Trayvon Martin

I don't have the words today--they're still blocked behind the tears that are choked in my throat when I look upon the sweet brown face of a little boy in my city and wonder if he will live to be a man. I'm tired of watching young men in my country get killed--by each other, by the police, or by alleged "do-gooders." 

I'm tired of the line in the mind of white America that sees the death of a Young Black Male as disconnected from us. I'm tired of the sound barrier that prevents white America from hearing the cries of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents and friends mourning the loss of a life from theirs. I'm tired of the line in the heart of white America that sees Young Black Males as "someone else's" children and their untimely deaths as "somebody else's" problem.

They are OUR children and their deaths and the injustice that pulls the trigger is OUR problem. 

The fact that being a Young Black Male IS what it is to be "suspicious" is OUR problem. I say it because it is a sad truth--my "protection" from not getting shot in my city is that I'm not a black male between 16 and 24, but that's not okay. None of this is okay, and whatever it is that insulates you from understanding that, from feeling it down in the marrow of your bones is a sickness from which you must free yourself. It is not protecting you, it is smothering you and stunting our nation. Wake up! A little boy got shot by a grown man to whom he posed no threat for buying Skittles and an ice tea, and you can turn your eyes away? Trayvon Martin was not someone else's baby--he is my child, your child, our children, our future...

No, I don't have the words today. 

Just this sad, sad sorrow pressing my rib cage into my spine. I am not a believer, but Jefferson's words (oh, irony) ring true: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." 

May justice roll down from the mountaintops and wash our country clean.

That's Pittsburgh: David Conrad edition

Back in April, Pittsburgh native David Conrad, wrote a piece for the Local Dispatch section of the Post-Gazette, "It's hardly polite to be outside Pittsburgh." If you somehow managed to miss it, read it now. 

It struck a chord with me, and I took a moment to write him an email to tell him so:

Dear David:

Thank you for this commentary. I always enjoy reading your pieces about Pittsburgh, and it pleases me that you have chosen to not become an expat like so many who have tasted success and moved themselves to shwankier climes.

I have left and come back and left and come back and left and come back...but I'm never leaving again. I think that to fully appreciate Pittsburgh, one must leave. I ended up on a path that took me from place to place, back through Pittsburgh several times, and through new groups of friends about every 2 years for a good chunk of my life. In my mid-20s, I was exhausted and broken. I had been away for 8 years in California. I came out to visit my mom and we had cause to drive to Morgantown, through the rolling Appalachian foothills, over river valleys dressed in gossamer mist... Broad leaf deciduous forests. Water. Green...  Somewhere in those river valleys, my bones shifted. I inhaled, filling my lungs with humid air, becoming suddenly aware that I had been breathing like I was clenching my lungs in my fists. I knew with every atom in my being that I was home. 

A few months later, I took 2700 miles of therapy, alone in a 10ft U-haul, save for my cat and a little boom box stereo. I left here one more time, almost taken by the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it was not to be. 

My native land has reclaimed me, and I have fallen in love with this City in a way I can only hope to share with another person someday. When I think about it, it feels like a marriage--warts and all, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health--we're in this together. I love the rivers, the trees, the old architecture, the history, the crazy geography, my big, beautiful sanctuary of Frick Park, but there are plenty of cities with beautiful skylines, water features, and great architecture. What sets Pittsburgh apart is what you wrote about--the fundamental decency of our people. Even our pretentious hipster douchebags tend to be pretty well-behaved and polite out in public. People talk to each other. People actually stop when they say "How are you?" It is considered to be a mark of incivility if you treat those "beneath you" as though they are beneath you. We are egalitarian, proud, and kind. We believe in caring for our neighbors. We believe that those relationships matter more than what car you drive or how fancy your house is. I take great joy in being from a place where hard work, humility, and charity are still widely-held and cherished qualities. 

