Covd Time

 

A glimpse of a part of my life, MLK Park Landscape Love, a community group who gives some love to a worthy and stressed city park in Kalamazoo, Mi. We’ve been giving some landscape love to this site for over 10 years, here’s a bit of what we do:

10/21/2020

We did it!!! Our first work date since February, that covd thing. That little dude, new best buddy of The Grim Reaper, is looking for us, so we all kept low on public happs, but today we took a risk to meet our responsibility to tend a small Natives Garden we planted a few years ago. Who knew that natives plants are just as demanding as any other garden beauty? Our garden has become more of a jungle deal, those plants are waaaaaaaaay happy. Time to claim the look of a showcase garden, take it on and get some civilization in that jungle. Tough love!

We being Jane, Aedin, Joe, me, and surprise, Pam! Yep, we cleaned up our Natives Garden today, it almost resembled work. Clip clip clip, chat chat chat, we masked ones put in an hour and a half. We even had a drive by! Jeanne dropped in, left a big bag of many prepared baggies of goodies such as mask, hand sanitizer, granola bars, and trail mix. I think she had a little helper grandson load the baggies, A+ young one!  She was between appts., but took the time to give love and smiles.

How very nice, an elder Black man asked from a distance, “Hey, if you have gloves and a trash bag, I’ll pick up trash.” Sure! I brought a jumbo box of Nitrile gloves (thanks to my super son!), he got two and a jumbo hefty bag, and we cheered him on.

No cheers when we realized someone has damaged the large MLK sign that our little Natives Garden surrounds. Someone took a knife to it, long deep scratches on the south side. FYI, that sign was designed by Kalamazoo Junior Girls, they raised the $ for it, updated it a few years ago to all metal (it was wood for many years). Harsh. Pam will contact local company who made the metal sign, another thing on her “to do” list. Gratitude, Pam.

As we forged into the Natives jungle, we found some art rocks! Some, we are sure, are those that Sharon made, but others – maybe others start leaving some cool art rocks? We’d be so pleased if this becomes a tradition there, well, after covd times are in the rear-view. Just touching something is very possibly dangerous now. Gloves. Gloves. Gloves.

We took a break from the work and went over to admire the MLK sculpture, and oh, oh, oh, he’s more impressive than I’ve ever seen him. The City of Kalamazoo Parks Director, Sean Fletcher, proceeded with the hiring of a professional crew out of Colorado to come and give our MLK sculpture a thorough exam, cleaning, and waxing, and that handsome sculpture is just glowing with dignity, grace, and honor.

Pam was most generous to give us some back story of how MLK Park came to be, Pam told of how she and others on the committee met many times in the early 1980s to figure out how Kalamazoo could/should honor Dr. King, name a street? No, lots of cities were doing that, what else can we do to honor Dr. King? Oh, there’s that small city park over by the train station…  Hmm, maybe an art piece, too? How the committee did lots of fundraising, then the call for artists went out nationally to find the one to take this on, how Lisa Reinertson was chosen, and Lisa’s dedication to get the art work properly installed. Keep in mind Lisa was/is a California person, so coming back and forth to Kalamazoo was not just a drive down the street.

FYI, Pam and her organization, Kalamazoo Junior Girls, were involved with the committee, and have been MLK Park adopters from the beginning, 1988. The sculpture was formally installed in 1989.  We again admired an aspect of the sculpture, within his flowing robes are at least 17 depictions of his history and American history, one being the special depiction of a local woman, Dorothy James, who is represented within the robes as she helps an elder man register to VOTE! Pam told of how Dorothy was on the committee and how this sculpture, this park, Dr. King’s legacy mattered deeply to Dorothy.

Thank you Sean Fletcher for giving time and budget resources to care for this world-class fine-art destination site sculpture. Some art authorities consider this work better than the one in Washington, D.C. Check the photos below, one is before, one is after.

Pam was most generous with her time, as she had intended to stop by for a few minutes and be on her way to get a birthday cake for her super hubby, William. Happy Happy William, thanks for sharing Pam!

