX, which opened the doors for girls to play sports with something approaching equal support in 1972, didn’t exist back then. The idea of gender equality wasn’t taken seriously. Men were in charge. Women took dictation.
All of that has changed for much of the world, thankfully. But clearly not everyone is happy with the changes. People who yearn for a time when things seemed simpler may try to put the Jeannie back in the crinoline, but I don’t think women will stand for it anymore.
I recently watched “Wadjda,” the first film directed by a Saudi Arabian woman shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. This amazing film, which centers on the struggles of a 10-year-old girl who wants to own a bicycle, has garnered considerable critical acclaim. The young girl who plays the lead shines with pluck and resourcefulness. But what makes the film so important, from a gender standpoint, is how it reveals the incredibly restrictive social conditions for women in Saudi Arabia.
Wadjda wants a bicycle because she wants to race her friend, who is a boy. In the film gangs of boys ride bikes all over the place. But girls are discouraged from riding bikes because of the commonly held belief that bike riding will destroy their virginity, and thus make them unmarriageable.
Yikes. I remember hearing similar tales when I was growing up. In the real “olden days” that’s why ladies were supposed to ride sidesaddle — not to protect their skirts but to protect their virginity. Anything to keep the women from passing the menfolks.
I rode a bike everywhere when I was 10 years old. Well, not everywhere, because I was a girl. My brothers were always allowed more freedom, and whenever they could do something I wasn’t allowed to do, I asked my father why I couldn’t. The answer was always: “Because you’re a girl.”
I understand now that he was trying to protect me from a world full of dangers, many of them men. But at the time I only felt the unfairness. As a child I wanted to live in a just world, where everyone has the same freedoms, the same opportunities, the same benefits.
I’m still waiting. But signs of progress are everywhere. That eight-year-old tomboy who got kicked out of her Christian school? Her grandparents stood by her and she moved to another school. And Wadjda? I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone, but trust me, fortune favors the brave.
For some the sight of a robin on the lawn in late February is enough to touch it off. Others thrill to the appearance of the first crocus, nudging its way through the icy crust of the most recent snow.
But for a great many people, nothing says spring like the crack of a bat, the thwock of a ball in a glove, the warbling rendition of the National Anthem.
Yes, Virginia, Opening Day is one week away, and even though the Nats will be springing into action at an away game this year, there’s no denying the spring in our step as we finally reach the end of this trying winter just in time to Play Ball!
The Nats were taken down a few pegs last year, floundering in a sea of unrealistic expectations and dark soul searching following their 2012 meltdown, blowing a 6-0 lead in game five of the National League Division Series.
This year the sports chatter has been a bit less giddy, less wild speculation about far off October, more focus on getting the job done on a day to day basis. Keeping the engine tuned, the tank filled, the tires properly inflated. We’ll see how far we go.
But even with our pent-up enthusiasm throttled, we can’t help feeling happy just to have another season to unwrap. Mmmm — that new season smell. Essence of fresh cut grass, oiled gloves, honest sweat, beer and popcorn. I am so ready.
I don’t know how many actual games I’ll manage to attend. Life is complicated. Other demands, events and obligations inevitably trump a day at the ballpark. And that’s okay. There are things far more important than baseball.
But that’s exactly why humans need baseball, or something like it, in their lives.
Life can be so overwhelming. We humans require respite from the relentless tragedies and strife that demand our attention. A good book or movie, a gathering with friends, a walk on the beach perhaps, all these can be restorative. But for me, there’s nothing quite like the buzz in the ball park, rain or shine, win or lose, when the pennants are snapping in the breeze and the balls are soaring into the upper stands. Yeah. Sometimes a great moment.
Normally an even tempered little weasel, Gabby, like most of us, is happier when she can come and go as she pleases. But this winter has tested us all.
The boomerang effect has been particularly vexing. One day 70 degrees (Yippee! Let’s go out and dig in the garden!), the next day 25 degrees and snowing (Yeah. Let’s go dig out the car. Again.)
Fortunately we humans are made of sturdy stuff. We adjust. We buy snowblowers. We vent online.
Cats, while versatile in many respects, can be flummoxed by the various challenges snow presents. It’s not just the cold and the wet and the blustery rudeness of it all. There’s also the depth factor. It gets over four inches, that’s like up to armpit level for a cat. Try walking in that, humans.
So, Gabby has spent more time than usual staring out the window, watching her stone avatar in the garden endure the slings and insults of wave upon wave of snow.
Supposedly, Spring officially begins with the arrival of the vernal equinox on March 20th. Gabby will believe it when she sees it.
A little bit of snow never hurt anyone.Make my day. Melt.Gone with the drift.
