If Not Now, When?

One year ago, in my Facebook memories:

Just pure joy for Calvin Ball . My heart is full. Thank you, Howard County.

One of my favorite photographs of myself is a candid that was taken at a party at the Chrysalis. I was deep in conversation with Dr. Ball. This was before he had declared his candidacy for County Executive, but it was widely assumed that he was considering it.

The gist of what I said was that I had complete faith in his ability to to the job itself, but that I wasn’t convinced he should run because of all the hatefulness he would have to endure. I dreaded the possibility of more local racism coming out of the woodwork and of partisan smears whose only goal was to try to cut him down so that he looked small compared to their candidate.

Dr. Ball’s response was to acknowledge that those things would most likely occur, but that he couldn’t make a decision based on avoiding that. To paraphrase, he said that if he believed that the time was right for him to offer his service as County Executive, then he had to be willing to face that. “If not now, when?”  Waiting until the perfect time was not an option. And with that was the suggestion that there would never be a perfect time.

For some, nothing this County Executive does will ever be right because he is not Their Guy. And for others, everything he does will be right because he is Their Guy. The truth of the matter is that Dr. Ball will do good, work hard, make some mistakes, and learn from them. His election was historic. That does not require him to be perfect. Anyone who attempts to hold him to that standard and call anything else a failure is showing their own bias, nothing more.

And now, a year in, everything we both said is true. More local racism has continued to come out of the woodwork. Partisan operatives seize every opportunity to cut him down. Yet it is equally true that Dr. Ball made the choice to continue his public service to Howard County and continues to make that choice every day. There is no perfect time. There is only the choice to do one’s best.

Wandering

Another post from the I Am Cranky files.

Are there any neighborhoods in Columbia/HoCo where the house numbers are clearly visible after dark? I was reminded of this when I was wandering around in Owen Brown looking for a particular address at around six pm yesterday, Also: curse you, oh demon time change of doom. Why is it so dark at six pm?

This is always the time of year when I wonder if humankind was meant to be out of the house at all after dark. The early sunset times make my usually familiar world unfriendly and laced with a sense of foreboding. Stay home and light a candle, I think. Why go out and curse the darkness?

Back to addresses. Are there no laws about house numbers being clearly visible at night? How do emergency vehicles find anybody? I was using GPS but it told me I had arrived when I was still four or five houses away from my destination. And, in a suburban neighborhood without sidewalks, someone wandering around in the dark looks sketchy at best. 

Let’s make house numbers easier to see at night. Or let’s all stay home until Spring.

Wish List

I’m not ready. I’m not ready. I’m not ready.

That being said, what are your recommendations for shopping local during this upcoming holiday season? Where do you go to get the best gifts for family and friends?

Every year I seem to be fighting the urge to sit in my comfy chair and order everything online. And yet I also have nightmares about Amazon becoming the BuynLarge of WALL-E fame. I know I can do better.

Tell me your favorite local businesses for holiday shopping. I’ll gather them together for a future post.

Uphill

And now, a question.

What is up with that inexplicable hallway in Oakland Mills High School?

If you’ve even been in the school, you know what I mean. The hallway that goes past the cafeteria and down towards the auditorium is unlike any school hallway I have ever experienced. It is at a slant, but not an even slant. It is a gently rolling hill, with little ups and downs along the way, like gentle waves.

How did this come into existence? Is there a reason? Was it a mistake?

I know that some of the Howard County schools are built along the same model, so are there any other high schools with similar hallways?

Every time I go to OMHS I wonder if they ever let kids loose on skateboards on that hallway. It would be great for wagon rides or movers’ dollies, too. Perhaps a fundraising idea?

Or far too much liability for an administrator to risk it? Who knows.

I’d just love to know how on earth this upsy, downsy hallway got there in the first place.

Hearing Voices

My husband and I were out for dinner the other evening and I noticed a new business had opened near the restaurant. The window was filled with photographic displays of Black women—beautiful, confident, radiant. I noticed that something inside me felt unsettled. As we went into the restaurant it stayed with me.

I realized I was hearing a voice.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I always liked that shopping center. But now it’s going to go downhill. It’s too bad when that happens.”

What was that voice?

It was my mother. My liberal, Unitarian mother, a lifelong Democrat, making observations here and there throughout my childhood.

I felt sick. And angry. And ashamed.

Why was this voice inside me? How had I not known it was there? It told me that any signs of Black-owned business, or those catering to people of color, was a sign of decay, of danger. That the presence of such businesses marked the beginning of the end for a commercial area.

