I've been a rabid rose freak since age six, even when each slice of a thorn compels me to say my garden will be the death of me. But honeysuckle is my favorite fragrance - maybe because it is so fleeting, but also because the scent simply brings me to peace - lately, a rare commodity, as I'm challenged and frustrated too often by the questions we didn't even know needed asking as we herk and jerk our way to what I'm calling Dumpster Day.
So nothing was going to stop Thursday's shoe-imperiling journey through an urban thicket into a hellish McDonogh Street backyard to grab at honeysuckle cheerfully rambling round a rusty ramshackle fence. This rear yard couldn't be more different than my clipped, symmetrical, immaculate, practically perfect (something in my world has to be!) formal rose garden, but even amid the weeds and the critters and the collapsing houses, I found beauty and sanctuary.
It reminded me of what I wrote in I Surrender on my Steamed Female blog: "Maybe it was something in the stillness and the quiet that freed my mind and let it roam - made possible by surrendering to something exactly opposite of my perfectly-planned spaces and not at all under my control." I will endeavor to keep this in mind with the next challenge.
22 June 2008
19 June 2008
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer
Actually, it's more like Donna got run over by a Range Rover.
Looking both ways - heck, any way - before crossing streets in our bull's eye has been unnecessary for so long that it was entirely my bad for practically getting flattened.
But seemingly overnight, traffic's resumed. Eager Street is open for business. Big bulldozers busily move dirt. A foundation flies out of the ground. People are walking. The sense of motion, of progress - of regeneration - is palpable. Naysayers are clearly outnumbered.
I've said for months now that it's the night before Christmas here in EBDI-land. Commencement of greenhabbing is still maddeningly a few weeks off, but to paraphrase Grandpa - I believe.
Looking both ways - heck, any way - before crossing streets in our bull's eye has been unnecessary for so long that it was entirely my bad for practically getting flattened.
But seemingly overnight, traffic's resumed. Eager Street is open for business. Big bulldozers busily move dirt. A foundation flies out of the ground. People are walking. The sense of motion, of progress - of regeneration - is palpable. Naysayers are clearly outnumbered.
I've said for months now that it's the night before Christmas here in EBDI-land. Commencement of greenhabbing is still maddeningly a few weeks off, but to paraphrase Grandpa - I believe.
15 June 2008
Happy Father's Day
Last month's 35th anniversary without my daddy was the first I was not distraught or depressed and I attribute it to my job at EBDI. Being busy doing something so important quite simply crowded out the pain.
In this job, there's an element of homage to my father, who conveyed his great affection for Baltimore City to me. Every day on my way to work, as I pass through the intersection at Biddle and Maryland, I am at or within one block of at least half a dozen of his many enterprises, all housed in the old buildings he loved so much. His entrepreneurial, promotional spirit has motivated me for the twenty years I've operated various businesses and continues to inspire me as EBDI steams toward developing and hyping green, historic rehabs - the most profound act of tikkun olam (repairing the world) with which I have ever been associated. If Daddy were here, there's no doubt we'd be doing green rehabs as a private enterprise - and making a circus of it.
Sam Shapiro was reknowned for his perennial mayoral and congressional campaigns, highly publicized capers and hijinks, and the compulsion to express himself; there's no doubt I am my father's daughter and I am grateful for all that DNA. My tribute to him in Dan Rodricks' 2007 Father's Day column - that he taught me to love and revere old buildings; to be self-sufficient in case something happened to him (it did); to promote a cause (or myself) with humor and style; to be a Renaissance woman (otherwise known as giving in to your ADHD); and (inadvertently) that life is short, so have as much fun as possible - never rang truer.
Daddy, you sure did know how to have fun and corral others into having fun watching you having fun - and we sure could use more of that levity today. Thank you for being you and cluing me in on how to be me.
In this job, there's an element of homage to my father, who conveyed his great affection for Baltimore City to me. Every day on my way to work, as I pass through the intersection at Biddle and Maryland, I am at or within one block of at least half a dozen of his many enterprises, all housed in the old buildings he loved so much. His entrepreneurial, promotional spirit has motivated me for the twenty years I've operated various businesses and continues to inspire me as EBDI steams toward developing and hyping green, historic rehabs - the most profound act of tikkun olam (repairing the world) with which I have ever been associated. If Daddy were here, there's no doubt we'd be doing green rehabs as a private enterprise - and making a circus of it.
Sam Shapiro was reknowned for his perennial mayoral and congressional campaigns, highly publicized capers and hijinks, and the compulsion to express himself; there's no doubt I am my father's daughter and I am grateful for all that DNA. My tribute to him in Dan Rodricks' 2007 Father's Day column - that he taught me to love and revere old buildings; to be self-sufficient in case something happened to him (it did); to promote a cause (or myself) with humor and style; to be a Renaissance woman (otherwise known as giving in to your ADHD); and (inadvertently) that life is short, so have as much fun as possible - never rang truer.
Daddy, you sure did know how to have fun and corral others into having fun watching you having fun - and we sure could use more of that levity today. Thank you for being you and cluing me in on how to be me.
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