Thank you for allowing me to "slow down your day" a bit to tell you that I was very touched by your piece and how glad I am to have you among those who care about Pittsburgh and her future. And though your essay had "nothing to do with" the loss of your father or your brother's illness, I am saddened by both. 

Kind regards,

There certainly are kind people everywhere and plenty of jerks within our city limits, however, places have a certain esprit de corps, a sense of who they are and what they value. Pittsburgh may have plenty of rude and uncaring people, but their actions are not championed by the rest of us. When people talk about the Pittsburgh region, they do not remark on our rudeness or snobbiness. They comment on how welcoming and friendly we are. Our charity and generosity is fairly legendary. It is what we expect of each other. Hard work, charity, and humility are traits that are emphasized from birth onward. They are values that we publicly champion and aim to pass along to children and newcomers. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is what matters. 

As Conrad wrote:

It's the simple damn truth: You come from here, you learn to look people in the eye when you greet them. You learn to give them the benefit of the doubt till they screw up. You learn not to mouth off to people you don't know. You don't say crap about people's families. You hold doors open. You say "Hello" and "Thank you" to someone's face and "You're welcome" when it's needed.

Ron Cook wrote a piece on the Steelers' Brett Keisel in today's Post-Gazette lauding him for the community service and charity work he does that garnered him the team's nomination for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award (for the player who combines on-field excellence with outstanding community service). Fine and good you say--plenty of athletes do worthy charity, what makes Keisel special? 

"As heartbreaking as it was for us to lose the Super Bowl last season, it was heartwarming to come home and do something good with the beard," Keisel said. "We were able to throw an event together in about a week where I shaved it off and we raised $40,000 for Children's Hospital. It wasn't me that raised that money. It was the city of Pittsburgh. I was just glad to be a part of it. Children's Hospital is very dear to me because of [teammate] Aaron Smith's situation and the help they've given [his son] Elijah"

Elijah Smith was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008 when he was 4 and is cancer-free today. 
[...]

"I look at it this way. The city we're in and the position we're in, we have to give something back. The Pittsburgh Steelers mean so much to this city and people give us so much. How do we not give something back? That's what I try to tell the young guys. 'Plenty of people need our help. Find something close to you and get involved with it.'"

Keisel also has devoted efforts to the American Heart Association, the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, Animal Friends of Pittsburgh, the Salvation Army's Project Bundle Up and the Read Across America program.

Keisel might be "a bearded guy from Wyoming," but he gets it: hard work, humility, and charity. It could be all about him, his ego, bling, babes, and being famous (surely he doesn't have to do more than glance around his own locker room, let alone the rest of the National Felons League, for a healthy dose of those attitudes), but instead he is humbled by the position he holds in this city. He uses that place, not to build himself up, but to give back to a place and a people who have given him much. As Ginny Montanez would say, "That's Church." Indeed. That's Pittsburgh. I claim Keisel as a naturalized yinzer.

The next day, I received a reply from Dave--brief, but kind and human. When I wrote to him, I did not expect to receive a reply, but when I did, I just smiled and said, "That's Pittsburgh." And it is.

----

Post script:  While digging around on the interwebs a bit for this piece, I came across a (much more timely) blog post by Carl Kurlander in response to Conrad's piece that shares some of my reaction.

My sisters

Today, I will walk in the 4th Annual AmizadeWater Walk for Women’s Rights. It is my second year participating in this powerful event created by Pittsburgh-based Amizade Global Service and Learning. I have many kind and generous friends and was able to raise $638 (final) from donations that ranged between $5 and $100. In the course of fundraising, people often say nice things about me and what I do, which is kind, however, it is not what motivates me. 

There is an eons-long debate about whether charity should be done publicly, or whether we should do all of our good deeds as anonymously as possible. While I understand and deeply respect the former position for its emphasis on humility and keeping the focus on the deed and not what you will get from it (most particularly, praise), I feel strongly that public acts of goodness are important, even as the praise sometimes makes me feel a bit awkward. I know where my true motivation lies, so I do not worry about it too much.

