So Columbia

A few weeks ago it was all the rage on Facebook to say, "I'm so Columbia..." and then complete the sentence with memories of bygone times and places. It was fun for those participating, but it was not a game I could play. My roots in Columbia date back only as far as 1999.

Facebook allows all of us to indulge our nostalgia. I have, at one time or another, participated groups dedicated to growing up in Cleveland Heights, Fans of Hough Bakeries, former students of Coventry Elementary School, and the like. My roots, and my deep formative memories, are there. And it's fun to bump up against others who share those memories. Nostalgia is a dish best shared.

Recently I became a member of a new group on Facebook: Celebrating Columbia, Maryland and its Future. It has been refreshing to interact, albeit virtually, with people who define themselves by their love of the place rather than the years they have lived here. Rather like the old saying, "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Saturday night I attended a picnic with people who share a love for Columbia and where it is going. Conversation was positive and thought-provoking. Topics ranged from how Columbia could be more child-friendly, to the importance of making home ownership possible for real middle-class families, to reaching out to new residents, and more. The spirit of the People Tree was definitely present. The prohibitions of those wedded only to the past were not.

All of which is to say that I'm ready to play the game. "I'm so Columbia..."

I'm so Columbia that I'm excited about the present and I want to be an active part of the future.

How about you?

 

 

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Fair Weather

Yesterday I went to the Howard County Fair. I had never been before. Why?

Heat. I just plain don't do well in heat and humidity, and that's pretty much the story of Howard County summers. Period.

Well, I stepped out of my air conditioning yesterday for a special event. You may recall that I owed this guy a parade. And as I walked along the midway as a first-time visitor, plenty of thoughts swirled through my head.

I'm quite vocal in my support of multi-sensory education. Going to the fair is definitely that. While marching (movement) I took in the sights of the midway (visual) as my mouth watered at the many carnival foods on offer (taste). I heard the sounds of carnival rides, singing, the parade announcer, people cheering (auditory) and perceived both cooking aromas and animal smells (olfactory). Oh--and I was shaking pom-poms (tactile). Wow. It was a lot to take in.

I'm pretty much a product of the suburbs, and although I have lived in cities, I have absolutely no rural life experiences other than visits like these. Growing up with asthma and a multitude of plant and animal allergies, I probably would be of no earthly use. A generation or so ago, I might not have survived to adulthood on a farm. Our county fair represents a way of life that I can only visit as a tourist.

Local blogger AnnieRie writes about the community experience of the fair on her blog, AnnieRieUnplugged--Life in the Slow Lane. She has made a connection to people whose lives are shaped by weather, crops, animals, insects, market prices and unending physical labor. While I connect with Columbians and Howard Countians over coffee or cocktails, she is showing up to support 4-H-ers as they show their animals.

I wonder how much my separation from farming and animal husbandry makes it difficult for me to understand differing points of view that are shaped by this way of life. My take-away from all this is that there is much I don't know. It seems that there are so many uncrossable chasms in our country today. I wonder how many come from our separation from eachother, our inability to walk a mile in another's shoes.

As for the parade itself, it was awesome. Yes it was hot, but short. Not nearly a mile by any stretch. Afterwards I got an enormous slushy, sat in the shade, and began the mental transition back to suburbia. But I brought a few thoughts back home to keep me going until next year (if it's not too hot).

Can walking, say, a hundred yards in someone else's shoes be the start of something good? I hope so.

 

 

 

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Concert Reflections

My older sister bought a James Taylor album when I was in the sixth grade and I was so taken with his music that I manually recorded it with my cassette tape recorder so that I could play it over and over again. The year was 1970 and the album was Sweet Baby James.

Since then his music has continued to speak to me. I love many different kinds of music from English choral music to musical theatre to the Beatles and beyond. But something about the music of James Taylor speaks to the core of me. I think we all have music like that--at least I hope we do.

Thursday night my husband took me to see James Taylor in concert. As a fan I experienced the concert with joyful excitement. I clapped, I swayed, I mouthed the words, I cried. As a musician I noticed and pondered the changes in how the songs are performed as time passes.

The tempi are slower now. The forward-driving pulse has let up a bit. He takes time with each line, savoring the meaning. The up-tempo pieces still retain their kick, but the lyrical ones invite us to linger.

Part of me wants the music to be exactly the way it is on the record. But the reality is that music is a living thing and that he has been living with this music on the road all his life. It breathes, it grows, it evolves. He may take extra time with the melodic line to emphasize the the lyrics, or he may weave a new melody around the old one, making reference to the orginal as he interpolates, embellishes.

The last time I saw James Taylor I was right out of high school and it was all about the music and the excitement of going to my first really big concert. This time the experience was colored by the perspective of middle age--understanding how time passes, people age, things change. We can't go back.

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time..."

 

 

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Small Victories

The simple statement which began the Facebook thread was this:

" Nothing like the Quarterly for making you feel useless."

