Month: July 2020

If ever there was an individual to aspire to be like, John Lewis is at the top of the list. His courage, persistence, humility, and kindness combine to form the kind of person we need more of in our world.

I watched the recording of Barack Obama’s eulogy of Congressman John Lewis this morning, and my first reaction was one of sadness, sadness at once again looking at the cruel and immense difference in character between our former president and the current one, sadness that we’ve lost a man such as John Lewis, and more than sadness – what I think I can now call grief – that we have the current president we do.

As I listened to Obama share tidbits of Mr. Lewis’s determination to push our nation to a more perfect and just union, my sadness and grief started to melt away and be replaced with hope. We DO have the grit, determination, and compassion to turn things around and to keep moving toward justice. One of the positive outcomes in having such a horrendous creature sitting in the White House is that racism has been laid bare. Rocks have been turned over, and we’ve shone a flashlight on the ugly mug of racism that persists in our country.

The (third) time I was brought to tears during the eulogy was when Obama mentioned “whites who can no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of their fellow Americans.” We are called upon to live by this. What should it look like in our daily lives? How can we be more like John? This evening, I stood my ground with my conservative (though anti-Trump) father-in-law as I referred to the enduring effects of systemic racism. It’s not exactly an act of bravery, but it’s something.

A good friend of ours has a restaurant waiting to open. He secured a spot where Noodles and Company in Crystal City used to be and has transformed it into a beautiful bistro. A wall curves outward onto a front patio with newly varnished wood decking. Windows slide open over the curved wall so that you can enjoy a mild evening from either side while dining. Vines climb up a wide pillar strung with lights, big orbs hang from the ceiling on the patio, waiting to be lit up and shining down on happy people.

Nick, the owner, has put together a menu of just 10 entrees that they will prepare with great care. He gets his coffee from Swing’s Coffee Roasters, who has been on the DC coffee scene for over 100 years, and a top-of-the-line roaster and espresso maker sit, shiny and unused, on the counter.

My favorite part is the mural that adds an arresting splash of color across an entire wall. It features a leopard, coffee plants, mountains, and a young woman. He explained that since the restaurant is all about him (it’s “The Freshman,” which is his last name) he wanted to pay tribute to the cooks who will be working for him – they’re all from El Salvador, and that’s what the mural is all about.

He invited the four of us to grab take-out and meet him, his wife, and their daughter for dinner at the empty restaurant. Maxine and his daughter opened the windows (Maxine already knows her way around the place and fully expects a job there in the future). It was one of the very few pleasant (or bearable) evenings we’ve had lately – warm, but not stifling. We spread out across the length of several tables and enjoyed our Sweet Green and Chipotle, waving at curious people out for a stroll. Many of them stopped and asked when they would open. Nick could only say, “We hope soon.”

As he took us on the tour, I kept dreaming of a post-pandemic future. Here’s where I’ll have a cup of coffee while I read my book. Here’s where Maxine will learn to make the perfect cappuccino. Here’s where we’ll congregate to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, graduations… congregate. What a wild concept. It’s difficult to imagine that will be safe again – laughing, talking, sharing food. If only we knew the magic date when all this will begin again, it wouldn’t feel so much like a dream.

These past two weeks have been a great escape. I was uneasy for the first week, not knowing if coming down here was an irresponsible decision, as if one of us might walk unknowingly into a cloud of COVID. At the end of 13 days, we all feel well rested and healthy, but we’ll still keep our distance for a bit from friends and family when we get home.

I wonder if I could live here. I am a bit of a beach fanatic, and being able to ride my bike to a white sand beach and turquoise water is pretty hard to beat. Paddling through mangroves has also proven to be very easy to pull off here. We’ve launched from several points over the past two weeks, and I was never disappointed. I’ve paddled at sunset and sunrise in various bays; I’ve seen dolphins, manatees, pelicans, herons, and other shore birds with long, thin beaks, perfect for plucking out sand crabs. I’ve biked alongside swamps filled with alligators, and through prairies, wetlands, and pine lands in one single park (Myakka State Park – check it out!).

Would I ever grow tire of these things? Maybe. I think I would miss the changing leaves and a crackling fire on a three-dog night. It’s a good thing I don’t have to decide this right now. I think I’ll just remain thankful for the getaway and put off worrying about where I should retire for a while. I have plenty of time.

Florida is taking a beating right now. The numbers of positive cases and deaths continue to rise; the governor insists schools must reopen five days a week in-person, despite the letter from the Florida chapter of the American Pediatric Association asking him to reconsider; and Marco Rubio can’t tell the difference between Elijah Cummings and John Lewis. But…

I have been able to shrink the big, dark cloud that’s been hanging over my head since mid-March by blasting it with a healthy dose of sun, sand and sea. The first full day here, we rode bikes to a secluded beach, played in the surf, and gathered shells. The next day, we let the kids sleep in and took off on our bikes again, finding another secluded spot where we could enjoy the beach and swim out to a sandbar. We’ve paddled at dusk through mangroves, kayaked through an inlet out to the Gulf, and watched the sun go down over an alligator-filled lake.