This broken and hurting world needs more love, more kindness, more compassion, and more generosity. It is my belief that seeing others engaged in such acts encourages people to do join in. I believe that seeing someone else do something sweet and kind, no matter how small—going out of your way for a second to help someone on crutches with a door—makes people happy. Certainly not everyone, some will be too myopic to notice, but most who see it will feel some amount of joy and, it is my hope, be motivated to act on their own altruistic feelings. If we choose to focus on it, there is much negativity in this world and it makes people feel small and powerless. I want to spread the joy of the hummingbird.

There is an African parable about a forest fire. The trees are ablaze and the animals flee the forest ahead of the raging flames. They gather on the edge, staring at the destructive force tearing through their home. Finally, the littlest hummingbird cannot take it anymore and she flies to the stream, gets a beak full of water and flies to the fire and spits it on the flames. She goes back to the stream, bringing drop by little drop to the fire. The other animals see this and say, “Hummingbird! What are you doing!? You cannot put out this raging fire with the little drops of water from your beak!” And the hummingbird replies that they are right, but that is what she can do, and she will keep doing what she can do, however small, to help put out the fire. [Click here to hear African women’s rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and founder of the Green Belt movement, Professor Wangari Maathai recount this parable in the movie Dirt!]

The little hummingbird, on one hand, seems pitiful and hopeless, but she is the hope of the story—she will be part of the solution, no matter what the odds. I want to be the hummingbird. I want to be part of the solution, no matter how intractable the problem may be because the one thing guaranteed not to work is despair. I cannot feed everyone, but I can feed one. To that one person, the difference of a meal or not is probably a pretty big deal. 

So what does this have to do with the Water Walk? The walk and the small amount of money that I am able to bring to it is but a tiny act in the face of the daunting amount of suffering in the world from profound poverty, oppression, slavery, rape, war, greed, environmental destruction… So much devastation and the flames keep raging. I sit here in a warm apartment in a city that is not under siege. I brushed my teeth with clean water and was able to use a toilet inside, safely and sanitarily washing away the waste with potable water. I will open my refrigerator and take out a variety of food to make myself healthy meals for the day. Like many others in North America, indubitably, some of that food will not be eaten before it goes bad and will end up in my compost pile. I am writing this on a computer, itself its own little miracle, powered by electricity and connected to a global network of knowledge and resources, accessible in seconds with the click of a finger. 

I am a woman who has never been raped. I am a woman who has never been forced to marry. I am a woman more educated than most of the world’s population. Though my income is modest by US standards, it is thousands of times that of most of the women of the world. My safety, my security, my independence, my basic, inherent sense of self-worth and dignity are luxuries for most of my global sisters. I do not feel sorry that I have these things. Not in the least, but I am privileged to have them. I am blessed with great leisure and fortune. I do not feel guilty for the karma that brought me to this birth, but I also do not feel uniquely entitled to its gifts. The issue is not to feel bad about the gifts you have, but to figure out how you will use them. Will you use your privilege, your leisure and fortune, to serve others? Or to serve your own selfishness? The latter is enticing, but it is ultimately unsatisfying. Fed greed only becomes greedier—the craving never stilled. Like the delicious meal on which you overindulge, at the end of the night you will feel bloated, miserable, and sick. Feed love and it grows, filling you and everyone around you. 

I want every girl born on this planet to never know the pain of rape. I want every girl to be raised so that she believes that being a woman is not an impediment to any dream. I want every girl to have enough leisure and fortune that she may be able to explore who she is other than the property of a man or a water mule. I want every girl to be able to be educated and financially independent so that she may choose to be a wife, a mother, a neurosurgeon, engineer, teacher, diplomat, scholar, a farmer...whatever her heart leads her to be.