Of course, I thought. The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly. My own copy had recently arrived. And I knew that my friend's comment was a reference to the Class Notes portion of the publication. I've written about Mount Holyoke before. I received an amazing education there, but it came with a burden:

Can women "have it all"? And by all I mean career, family, and saving the world. Mount Holyoke Types, or MoHos, as they are now called, are instilled with founder Mary Lyon's earnest charge: go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do. The response to this falls rather heavily onto the Class Notes.

My friend went on.

"I don't have a problem with the Quarterly in theory. There are things in it that I like reading, like the history bits (there's a funny story in this one about making beer in a science lab in the 70s and a letter in the letters section from a woman who was the station manager at WMHC in the 50s when they went from AM to FM and thought "who will ever have an FM radio?") But I find it difficult to disconnect my own life sometimes, even though I'm generally happy, and not compare myself to others. It's like a grownup version of 'I have more to do than you do.'"

Then she issued this invitation:

"Contribute! Something which depicts your life as it is actually happening, not glossed in Quarterly varnish."

And so, here is a sampling of Real Class Notes:

Linda, who has just realized it has been two weeks since the handle broke off her fridge and she has yet to do anything about it, has a spider bite but no spidey-super powers of which to speak. She has also spent a lot of time starting books but never finishing them this summer. Other than that, she is often bored.

Hannah has not put away the laundry in 3 weeks and is eating pie for dinner because she just can't be bothered to cook. Oh, and she somehow managed to break a finger and a toe at the same time, while already having a torn rotator cuff and impending gallbladder surgery. Her body is telling her she's getting older fast. Fantastic.

Melissa has started wearing eyeshadow again, and recently purchased several new Brita filters so she can stop using the one that has been languishing in her pitcher for a year. She also sorted out the slow drainage problem in her tub. She went to the gym once two weeks ago and didn't cry even a little.

Jenn--It's nice to hear that others feel the same way! The quarterly focuses so much on grads who "change the world". I wish they did stories on the rest of us too. I am happy to work part time and take care of my kids. My victory today was to finish the laundry and give my kids a bath at a decent hour so I can get back into my jammies.

Shannon is exhausted from working full time and commuting 90 minutes a day on public transportation. She wonders how anyone has the energy to take care of kids. She loves her kitties sometimes more than people and looks forward to watching Jeopardy on tv.

Ellen--I think some real class notes would be awesome. I just want to read that someone is plagued by self-doubt and worry, manages to have some fun, is shelving Great aspirations for Good ones, and is mostly doing the best she can. Welp, there's mine.

Lynn-- The one time I wrote in during the last 16 years I did say something about getting engaged, running a marathon, blah blah. Haha. If I wrote a real update it would be: Lynn wishes she could get rid of that extra 10+ pounds of baby weight but cupcakes and ice cream are just too darn good. She spent the last 5 months watching loads of HGTV while her partner was away on a submarine. She thought of a million different ways to renovate and redocorate their crappy rental house but never got around to doing any of it. Her dog died in February and that really sucked. She misses him every day.

Maddie--But last year when you won the London Marathon and cured ovarian cancer was such an inspiring post!

Linda--I like the quarterly in theory as well, but it is nice to check in with your peers to see that we may all be "uncommon women" but we are all pretty normal and have lots of very unexceptional moments in our lives. It is also fun to celebrate small victories...

*****

Elizabeth Topham Kennan, the president of Mount Holyoke College when I was there, said in a speech, "We have no reason to exist if we are not the best." It bothered me then, and it seems to weigh heavily on many of us even now. This thread represents a thirty-year span of graduates. We go along, living our lives, and then an issue of the Quarterly lays us low. Are we Uncommon Women, or merely "others"?

Oh, and my submission for Real Class Notes?

Julia is making the most of her summer break by going through boxes in the bedroom closet and just today finished organizing the kitchen mish mosh drawer.

 

 

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Off the Wagon

When Margo was in preschool I decided to face my unhealthy eating habits and, as I have many times in my life, went on a diet. This time it was the South Beach Diet. As with all diets, the beginning was painful. However, in a way that was different from other diets, over time my body really adjusted and I found myself craving junk food less and healthier foods more.

I lost a substantial amount of weight and felt wonderful. And then my mother died.

My mother died, and we went to Indiana to stay with my sister and her family. My brother-in-law is a Methodist minister, and we were inundated with the good cooking of kind Methodists. Months of healthy eating habits melted away as homemade oatmeal cookies, chicken and noodles, scalloped potatoes, glazed ham and more marched into the house.

No matter how hard I tried, I was never able to "get back on the wagon" after all that funeral food. Something in me snapped. I remembered a section in the South Beach Diet book that touched on the experience of someone who had failed. "This diet works just as long as you work it," he said.

That seemed too obvious when I read it. And I didn't think it could ever happen to me. But when I looked back on what happened in my own life, I realized the weight of it.

The same is true of daily blogging. When my schedule is consistent, and I get up each day and get to it, then it feels easy. But--take one day off--and I feel as though I may never write again. I wonder what the point is. I question why anyone would read what I write. Blogging, which once felt like the irresistible force, now becomes the immovable object.