We’ve missed going to our favorite hang-outs, like the beach-side shack for fried calamari and beer and the Ringing Museum on Sarasota Bay, but the morning paddle I did on the Gulf today with a family of dolphins frolicking in the gentle waves definitely beat all of that, hands down.

I’ve been a little uneasy having our family so far from home at such a time, and I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when we pull into our driveway late Friday night, but until then, I plan to keep soaking in the sun and surf that sunny Florida offers in abundance.

We who have chosen to devote our lives to the education and nurturing of young people feel immense sorrow that we will begin a new school year with our students through a screen. We worry about their mental health. We worry about lack of motivation and the difficulties we will face engaging them in virtual learning. We worry about vast inequities that exist between families in terms of economic resources and adeptness at supporting children’s academic and emotional growth. We worry about children who will be confined to crowded and noisy apartments as they struggle to focus on their work on the screen.

But do you know what we worry about more? We worry about losing students and colleagues to this virus. Sending our APS community back to classrooms at this time would be a dangerous and irresponsible gamble with our lives – children and staff. No, children don’t appear to contract the virus as easily as adults, and if they do, they do not seem to suffer severe effects. However, children with underlying conditions are at significant risk, and research indicates that as children approach and enter their teen years, they are more vulnerable to contracting the virus and suffering more serious effects than those of younger children.

I would be lying if I said I was ready to sacrifice my health, and possibly my life, at this moment, and I believe a vast majority of our community values the lives of educators. To those who are willing to gamble with educators’ lives, I have a question: when teachers begin to fall ill, who will teach the students? We have difficulty getting substitutes as it is; can you imagine what securing a sub during COVID will be like? Besides, how effective do you believe the average substitute teacher would be in nurturing children, academically and socially, especially during this traumatic time?

We are only beginning to learn about the effects of the virus and how to treat it. Think about the middle and high school setting: how is it a good idea to put twelve or more students in a room with a teacher for 90 minutes at a time, often in a space without windows or with windows that don’t open? At the end of those 90 minutes, do it again, and then again. And the next day, do it again with three to four new groups of students. How many people do you know who would be comfortable with this scenario right now? Teachers are not trained to be front-line workers, nor is a classroom that looks like the front-line a mentally healthy place for students.

Thankfully, we have a superintendent who is putting the safety of students and teachers first, and we are now able to move forward without fear and set upon educating ourselves about effective distance teaching and putting plans in place to support our students the best we can virtually until it is safe enough to begin to phase in in-person learning. This also gives us time to learn more about the virus, time to learn more about sanitizing the spaces we will share, time to – I hope and pray – see the numbers come down. We have counselors; social workers; diversity, equity, and inclusion specialists; an office of family and community engagement; administrators; and teachers who are hell-bent on protecting and educating our students. I love these children fiercely, as do educators across the country, and I believe we are pressing ahead with the option that does less harm. In the middle of a deadly pandemic, that’s what we’re stuck with right now: doing less harm.

Chris and I were driving on Henderson Road last week, on our way to Fountainhead Park to kayak and paddle. “Wait! Take a left here, on Thistledown!” I insisted. Sure enough, Summerwind Drive appeared, but we were now on private land, so we turned around and got back on our route.

The winding roads and majestic homes barely discernible through the lush green trees brought me back to summers in the 1980’s and memories of a family that used to be a big part of our lives.

The Dassel family fascinated me as a kid. My older sister was close friends with the second oldest daughter in the family, which is how our family got to know them. They had a beautiful home off Summerwind Drive, at the end of a private road that wound through the woods, with a lower driveway that dropped you at the bottom of a stone staircase, and an upper one that brought you right up under the portico in front of the grand entrance. Their German Shepherd, Boris, would invariably greet you upon arrival, as he patrolled the grounds with jocular curiosity.

The mom, whom we all came to call Muttie (short for mutter, which means “mother” in German), had designed the home herself. When you entered the foyer, a sweeping stairway curved around to the upper floor under a two-story-high ceiling, and a glassed-in conservatory stood on the right. Inside stood a grand piano that all five daughters played. The oldest two wrote their own pop songs on it, which inspired me to take up lessons again. The oldest daughter, Tania, was the bad girl of the family. She smoked and drove a Camero and always seemed to have a different hot boyfriend every time I saw her. She once offered to take me home, since she was heading my way to meet a friend for tennis. She blasted the stereo, smoked, and drove way too fast the whole way. She was awesome.