I have oft said that the only good use of power is the protection of others. Strength has nobility only when it is used to empower others, not to continue their oppression. I have been given a gift. I find joy in sharing my gifts. I have this bizarre idea that when we are all better off, we are all better off--that more happiness = more happiness. There is no real way to insulate myself from the suffering of others. You may feel that your toe is far from your heart, but fail to treat infection in the toe, and one day it will stop the heart--we are all connected, inextricably. Who would want to cut off their leg or allow themselves to die rather than treat the infection with antibiotics? Those who see the toe as separate from the heart are suffering from terrible delusion that will cause them great harm.

There are over a billion people without access to clean water. Tomorrow, there will still be over a billion people without access to clean water. We can despair that and stay home today or keep our wallets closed because “we really can’t make a difference!” Or, like the hummingbird, we keep putting drop by drop on the fire... I know it works. If it was just me, I would not have $638 to help the people of Karagwe. I would have only my own small contribution. But because I told you, because I chose to do this act publicly and entreat others to help, WE have raised $638. A bucket of water made from many small drops. Still a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but I prefer to think of the people of Karagwe who now have clean water, improved sanitation, and more time to devote to improving their lives in other ways now that they do not need to lug jugs of water for miles a day. I prefer to think that one girl from that village will get to go to school who would not have before. Who knows what she may grow to become? She may be the acorn that sprouts the new forest in the ashes of the old. 

In the words of my favorite poet, “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.”

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has made this possible. I am but the humble courier of your generosity, and I bow to you with hands in prayer. _/|\_ 

About Amizade’s Water Work:

Because of the generous support our grant partner, the AllPeopleBeHappy Foundation, and Water Walkers like you, last year alone we were able to achieve the following:

• Bring clean water to over 300 schoolchildren in the area of rural Karagwe,Tanzania;
• Install a massive 300,000 liter water-harvesting system, including gutters, underground piping, and a solar-powered pump for a new school in the small village of Chonyoyo, read more here;
• Complete full evaluations on the water-harvesting systems that Amizade already helped to install for 8 families that have survived gender-based human rights abuses;
• Install 5 other rain-water harvesting tanks for families in the region;
• Construct and connect a vital fruit-tree nursery to the Chonyoyo water tank that will provide local families with healthy food;
• Lead workshops on the benefits of Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) – a method to produce suitable drinking water utilizing solar rays from the sun – to several groups of community members; 
• Hold two very successful “Water Walks”, which have had a combined total of over 600 participants, received local print and television press, and raised over $8,000 for clean-water initiatives; and
• Install ‘tip-tap’ hand washing devices (a mechanism designed to encourage hand-washing while conserving water) at recipients’ homes using simple, local materials, assembling the contraptions on-site by way of demonstrating a simple technology that families can share with their neighbors in order to increase awareness about the importance of hygiene and sanitation.

January 2011, looking back.

I’ve been feeling as though I need to write a post, but I’ve not been particularly inspired.  2010 slipped out of her prom dress, and 2011 snuck in the window with little fanfare.  Today feels no different than yesterday, and I’m not looking forward to the coming year with any  particular anticipation.  This post is an edited version of the letter that went out with my holiday cards last month.  I like to use the holiday season as an opportunity to reflect upon the year that has passed and share some of the milestones with my friends and family, because even those with whom I speak regularly don’t always get all the information, and it is a nice exercise for me to review all that has happened.  It is very easy to forget what one has done!  

It’s hard to believe that it has been a whole year since I wrote my last annual winter note, yet at the same time, it seems like a distant memory.  I have survived more than half of my graduate program, though I think my sanity probably has a few more dings in it.  While I remain hopeful that this will lead me to good things, it has certainly not been a picnic.  I have 3 more classes to take—two this spring:  Economics for Public Affairs and Nonprofit Management, and then a capstone course over summer.  In the meantime, there is some talk of a potential new opportunity in my current job. 