I don't know why.

Perhaps the deadly force that creeps in if one pauses is perfectionism. As long as you keep the steady rhythm of writing, it can't catch up to you. Daily blogging works as long as you work it.

All of which is to say that I feel that I have fallen off the wagon and am running alongside, trying to find a way back up.

 

 

 

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Summer School

This year marks Margo's seventh year at Slayton House Camp of the Arts. It is truly the high point of her year. She thrives in a total immersion environment of music, drama, art, and dance. Of all the worlds she must function in, this is the most meaningful.

It is in the summer that I see the highest level academic thinking from her. That is where she does her best GT work. By this I mean she wants to stretch herself. She strives to improve from one day to the next. When embedded in the world of musical theatre Margo wants to be better than just passing. She gives it the extra effort: practicing lines at home, researching the musicals online, sitting down at the piano to go over music and even figuring out her own keyboard parts.

She talks with us about what she is learning. She gets ideas. Creative ideas. She writes about them on the ipad. She gets ideas for other musicals, ideas for short stories based on musicals. The other evening she was excited about what you would need to do to adapt the musical "Bye Bye Birdie" to the present day. It led to a fascinating discussion about changes in our culture and in the popular music scene.

This does not happen during the school year. Margo's entire experience in the public schools has been overshadowed by high-stakes testing. Teachers don't get to foster a love of reading or writing. They must produce students who can successfully read the photocopied packets and fill in the proper circles. The best moments of her schooling have come when she has been pulled out of the 'regular' class for small group instrumental learning or for the Curriculum Extension Units with GT Teachers.

Project based learning. Hands-on learning. Multi-sensory learning. This is the most meaningful way for my child to learn, and for most of us, I think. Finding topics that truly interest students and allowing some choice in how to explore the subject matter is what fosters the creation of a self-directed learner. That should be our goal--self-motivation, learning how to learn, and the joy inherent in true, deep learning.

As long as we continue to allow ourselves to be defined by standardized test scores and keep purchasing curriculum programs from the same people who create the tests, we fail our children. I am disgusted by the term "content-delivery" in reference to teaching. Teaching is not some automated system by which we line up all the pigs at the trough to receive their slops at the flip of a switch.

This problem is not unique to Howard County. It is happening all over the country as we have allowed people who don't have any professional training, experience, or understanding of teaching to step in and dictate what schools must do. Now, I can't change the entire nation but I can work for change within my own county. So can you.

The best learning my daughter does all year is at summer camp. We're grateful she has that experience, but I can't help but feel sad that she can't have it the rest of the year.

 

 

 

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Quiz Show

With apologies to Peter Sagal and NPR, this is:

"Spit it Out!!"

the VG/TS Columbia/Howard County current events quiz.

Questions are taken from the week's hyperlocal happenings. Winners of today's quiz will receive a selfie with Dylan Goldberg, locally grown zucchini from AnnieRie, and Dave Bittner's voice on their home answering machine.*

1. This week, Howard County locals were encouraged to show their hocolove by supporting what local event:

a) The opening of restaurant Mission Barbecue

b) Monday evening's County Council Meeting

c) Howard County Restaurant Week

2. At the groundbreaking event for CA's new Haven on the Lake wellness spa, guest were given swag bags which included the following:

a) Salt

b) Autographed pictures of Milton Matthews

c) Brochures on self-hypnosis

3. Local Blogger Marshmallow Man responded to conflict on the County Council by expressing a wish to see Council Members enact what classic Saturday morning cartoon show:

a) Wacky Racers

b) The Archies

c) Banana Splits

4. County Executive Ken Ulman made news when he changed his mind about:

a) term limits. He's staying.

b) rules for vendors of snacks and drinks at county functions

c) Coke. The ones with the names are cute.

5. Bloggers in Howard County did something unexpected by:

a) switching from cocktails to olive oil

b) holding hands and singing in front of the People Tree when Friday night's dance session was canceled

c) agreeing

6. Republican candidate for County Executive Allan Kittleman raised eyebrows when he revealed:

a) his new patriotic-themed Speedo swimsuit

b) a plan to raise funds with all-you can eat buffet events

c) tv ads aimed at Independent and Democratic voters

7. What local event combined Boy Scouts, cookies, politicians, and a sound-proof room?

a) filming for new healthy-eating PSA from HoCo Unsweetened

b) opening of renovated Savage Library

c) local podcast, "Are you Smarter than a Boy Scout?" sponsored by Girl Scout cookies

This week's fill-in-the-blank limerick:

"We're tired of such rude selfish barging

when lots up to date are enlarging

Your stupid "Mine, mine!"

Will get you a fine

Don't park in a space meant for ___________________!"

I hope you enjoyed playing along at home. Stay tuned for future episodes of "Spit It Out!" On the VG/TS network.

 

*completely false. Just made that bit up.

 

 

 

 

 

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