I became friends with the fourth oldest, who was in my grade and undoubtedly the sweetest in the family. She was rarely involved in any of the nasty fights that broke out among the older three and showed only mild irritation with the youngest sister, whom they all affectionately called Puke. I spent a handful of weekends at their home over the course of one summer. We’d swim late into the night in their pool, come in for snacks, watch a movie, and then spend the next day and night eating and swimming some more. Alina, aka Puke, substituted a shower with the pool all summer and, consequently, her hair turned green.

I never remember Muttie scolding or correcting us or telling us to go to bed. She would occasionally float through the house in a silky, flowing robe, wearing a glowing smile. I think she spent most of her time in her art studio painting beautiful water colors and oil portraits, and I only saw their dad once or twice. All I knew back then was that he was a psychiatrist and worked all the time.

I remember when Muttie split from her husband, and they had to sell the house. She moved with her girls to a much smaller home in Woodbridge. Gone was the magic of Summerwind, and good old Boris had already passed away.

Those summers in the 80’s seemed to stretch on forever, buzzing with the potential of a great adventure around every corner. I’m trying to lose myself in this summer as much as possible before reality comes a-knockin. I’m channeling Summerwind.

My husband is pretty laid back and is a master of avoiding confrontation on his side of the family. It takes a great deal to get him worked up, but there is one thing he is not messing with: COVID.

His dad has an on and off switch, and very little middle ground exists. He is either working through a punch list with vigor and determination or asleep (he’s kind of like our kittens that way, though their punch list is chasing a ball of dust or toy mouse). There’s no telling where you’ll find him: scrubbing pool tiles, reorganizing the garage, up on the roof brushing tree debris off the Spanish tiles, power-washing the driveway…the list goes on. Whenever they come to visit, Chris must have a list of projects ready for him to dive into, or he’ll be restless and mopey. So, the pandemic has been very frustrating for him. Just this morning, he expressed his desire to run to Home Depot for a sledgehammer to, um, I forgot what for. Chris and his mom both discouraged him, citing Florida’s ever-growing positive cases. He acquiesced.

A little while ago, while I was in the bedroom reading, I heard Chris raise his voice, and I heard snippets like, “…because there’s a pandemic!” and “Do you want us to pack up and leave today?!” I guess Grandpa was making more noise about going on an unnecessary outing, and I think he’s now clearer on how everybody else feels about it. Chris’s mom and sister have been dealing with this since April, and it’s not easy for anyone. Once Chris’s dad left the room, his mom turned to her normally easy-going son and thanked him. It takes a village to keep each other safe.

Yep, that’s where we are. We made the 14-hour drive yesterday to spend two weeks with Chris’s parents and sister’s family in Sarasota (whose COVID numbers are lower than Arlington’s at the moment). We made lightening- quick runs into rest area bathrooms, and packed enough food so that we wouldn’t have to buy any on the road. Miraculously, the kittens snuggled and slept in their carrier the entire way down. They would occasionally raise their sleepy little heads and yawn and stretch before settling back into sleep. We listened to pod casts, and the kids watched shows they had downloaded on their devices.

So, now we’re here. Chris’s parents have a lovely home that wraps around a pool and hot tub. His sister knows all the isolated spots to paddle board and kayak, swim in the Gulf, and ride bikes. I have been so anxious and emotional the past few weeks with the thought of how APS will reopen schools and how our trip down here would go, that I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Once we arrived last night, we settled on the lanai (for those unfamiliar with Florida lexicon, it’s the screen-enclosed patio around the pool) and caught up with the family. By 10:00, everyone was wiped out, and the house was quiet and dark by 10:15. I slipped on my bathing suit and went for a swim in the pool, with the palms swaying in the light of the moon and the crickets chirping in the lush vegetation just outside the screen. I slept like a baby (well, not like my babies – mine were not great sleepers).

Thank goodness for bicycles. I hear they’re hard to come by these days, which makes me even more thankful that we each have one. Maxine has been performing the duties of a counselor in training (CIT) these past two weeks from 10-12 each morning in a virtual camp, and she either rides her bike up the hill to be with two fellow CIT’s in their backyards or hosts them here on our back deck. Several times a week, she takes off in the afternoon on her bike for a masked and gloved Starbucks pick-up. Seeing her zip off on her bike and return sweaty reminds me of some of my summer bike adventures. One in particular stands out.

I grew up riding a bike, but we mostly stayed in our neighborhood until I was in high school (and mountain bikes became the rage). Occasionally we rode a quarter mile away and rode up and down the shaded, rolling “country road” that was unique in that it was surrounded by new subdivisions of townhouses and newer single family homes.

