Labor Day Weekends

This Labor Day weekend, it's been raining a lot. Ever since I was a kid I've associated this weekend in the year with watching the muscular dystrophy telethon hosted by Jerry Lewis while it's raining. I've rarely watched television during this century. The main times were when visiting my grandmother since she often watched it. I liked watching with her some of the telethon because it was similar to the variety shows common on broadcast television before the spread of cable.

Another thing I associate with Labor Day is the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie after I saw it again while I was visiting home during my first semester in college. I especially think of when Gene Wilder sings "Pure Imagination" and the meaning of the lyrics. Writing this has given me the idea to play in my sociology classes a clip of Wilder singing the song and asking my students for their thoughts. The song is maybe too personal for me, so I have to think about whether to try.

Below is "Round Falls"--Dam on Jones Falls river in Baltimore, near the Jones Falls Trail where it follows Falls Road. Location is 2948 Falls Rd, Baltimore, MD 21211. The small trail down to this spot should be improved to make it safer and more accessible. I took this picture in July and include it here because I like the effect of the light rays into this spot.

Sunset over Lake Mendota (Madison, Wisconsin)

This spring I saw these scenes one evening while walking from downtown back to my Madison apartment. A path runs from the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin campus to the university medical campus and Eagle Heights graduate student apartments, where I used to live. From there it is about a 45-minute walk to my Madison apartment in the Hilldale area.

Paths--Stony Run Trail in Baltimore

"Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking." Henry David Thoreau, "Walking," essay published in The Atlantic Monthly in June 1862, after his death [I picked this quote because last week was the 200th anniversary of Thoreau's birth and this comparison with a camel seems ridiculous to me.]

One of the hiking or walking trails/paths in Baltimore I like is Stony Run Trail, which follows a creek of that name northward from about Jones Falls. According to one website on trails, it's about three miles mainly on or near a former Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad line, nicknamed the "Ma and Pa," that ran from Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania, until the 1950s. (According to the time schedule, the trip took about four hours, that is, about 20 miles/hour.)

Here is a map: http://stonyrun.org/what-we-do/walking-path/maps-full-size/ I enter near the Remington Road bridge or by University Parkway. On my way back from Northern Parkway, I usually try one of the roads south, such as Charles Street, to take a look at the houses. The ones with huge porches interest me because I wish more houses had them. When I was a preschooler, our house in Mechanicsburg had a small porch, but I rarely went on it since my mom asked us play in the backyard away from the busy street. One summer while I was in law school, I subletted a room in an old house with a small front porch that had a swing on which I'd read to get out of the heat of indoors.

More information at the Friends of Stony Run: http://stonyrun.org/what-we-do/walking-path/

This sign emphasizes the benefit of reducing stormwater runoff:

From bridge over Stony Run north of University Parkway:

Part of the path. The creek is on the right and houses can be seen behind the trees on the left. 

This was in a garden near the path.

Mulberry Trees

One of my memories that stand out to me of when we lived in Mechanicsburg, PA, when I was about four and five years old, was walking along the railroad tracks and picking mulberries, which we then took home to eat with sugar and I think some milk. After we moved to Kansas, I sometimes found some to eat along former farmlands, one by a vacant lot near our apartment complex in Shawnee and others near our Lenexa home.

This is a tree by a path than runs through Madison's Rennebohm Park, about a ten-minute walk from my apartment there. Madison allows foraging of fruit from city parks, but I make sure to pick just a small number so as not to hog them. Bicyclists, runners, and walkers go by and stop to eat some. The stains on the path are a useful sign that there's a mulberry tree, although that's one reason homeowners should take care where they plant them.

Even though this park has been close to me for about eight years, I've rarely walked through it. Whenever I head out to Hilldale Mall or Sequoya Library, I usually walk along Sheboygan Avenue.

Promoting fruit tree plantings on public lands for harvesting by anyone is becoming more common. The Baltimore Orchard Project runs a Mulberry Madness Festival throughout June to encourage the eating of mulberries. The city of Madison has started an Edible Landscapes program, which includes allowing and encouraging people to plant something edible on terraces (the strips of land between sidewalks and streets).

The view  from Segoe Road of the eastern side with evergreens when covered with snow reminds me of idealized winter scenes of my childhood, especially the cover of the "Christmas with Chet Atkins" album. I only have photos of this view without snow, as in the picture below taken from the sidewalk.