Though my day job and my classes take up most of my time and energy, I have managed to do a few things this year.  I continue to serve as the Secretary of my neighborhood association.  In December, we had our 4^th annual holiday party which was wonderful and delicious as always.  I truly love that seeing my neighbors (and discovering what delectables they have brought for my consumption) is one of the things I most look forward to in the holiday season.  A new holiday tradition for me is an annual party thrown by some neighbors to raise money for the local food bank.  The family lives just down the street from me and have renovated a turn-of-the-century farm house, restoring it to a single-family home and infusing it with their seemingly boundless creativity.  Among the many awesome things that they do, is this annual soup party, now in its 18^th year.  They provide several amazingly huge pots of amazing soup, friends bring sides and desserts along with their own bowls & spoons (for which awards are given in various categories), and in the middle of their table is a large bowl for monetary contributions to the local food bank.  This year, the party raised $2200!  These are the kind of people whom I am astoundingly grateful and proud to count as friends and neighbors. 

Any recap of 2010 would be incomplete without at least a passing mention of SNOWMAGEDDON!  As noted in my last tome, the University of Pittsburgh rarely closes—even a Secret Service perimeter cutting through campus and snipers on the rooftops only caused afternoon classes to be canceled for one day.  Normally, we’re expected to show up for work like we’re the Postal Service (classes may be canceled, but staff still must report for work or forfeit a vacation day).  This year, however, Mother Nature finally beat Mark Nordenberg.  The epic snowstorm of February effectively shut down the City of Pittsburgh for three days.  Minus shoveling 3+ feet of snow off my 75ft driveway, it was actually a lot of fun to have snow days!  

In March, I again worked with a friend from Regent Square and the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh on our third community workshop to help homeowners make well-informed decisions about renovations that will accomplish their goals while avoiding mistakes that will lower the value of their home in the long run.  2010’s workshop focused specifically on energy efficiency, and in 2011’s will be on improving curb appeal.

In April, after the snow melted, I participated in the Amizade Water Walk for Women’s Rights which raised money to help a community in Tanzania have access to fresh, clean water which will not only have an obvious impact on the community’s health, but will free the women and girls from the arduous daily walk to fill cisterns of water that they must carry back to their village.  We walked 1.1 miles carrying 1.1 gallons of water to represent the estimated 1.1 billion people in the world who do not have access to clean water.  Thanks to the great generosity and support of my friends and family, I raised over $400.  I called upon their kindness again in October, and they helped me raise $335 for Farm Sanctuary, a farm animal rescue and advocacy group, by sponsoring me in the 2010 Walk for Farm Animals. 

Also in Spring, I had the weighty honor to officiate the wedding of two dear friends on Memorial Day.  It was an amazing experience (I had never done such a thing), and I am truly humbled that they asked me to participate in such a special way in this important occasion.  Based on the feedback, I think the ceremony was a success, and I am hopeful that it marked the beginning of a wonderful lifetime of love for my friends (and now their new baby!).

Last year, I reported on the wonderful visit I had with my friend, D, who came to see me from Slovenia.  This summer brought another European visitor, M, this time from Sweden.  My Swedish friend came to see his Pittsburgh sweetheart (also my friend), and I was very happy to spend some time with them over dinner and exploring a bit of Oakland, including a tour of the Cathedral of Learning’s Nationality Rooms and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  I’ve known M for about eight years through the web and letters, so it was a true delight to get to spend time with him in person, and I’m so very happy that my friends found one another.  

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended in late August/early September, as the nation was in an ignorant furor over the proposed Cordoba Community Center in midtown Manhattan.  I was happy and most grateful to accept the generosity and friendship of the Turkish Cultural Center and join them at their Iftar tent to celebrate community at the end of their daily fast.  Each night for the last week of Ramadan, members of the TCCP sponsor a meal and invite the public to come break bread with them, serving 100-200 people a day.  TCCP actively participates in interfaith and intercultural dialog in Pittsburgh, and I thank them for their tireless work to promote peace, friendship, and understanding, even as they often must face bigotry in their own home. 

