Over the River, Through the Woods

30 Monday Dec 2013

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I’m the kind of person, a city bus pauses in front of me and snaps opens the door, I want to get on. Even if my course for the day is set, and especially if the bus is one I’ve never taken. Where’s that bus headed?

Shipyard Way sign

Around a corner, over the bend, I’m curious to follow the trails other animals (humans included) set. Marked and annotated, paved, tread-bare. Unfortunately, a fall season stuffed with work, personal, and social responsibilities and engagements offered few opportunities to engage in little explorations.

Trees by the Mystic River

This December, I fell sick enough to put a temporary halt to my ordinary dashing about. Days of sleeping and alternating between watching old TV favorites on Youtube and feeling monumentally bored finally gave way to something new.

Mystic River Route sign

We followed the paved Mystic River Route trail along a fast roadway in Medford, discovering, at dusk, an ornate green, metal bridge leading to an old New England-style shopping district, docks on the river, and a delicate amphitheater dedicated to human rights activist and writer Lydia Maria Child.

Over the green bridge

Mystic River at dusk

Over the river poem by Lydia Maria Child

I’d completely misremembered this poem. Thought it was “through the woods” and “grandmother’s house”!

Lane Change

09 Monday Dec 2013

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A criticism I’ve heard applied to sea-change efforts/programs, like Teach for America or the Peace Corps, is that the true aim is not to directly impact the people and places served, but to change the person doing the serving. To drive that individual to action beyond the current actions.

Snacks and tunes

In this sequence, it appears that the people and places that should be benefiting are instead being sacrificed for a mere idea of Greater Good; that far-off star we may never touch.

All those young people out there, sweating towards the unreachable.

And the struggle continues

I don’t share that bleak view. Important people in my life, some whom I haven’t yet met (I’m sure), are out there doing that work, systematically affecting change, though what change they may not know. And while they strive, I continue working at the micro-level: one Feminist Culture Club, one pie sorting, one bike ride at a time.

Lane Change is a new Boston-area group uniting cyclists of color. With a few rides under our belt in the warmer months of 2013, we’re looking forward to what 2014 brings. Perhaps not a sea-change, but ripples of fun, joy, and positivity.

Suiting up to ride

Lane Change group 2013

Boston Halloween Bike Ride 2013

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Bike Life, Boston Moments, Community

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The bad news: Below is the only photo I have from the October 31st ride.

Going up hill on bike

The good news: It was our third year taking part in the ride and I was blown away. Hundreds of people turned out, so many I couldn’t keep up with the costumes. Unicorns and a school of sharks and elephants and a lightning bug and zombies and tigers and several boombox trailers blasting James Brown and Loki and lighthouses and a CFL lightbulb and police officers (not official) and bacon and snack cakes and a harem of zebras and Captain America and a bumblebee riding a lobster bike and . . . wow.

Our group meet up at Green Street MBTA station in Jamaica Plain and traveled into Boston proper, where we met the second group and lit up the streets around Mass. College of Art and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. Then through Fenway and over to Cambridge; Central Square, Harvard Square; ’round to Allston and through Brookline; back to JP. My favorite moment was riding through the Cambridge Street tunnel in Harvard Square, bikes-only, everyone hooping and hollering and shouting their hearts out in the cavernous, echo-y space.

Even if you don’t ride, you gotta see this thing and cheer us on. Next year, friends!

Two viking ships (on bike helmets)

Handcrafted by my partner, two viking ships off to sail the seas

When Goals Come to Life

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Summer’s end, as part of the work plan that sets the tone for another year (my ninth) as a community worker, I made a secret goal: be calm.

Public art, Rockport, MA

It’s a new strategy.

Fall in the city of universities is crazy. Probably it’s the constant influx of the youthful energy that keep Boston and environs hopping from September to December. I’m throwing events out the window, there are so many festivals and friend-gatherings and work responsibilities. Years of flat-out running have trained me to expect that, once fall hits, I’ll loose my keys, wallet, time, name.

Public art/bench, Rockport, MA

What I’m trying to tell you, friendly reader, is that while I was able to carve out time to work on my novel, Whole Heart Local has been autumn’s freshest victim. I’ve been amassing blog topics, writing posts in my head on my bike commute, and carting my camera from event to event. I’m keeping half of the bargain of good blog care-taking.

Hoping to catch up with the other half soon . . .

Man with dog, Rockport, Ma

Maine Begins The Year

30 Monday Sep 2013

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For me, a year has a few transition points: the harvest and cold-weather holidays, July 4th (my birthday), and annual Maine Vacation.