Zen Garden in Druid Hill Park/Coldspring Labyrinth

Last month I visited the Zen Garden by walking from the southeast along the maintenance road that borders the north side of the zoo. I'd noticed the Zen Garden on the map of the park on its north side (quadrant B1) and got the idea to finally take a look after I read an article shared by one of my FB organizations.  The author of the Baltimore Sun piece, "Reviving Druid Hill's 'Zen Garden'," April 15, 2017, Craig Phillips, found that the garden hadn't really been developed or maintained much since it was started, which I think was in 2010. On his own he created a labyrinth and added some Buddhist-related pieces. Although his intentions are nice, this kind of individual initiative on parkland could backfire, such as because of First Amendment issues.

An easier way to reach the Zen Garden is from the north pedestrian/bicycle entrance, Parkdale Avenue from the Woodberry/Clipper Mill neighborhood. This picture is from inside the park toward that entrance. To get to the Zen Garden from the path, turn left at the gate post, that is, right in this picture.

I took the path just beyond the gate, although Phillips suggests a dirt path a little further down. According to the map, a stream runs between the Parkdale Road path and the path to the Zen Garden, but it seemed dry to me.

Lining this path are concrete remains that I guess maintenance dumped here. It's a short walk to the Zen Garden.

In the garden are two circles--one to the north with a Buddha statue sitting on two slabs and a labyrinth to the south.

Sign below the prayer wheel

One idea I get from walking the labyrinth is when the path takes me away from the destination just as it seems close. This reminds me of how we can face setbacks in our lives and the need for knowing how to handle them or possibly prevent them.

                                                                              

On the left side of the labyrinth is this circle to the left in the ground. The left part of it is the character for winter (冬),  but I don't know what the right part means. The circle on the right has the character for spring (春).

The bench was placed here during the initial work on the garden about seven years ago. Phillips placed that wooden face on the tree.

Baltimore Green Map has created interactive maps along with paper maps of Druid Hill Park and Jones Falls Trail. I used the latter on Tuesday when I walked to Cylburn Arboretum then north through the Mount Washington neighborhood, which has a bunch of large houses, many of which look like they could be used for haunted mansions. 

Just before the Arboretum I stopped at another labyrinth--the Coldspring Labyrinth, which sits by the Coldspring Community Center at 4800 Tamarind Road. Across the street is a Waldorf School. [The map on the Coldspring Newtown website is very good. The labyrinth is between the bird sanctuary and the ball field.]

I'd wrongly assumed that I could walk a circle back to my place after visiting the Arboretum by taking Northern Parkway east to Roland Avenue, but I discovered that stretch lacks sidewalks and is too dangerous to walk along. It has now occurred to me that my detour through Mount Washington to reach another way across I-83, Kelly Avenue, was a setback like in a labyrinth, with the setback actually a blessing in disguise. This reminds me of a useful Chinese saying 塞翁失马，焉知非福 (Sai Weng Shi Ma Yan Zhi Fei Fu--Sai Weng lost his horse - who knows if this is bad or good?/When the old man from the frontier lost his horse, how could one know it is not good fortune?). One way of translating that is this: "It can be difficult to foresee the twists and turns which compel misfortune to beget fortune, and vice versa." Chinese sayings like this tend to have background stories that help explain them. Short version for this saying. 

So many setbacks in life are much worse--making it almost impossible to find any blessing in disguise, which requires some other way to try to understand or forget what happened and move forward. I've been thinking too much lately about my mistakes and don't easily see the blessings in disguise. One way for me to deal with that is to try to use the positives to outweigh the negatives. Walking around and talking with others are among those positives. A short example of that was when I talked with a nice manager of an apartment complex I walked by and was wondering about. She gave me suggestions on how to get around the Northern Parkway obstacle.

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Added on July 13, 2018
The Zen Garden has changed since I posted this. The main difference is the area around the little statue.

This seems to be a platform for meditation.

This peace sign is to the left in the above picture.

While sitting on the bench last week, I felt that the clear area beside this plot helped make this place relaxing because my eyes kept looking in that direction.

People place objects on the round block in the middle of the labyrinth.

It's been more than a year since I was here. Someone who found this entry messaged me that the Zen Garden had been improved, so last week I walked from near Penn Station along Jones Falls to Woodberry then over to the back entrance of Druid Hill Park. I felt overcome while at the Zen Garden by thoughts of how I'd thought I was getting closer to a destination last year but was actually leading myself away. Near the end of what I wrote in May 2017, I tried to rationalize going in circles, but sometimes cutting through directly is best, and I wish I'd done that.