The following week, I enjoyed my annual pilgrimage to the Scottish Highland Games in Ligonier, and later in the month, one of my cousins and her boyfriend moved in down the street.  It has been great to get to spend time with them and get to know my cousin better.  I’m hopeful that they’ll be staying in town for a few years so we’ll have some more time together before they most likely head back west.  

I was delighted to spend Thanksgiving with my mother, a good friend from India, and her mother who spends 6 months a year with her.  It was an honor to cook my friend’s mother’s first American Thanksgiving, and to share pullau and kheer with mashed potatoes, mushroom barley soup, and winter squash gratin.  In the America for which I am grateful, we are blessed to know friends from many places, break bread together, and get to know one another so that we can make sure that peace is always more important than chauvinism, and that love will ever cast out the seeds of war and ignorance.  

 My America also tastes a heck of a lot better.  ;-)

I hope that whatever celebrations you have this winter season are filled with light, food, friends, and family, and that they have called you to embody that greatest of all human aspirations—agapé love.  May the winter chill curl you inward to reflect, restore, and renew your soul so that you may greet 2011 with clear eyes, an open heart, and vigorous spirit.  

With much love and great gratitude for the amazingly beautiful, brilliant, kind, generous, creative, and compassionate people in my life—I wish you all health, wealth, and happiness in the coming year and always.

It's hardship is its possibility .

Take a walk with me.  Take a walk with me into a future place.  Sit here and drink in this vision of a world created with our own hands, not with pixie dust or fairy tales, but the old-fashioned way: plain old hard work.

Work has been maligned for far too long.  Everything in our lives today is designed to make life easier, correspondingly, our minds and bellies have become soft and lazy. There is a sharpness to both body and mind when engaged in work--real work, not the mind-numbing motions through which most of us go in the course of our daily employ.  When we really set our minds to something or push our bodies to perform, how engaged are we in what we are doing with the entirety of our being focused on the task at hand?

When when we fall into the trap of craving ease and coddling ourselves with comfy recliner chairs and big screen TVs hawking intellectual vacuity and material excess, we turn inward in a way that does not facilitate introspection, but rather narcissism.  It's all about me me me me me me me! That is no way to create or sustain a community.  People wax nostalgic about bucolic small town life where people know their neighbors, take care of their homes, and have real community, but act as though such a way of existence is no longer possible.

I live in the middle of the city and I know my neighbors. I live in a community of people who are kind and generous, who open their homes to newcomers, break bread and raise a glass.  People who work on their homes, plant flowers, and grow vegetables to sustain their families and share with neighbors.

Do you know how you get that? Work. Selflessness. You know how it starts? With you. With one person saying hello. One person smiling and dropping a note or some cookies for the new family. One person to collect e-mail addresses, put up a website, start a neighborhood association, organize a block party. One person to shovel a sidewalk that isn't theirs, offer a hand, share--time, resources, recipes.

If what we want are real and meaningful relationships with the people around us, if what we want are communities, neighborhoods, cities, and a nation served by honest people making good decisions, not just for us now, but that serve both us presently and future generations by making sustainable financial decisions, building infrastructure to meet the needs of the community over time and maintaining it so as to avoid future catastrophe, both physical and financial, then we must become willing to take a risk and believe that our good is also another's good and that her good is also ours. We must base our deliberations not on what is good and easy for me, but what is good and right for the community as a whole for the long-term. We must take responsibility for the problems we face, whether or not we created them.  We must take responsibility for educating ourselves and we must invest time, money, and energy in making things right.

So many people act as though these idyllic communities only existed in the distant past, and only because back then people clearly just had superior moral character and life was simpler and add your own excuse here... Mind you, such places probably never existed as they do in the reverie of modern nostalgists, but to the extent that they did, it was not on account of people back then just being so gosh darn better than us.  It is possible to make such a place.  If you want one, turn off your TV, open your blinds, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.

It won't be easy, but it just might be the most rewarding thing you do in your life.