One typically hot and steamy summer morning, a brilliant idea occurred to me: I would ride my bike the four or so miles to my friend Amber’s house. She and her brother had taken me on the route a few times before, and I was confident I could navigate it on my own. In those days, we had no helmets or water bottles (we had only recently gotten into the habit of wearing a seat belt in the car, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves). I called out to my mom that I was riding to the McGuires’ in Burke Center, hopped on my yellow five-speed, and off I went. The warm wind blew through my hair as I cruised up and down the rolling, wide boulevard that ran in front of my elementary school.

When I got to the busier road, I waited for a break in traffic, ran my bike across, and navigated toward the end of the cul-de-sac, where the bike trail began. What a relief to get out of the pounding sun. It couldn’t have been noon yet, but it must have already topped 90 degrees. My mouth was set for a tall, icy glass of soda. My mom never kept soda in the house and rarely bought junk food, but it was always a party at the McGuire home. They had several kinds of soda, Doritos, and potato chips. Their dad loved to rent thrillers for us to watch on Friday nights, and they even had a ferret running around underfoot. Oh, and they didn’t skimp on the AC. My mom wouldn’t turn on the AC until sweat was running down our backs and we began writhing in pain, whereas the McGuire home was a glorious ice box all summer long.

Fortunately, the rest of the journey was on a shaded trail through the woods. I soon came upon the pond I remembered, and the warm air was thick with the sweet, heady aroma of mimosa trees in full bloom. When I approached a V in the path, I faltered momentarily before trusting my instincts and choosing left. Before I knew it, the Kinder Care day care center in Amber’s neighborhood appeared. Across the street, their black door stood out on their white house, beckoning me to approach and ring the doorbell. They would be so happy to see me (I hadn’t called before; it would be such a cool surprise), and welcome me with soda and chips. Maybe we’d even go to the pool.

Sweaty, thirsty, and triumphant, I made it up the front steps and pressed the doorbell. And then a second time. Humm. Maybe it was broken. I pulled up the large gold knocker and let it fall with a bang. Nothing. Could it be they weren’t home? What? I waited a few more minutes before accepting the awful truth: the McGuires were not home.

With my head hung low, I saddled up and began the hot and sweaty journey home. The woods were now a little eerie instead of a welcome oasis. The mimosa blossoms were bordering on sickly sweet, and the wide boulevard was a cruel desert. But wait. All would not be lost. I pushed those pedals the extra three blocks past my street to get to the soda machine outside of Safeway. I dug in my pocket and pulled out sixty cents for a large glass bottle of Diet Coke.

When I got home, I nearly burst into tears of relief when I noticed all the windows were shut -my mom had turned on the AC! I dropped my bike in the front yard, stumbled in the door, emptied the entire bottle of soda into a huge, ice-filled hurricane glass, and plopped down on the couch. Sweet relief.

When Amber called me back that evening, she couldn’t believe I had biked all the way to her house alone and without calling first. They had been at Kings Dominion. Lesson here: call first and bring a water bottle.

Yesterday’s July 4th was a good day. I got up early to stand in line at the farmers market for sour cherries (I get more than a little excited when it’s cherry pie-making time). By the time I got home, Chris had loaded up the truck with the canoe, paddle board, and kayak, and our sleepy-headed teens were beginning to emerge from their lairs. In under an hour, we were on our way to Mason Neck for a day on the water. The water was surprising clear, due to the abundance of invasive hydrilla, which does an excellent job of filtering the water. The highlight of the day for the kids was paddling a good way out from the shore and taking turns dumping each other off the paddle board.

We stopped at a fireworks stand on the way home, where I picked out brightly colored packages with enticing names like “Fireflies Surprise” and “Shazam.” I couldn’t resist the extremely low-key snakes, which we took great pleasure in smooshing with our fingers when I was a kid. I never pass up a box or two of snakes on the 4th.

After a dinner of skillet potatoes, crab cakes, and mufaletta salad, I mixed up a couple of Old Fashioned cocktails, and we teamed up for a family game of ladder ball (Maxine and I won). Just before darkness fell, we headed out the front door and lined up all the fireworks in the street. Maxine’s friend biked down the hill to witness the display, and just as we were lighting the first fuse, a couple of moms happened upon us with five very excited children, all between the ages of about three and six. They stayed safely across the street and squealed with excitement with every pop and shower of sparks. They critiqued each one, usually very generously. We saved the second “Fireflies Surprise” for last (everything was buy one, get one free, so I was able to determine which one was best for the grand finale). Once the last spark died on the asphalt, the moms began to usher the kids along their way, but not before each little voice cried out a cheerful “thank you!”

Though we weren’t able to gather with a big group for a party, I’d say this year’s fourth was pretty darn good.