Friends swim in Worthley Pond

Going back around eight years, a group of friends, loosely connected via my alma mater, have gathered at a farm house on Worthley Pond. We cook for one another, play games, and challenge each other to accept our quirks and eccentricities for up to ten whole days in a sort of self-imposed group-isolation.

Toasting over an open fire
Playing the uke in Maine
Daddy helps Redd fly
Homemade pizzas
Pellechs quilt in progress

People say it’s good to take a vacation to recharge. Our Maine Vacation is more a reset. A shoring up and storing the clear pond-smell, sunsets, and quiet moments with my partner. I time-release these memories slowly throughout the hectic fall. ‘Till next summer.

Tea on the shore

Whole Heart Cape Cod with Librarytour Bonus

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

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My favorite way to travel is to someone. Beauty is in the eye of the person who loves, and what better method for cutting to the heart of a place than through the perspicacious perspective of a child of that place?

Cape Cod beach

This past August, I re-met Cape Cod, that supremely popular portion of Massachusetts famous for attracting throngs of respite-hungry tourists.

Phoebe's feet in the sand

Raised on the Jersey Shore, I generally feel I’ve seen the beach. Nothing new. Except, of course, there is always something new: sunset colors warming the slow waves over our toes, a diverse collection of sober revelers, singing around a fire in the sand, something about faith, humility, and togetherness.

And Provincetown . . . well P-town is unique. My Jersey childhood had me picturing this oft-mentioned resort town as one with wooden board walks dried ashy by salt, lined with arcade/casinos competing for attention with booming game soundtracks and the ping! of coins dropping.

Bike taxi in P-town

My Boston Pride experience inspired me to expect dudes in short-shorts with that strut. Yet, with its quaint sweetness, superb galleries, and narrow, semi-urban feel, P-town strayed from my expectations.

The biggest shock was the Provincetown Public Library.

Round window in P-town library

Boatman in the photo

Children's room lanterns

Small town libraries always have something interesting going on. Few, however, pack the sort of surprise that, in theory, could one day sail away. Crash right through those walls and down to sea.

Schooner bow

Schooner sail

Wave bookshelves

Schooner deck

Caro looking out

I was so impressed by the library’s holdings, a half-scale model of the Rose Dorothea Schooner completed in 1988, I barely searched for what have come to represent, to me, markers of a solid community resource.

I guess, sometimes, it’s okay to be swept away.

Phoebe is joyful at P-town library

Mwhaha! I love a library!

How Not To Be Afraid of Teenagers

30 Friday Aug 2013

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Leading the dragon

In a city, it’s not unusual to find oneself in the company of a gaggle of teens. On public transportation, at a sports game, in line at a popular ice cream haunt. Shouting opinions, selling raffles, engaged in chases-around-the-table. Their young voices make my ears stand to attention and I can easily be transported back to my years at that age. I feel a bristling sense of anticipation. To myself I wonder, will these “kids” taunt, ignore, or spy me with narrowed eyes? Am I safe among them?

Stilt-walker young people at Wake Up The Earth

Recent reading has led me to consider how I’ve been trained to be afraid of teenagers. Their sharpness and unpredictability. Their power. Their violence. In fiction and through media, we hoist them as ideals, but sometimes the reality sees us closing our doors, ears, and hearts. People mutter in person and on-paper: the world is going to pot largely because the youth are un or under-prepared (to rescue us.)

Dance line at Wake Up The Earth

Once I was on the MBTA and some loud teens at the end of the Orange Line car did what kids do when unchaperoned. Although I felt that familiar prickle of possible danger, I talked myself into just listening. I reinterpreted the shouting and goofing around to uncover creativity and curiosity. Their observations about one another were frank, smart, and revealing.

Despite having been a teen myself, I’m accustomed to stereotyping and reducing them to “trouble.” These keepers of our stories and traditions who translate technology into culture, who are neither our destroyers nor our saviors.

Dandelions at the skatepark

To be fair to these important people, I realized that I needed to address not only my past fears and failures of being one among them, but also the legacy of oppressions that dictate how I view young people now. I needed to learn how not to be afraid of teenagers.

Three non-exact strategies:

  • Remember: What was it like to be a teen?
  • Review: What have I learned from my family, friends, culture, and nation about being a teen and how to treat people that age?
  • Renew: The cracked lens through which I view and interact with young people . . . repair it! Accept that I won’t always get things “right.” See my failures and successes through with gratitude.