A Vision (Wendell Berry)

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
there, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.

My Place in Pittsburgh

Our local NPR station, WDUQ has been running the following announcement on the air for some weeks now:

My Place in Pittsburgh
What's your favorite spot in the Pittsburgh region-- is there a bridge or a playground with special significance? Perhaps it's as grand as a beathtaking view or as simple as a specific park bench. Tell us where it is and why at region@wduq.org. You might become part of "My Place in Pittsburgh", a new on-air and website project debuting later this year.

I've been thinking about it since it first aired, and, though I determined my answer to the question some weeks ago, it was not until today that I responded.

Dear friends at DUQ:

My place in Pittsburgh is the restoration of the Nine Mile Run Watershed.

I am a native Pittsburgher, born at Magee Womens Hospital. The first place I went outside the walls of that hospital (so I have been told) was the playground at the corner of Forbes and S. Braddock. As a kid, I ran around in the valley, and collected fireflies in the field off of Kensington Street. Frick Park is as much home to me as the house in which I live. It is my place of solace and rejuvenation.

The restoration of the watershed ecosystem in lower Frick fills me with such profound love and joy, there are barely words for it. I am nearly embarrassed by my attempts to describe what this place means to me because it is too close to the bone--I fear my earnestness will be seen as trite sentimentality.

Like many from this region, I recognize that we've got a number of serious problems ranging from the economic to the environmental. With a dramatic loss of population in a mere generation, crumbling infrastructure, segregated neighborhoods, struggling schools, and a deflated economy--to envision yet another Pittsburgh renaissance seems to be a foolish flight of fancy. Yet still we rise--retooling what we have and encouraging new growth.

To walk in Lower Frick now and see the willows along the stream towering above your head, as you hear woodpeckers in the distance, watch hawks soaring above, and see butterflies dancing among the swaying Joe Pye Weed, you'd scarcely believe that the meadow you are admiring was once a sewage-covered playing field. As dragonflies buzz past, and frogs leap into the water, you may forget that, not long ago, this water was too polluted for anything to live in it. A small group of concerned citizens helped bring about a $7.7 million restoration project that turned a blighted, polluted space into a beautiful public space that supports both the wildlife that live there, and the spirits of the humans who visit. A small group of committed citizens continues to look after this crown jewel of the City park system, reaching out to the residents of neighboring communities to connect them to this beautiful space and teach them to become good citizens of the watershed. We needed big machines to move the boulders into place and create new banks for the streams, but now we need thousands of hands to pick up trash, recycle, install rain barrels; thousands of voices to talk to neighbors and friends and teach them how their small actions impact this big picture.

The restoration area is a metaphor for what is happening, and what can happen, for our City. Sure, we have problems. But if we roll up our sleeves, pool our efforts, and maybe call in some heavy equipment, the problems need not be insurmountable. We have problems, but Pittsburgh also has much inherent beauty and deep reserves of natural (including human) resources. If we so choose, through hard work and compassionate stewardship, we, like the watershed, can rise again. In the words of Wendell Berry--"this is no paradisal dream, its hardship is its possibility."

Kindly,

kxm
Park Place

For beautiful before and after pictures, go here under "Restoration Complete."

Do not take lightly small good deeds, believing that they can hardly help. For drops of water, one by one, in time can fill a giant pot. ~ Patrul Rinpoche

The restoration of Frick Park served many purposes, and was a very practical thing to do in many respects. On another level, however, it was a pure act of love.

Why does this little watershed matter? Why does it matter whether I kill the fly buzzing around my house and annoying me? Why does it matter if the Wildlife Center saves one small turtle, mangled by a careless person mowing the lawn?

There is a bigger answer to these questions, but the simple one is that we are all interconnected. As we wish to be safe and free from harm, let us give that to the world--it will indubitably come back to us. Maybe not in the form you expect or on your schedule, but it will come. Every kindness creates more kindness--in virtue of its being done, the world is more blessed. It is easy to be overcome by cynicism. It is easy to see all of the horrors of this world and be horrified, perhaps even to the point of turning your heart to stone.