Pam has been having a difficult time with how to have young women in her organization interact, the covd concerns, but has slowly kept at it, and the younger girls are doing a “pen pal” assignment to get to know each other through writing, and Pam has carefully started having a few girls meet together with all the safety precautions in play – 6 ft. dance, masks, etc.

We puzzled about putting all of Jeanne’s gift baggies out around Dr. King’s feet, and made a group decision to put out ten, and save the other 30 in the big bag for another time. I ended up with the big bag, and still have my four gift baggies, so I’ll occasionally do a drive-by and leave more in the next few weeks.

Jane not only brought good clipper tools, she also brought her last year’s xmas gift from her hubby, a battery-operated weed wacker! Really! Joe explained how it also can be an edger, and wow, she edged the Natives Garden, it looks soooooooo much better with that delineation. Jane was also super to offer to take the almost full huge bag of clippings to her home trash bin, whew.

So good to hear that Joe is back to helping at Ministry with Community, helped serve a meal yesterday, he knows they are doing the BEST practices to keep all safe, so he continues with that longtime volunteer opportunity.

Both Aedin and Jane’s hubbies are WMU profs, and oh, wow, how very complicated their work lives are now. For Paul, he has grad students, and if he had chosen to do remote teaching, some of his international students would be forced to exit USA because if THAT student isn’t IN CLASS, they must leave USA, so Paul goes to work. Fortunately, those are small classes, so some comfort in that. As for Ron, this semester he gets to work remotely, all undergrad classes, and plenty of challenges but he’s up for it. Next semester, some grad classes, the concerns are real. How’s this for a challenge: some undergrads have submitted only first assignment – two months into semester – and other students have submitted assignments not due until November!

Aedin has her own challenges, she works as Irish Literature Authority at Notre Dame, and she added her name to a letter regarding the Supreme Court nominee, very interesting. Just for your information, not all Catholics all agree on everything. One of Aedin’s colleagues wrote an open letter to Amy Cony Barrett asking her to step back and wait until after the election. Joe and Aedin had a lively discussion about how ND has a WIDE range of passionate advocates for many important issues, from very conservative to liberation theology. Whew, I’m glad to hear this! And YIKES, ND is playing football – YIKES. Not to full crowd, only ND students can attend a game, so some consideration for some covd concerns. Some.

Challenges for me? Ha ha! I’m free! Life is easy! I’m kinda an introvert, so I’ve been practicing for this isolate thing for years! Too much good food, good brews, many beautiful walks in a gorgeous piece of urban wilderness right out my door, some yoga, some writing for my blog.

Here’s a mystery: in this last 11 months, starting just before xmas 2019, several close friends are gone. None to covd, but so many ways to exit. I feel like a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing. I cry easy these days. Some are tears of joy, some are tears of loss. Today is a joy day, being at MLK Park with exceptional folks taking care of our responsibility there is a smile day.

Hey, I have big party plan – Nov. 3 is my b-day, hope to be dancing in the streets that night or next day, when we get VOTE results nailed down! Covd is one nightmare, Chump is a worse nightmare. As the 14 yr. old niece of George Floyd said, “Someone said ‘make America great again.’ America has never been great.”

I’m an elder white woman and see what I see, kinda easy to be white. Then I think of that cop, the long arm of MY govt., killing a man slowly on film, he’s the judge, jury and executioner all in 8 min 46 seconds.

We can do better, must do better, right our wrongs to First Nations citizens, our African American citizens, and no child should ever be separated from family at my border. We are better than this. Reparations. We’re the richest country in the history of this planet, we can offer a hand to folks who need some help. Every ghetto, every reservation in my USA should get a do-over, we have the $, we need the focus. These people are truly suffering at the injustices we’ve forced on them for hundreds of years. We pale faces can step up and do what’s right for our neighbors. Yep, that “Brotherhood of Man” stuff. Let’s be big of spirit, its time.