Let me make it completely clear that in my conscious mind I do NOT believe this. But this moment underscored for me how, even though we may think of ourselves as well-meaning allies we still carry these voices inside us in one way or another. They are often completely unknown to us and we would swear they are not there but then, at the oddest times, they break through.

This is implicit bias. This is the long, long arm of systemic racism and the curse of white supremacy. We believe that because we have a few black friends and do not belong to the KKK that we are untouched and unaffected. But then we see a display in a store window. Or young people at a village center. Or test scores at a school. And something inside us feels uncomfortable.

It may not even rise to the level of conscious thought but it influences our attitudes and decisions. That is why it is so damaging. It is the poison we pass on by not addressing it. It is what is meant when you see a sentence that begins, “I’m not a racist, but” and continues on with the words, “those people.”

I wish this were not the truth of where we are in our country, and in our county. But it cannot be wished away. It must be worked away. And I’m calling myself out today because I want my readers to know that I don’t hold myself above that work. I keep struggling.

I want to be better.

Breathing Free

Every once in a while there’s one of those NPR stories that just rock you to your core. This week, this  was the one:

New Hope For Patients Living With Cystic Fibrosis After Scientists Unveil Therapy, an interview with Dr. Francis Collins by Mary Louise Kelly

Dr. Collins, the director of the NIH, is one of the team of doctors who discovered the gene defect that causes cyclic fibrosis thirty years ago. This week a promising therapy was announced that can help ninety percent of patients living with CF. It is truly a major medical breakthrough.

This was the moment in the interview where I almost had to pull the car off of the road.

KELLY: Yeah. I am told that after you first identified the cystic fibrosis gene, you wrote a song.

COLLINS: I did. We sang it this morning, actually.

KELLY: Would you share a tiny bit with us?

COLLINS: Sure. So the song is called "Dare To Dream." And I wrote it at a
time where, yes, we understood what the DNA misspelling was, but we were
a long way from knowing how that could help people therapeutically. And
the chorus is dare to dream, all our brothers and sisters breathing free.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

COLLINS: (Singing) All our brothers and sisters breathing free. Unafraid,
our hope's unswayed (ph) until the story of CF is history. Do that one more
time.

So here we have a doctor, a scientist, who has been working on a problem that leads to major human suffering and early death. And what is the first thing he does when a breakthrough occurs?

He writes a song.

What an incredible affirmation of how much music is an innate part of the human spirit. The scientist who is the investigator of complex enigmas, the doctor who is the shaper of innovative healing protocols, is also the artist who is the creator of song.

You cannot convince me that music is not every bit as much a part of what goes into Dr. Collins as his science, math, and medical training. Music and creative expression and the arts education that students receive throughout their school years become interwoven with the other disciplines and are an integral part of learning and human growth.

And we sang that this morning here in Nashville at the major cystic fibrosis meeting. And I had a borrowed guitar and stood up in front of 5,000 people and put the chorus up on the screen. And they stood up, and they sang their hearts out. And it was hard to keep going and not just get choked up. It was a moment.

The arts are not the sprinkles on top on the cake. They are the leavening that allows it to rise.

Play Along

I can’t remember where I saw it, but I chanced upon an online conversation about creating a Howard County Monopoly game. I think it was a purely hypothetical proposition. One of the participants recalled there being an actual Columbia Monopoly game, back in the day.

Was there really such a thing? Do any of my readers have one? I’d love to see it.

If there were a Columbia/HoCo Monopoly game, what would you want it to contain? What streets/neighborhoods would be essential? Would you want to add in local parks? Merriweather? The Chrysalis? What about the Mall? Would the Fairgrounds be on your game board? Perhaps some of the major local farms?

Draw a card:

• Stuck in traffic due to downed tree on Route 32. Lose one turn.
• No parking at the Mall on a Friday night. Lose one turn.
• Your home project is immediate approved by your local RAC. Skip ahead three spaces.
• Columbia Flier/HoCo Times prints your letter to the editor. Take an additional turn.
• Unexpected goats are blocking your driveway. Go back three spaces.

As always, what do you think? What would make for the quintessential Columbia/HoCo Monopoly game? What tweaks to the original would add to the fun of game play, personalizing it to our local experiences? 

Things have been so heavy around here lately that a bit of play might be just what we need.

*****

UPDATE: I have been informed by a reader that there is a perfectly vile version of this concept circulating in some social media circles. I just want to make it clear that is not where I saw it. I think it is safe to say that I don’t hang out in that part of the Internet. So please take this post in the spirit in which it was intended: that of innocent, light-hearted fun.