Alternatively, we can allow each horrifying act we witness to tear our hearts open, making room to hold yet more of the world with compassion.

In the face of those who harm animals, in the face of the trauma of wars destroying countless lives, in the face of genocide, starvation, corruption, and abject poverty--we can close down, curl inward, etiolate, and die.

Or we can roll up our sleeves, and get to work moving the boulders and shoving the willow branches into the newly formed banks of the stream so that generations from now, children will never know that this place was not always paradise.

Rough Times at Rough Branch. (Request for help!)

This is an e-mail I recently sent out to some friends about a garden project with which I need assistance--there's still plenty of room for helpers! If you have time and inclination, all assistance will be gratefully accepted!

From: kxm
To:
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 11:05:19 AM
Subject: Rough Times at Rough Branch. (Request for help!)

2008 was the "Year that Wasn't" out at Rough Branch,* but I'm hoping to call on some good-natured good will to see if I might turn the situation around.

Back in the olden days, when folks needed a barn raised or to complete some other big project, they called on their community for help, and folks would come together to get what needed done, done.

The Amish still do it, and so do the rest of us, albeit rarely to raise a barn. I find myself in need of some serious help, and I'm hopeful that some of you may think that the following proposition sounds like a fun time, because, you know, it could be!

Rough Branch Wall-Building Work Day!

I need to terrace my garden into three flat sections, and build a retaining wall along the north side of the garden to control water flow, as well as create a usable bed on the side of the garden which I intend to fill with native plants that attract beneficial insects. David Geisler, owner of Gorgeous Gardens and a kind friend, will be directing the project, since my math skills are abysmal, and my engineering skills are questionable at best.

If you and your kith and kin are willing to come help me, even for an hour or two, during the day of Saturday, April 18, I'll provide some food and beverage at the end of the day (you can come back for it if you need/want to). It will involve digging, lugging rocks, lugging retaining wall block, cutting retaining wall block, tamping down rock, driving metal stakes into the ground, and moving dirt, so it won't be easy work, and it's gonna take a full day.

But many hands make light the labor! (And the job more fun!)

In return for your labor, I'll provide some lunch (though this may be a bit utilitarian), and then we'll have a nice feast at the end of the day, and, yes, I will provide beer. I have to discuss details with David (like start & end times), and will provide them as soon as I know. Please let me know if you're willing and able to help out (and what time, if you know) because if I can't assemble a work crew, the project can't go forward. David is giving me a nice price, but it assumes that I'll be providing peoples and comestibles. :-)

With love and gratitude,

_/|\_

kxm
--------
Generosity begins with our recognition of our debt to others. -Master Hsing Yun

* Flagrantly stolen from one of Wendell Berry's "mad farmer" poems, "Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, the Mad Farmer Secedes From the Union," Rough Branch is the name of my "farm" (you can call it a garden, I call it a farm).

***UPDATE***

Howdy y'all!

I talked to David, and we're on for Saturday the 18th. I've tried to delete those of you who said that you are not available next Saturday, but apologize if I left you on the list and you already said you can't help. I saved e-mail responses, but I forgets sometimes when people tell me things.

So -- David says I should have folks start to show up around 9 AM, and he anticipates that we'll work until something like 3 PM or so, depending on how much help we have, how efficient we are, and any snafus. Please reply and let me know if you can help, and WHEN. I have one person down for 12-2 (that's you, Steve), and a few general yesses and maybes. Ideally, it would be good to spread folks out throughout the day, but hey, I'll take the help when I can get it!

As I say, there will be foods and drinks after we're done (mom's helping with that), and we'll have something to nosh on for lunch.

Many thanks!

kxm

Focus, not on the rudenesses of others, not on what they've done or left undone, but on what you have & haven't done yourself. ~ Dhammapada, 4