UPDATE

The New York Times has found the Look Up project, albeit a week after CPC’s Meditations on Meditation.

Here is a link to the story. Within the story is a further link to a 3 minute video. About 10 CPC members participated in the project.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/arts/design/artist-elizabeth-turk-retirement-community.html

More reflections will follow.

CTK

* * * * * *

My brain is a little numb today. I gave a little talk two days ago here in the community of elders where we live. No little pressure. The place is full of what have been described as “formerly important people.” Deans, college presidents, and professors abound here. All have opinions. My talk about education in the pandemic built around the stories of five families. The kids were charming, the parents resilient, but that is a story for another day. I survived stage fright.

Now, I am trying to contemplate the meaning of yesterday's activity. Elizabeth Turk is a marvelous artist; please see her work. She—bullhorn in hand—orchestrated a specular event yesterday, where members of our community danced, ran, walked, and swam with the brilliantly colored umbrellas she designed.

The umbrellas symbolize resilience. Turk graciously prepared a stylized version of them for the banner behind the headline for this post. Each of the designs incorporates nature’s resilience. The green umbrella features a Ginkgo tree which has existed for perhaps 200-million years and the Lodge Pole Pine, one of the first trees to regrow after a wildfire. The orange umbrella carries the image of a California Poppy, and the yellow umbrella the Coneflower, both drought tolerant. And the Fireweed of the blue umbrella grows rapidly after fire.

At first take, the idea of a bunch of senior citizens lightly choreographed while waving brightly colored umbrellas sounds like a campy version of a Busby Berkeley musical, a feel-good event during dire times. Given the times—a virus that won’t stop and a President who won’t work and won’t quit—maybe that’s enough.

But there’s more to it. Turk titled the event, “Look Up.” She asked the residents of Mt. San Antonio Gardens to write responses to the question, “What do you tell yourself when you face adversity?” Our answers—scribbled on sticky notes—ranged from Biblical to whimsical. Some of them are in the banner, above.

When I "looked up" yesterday, I saw people who had experienced great love and great loss. We have spouses here who can’t hold hands because one of them is quarantined in high levels of care. We have grandparents whose children have COVID. We have residents who marched yesterday with their umbrellas taped to walkers or chairs.

Yesterday, just for a few hours, we broke away from our isolation—and carefully socially distanced—metaphorically held each other in our arms. And at the end of the day, there was a little symbol of hope. Roughly 300 residents and staff gathered as the sun was getting low, to twirl their umbrellas under the watchful eyes of a couple drones that were photographing the event from above.

And then, above the drones, a beautiful hawk. Its wings glowed in the setting sun as it soared above us. Both grace and gracefulness.

I don’t know what Elizabeth Turk’s artistic interpretation of our day will be. Surely, it will be visually stunning. For a taste of her work, see the Shoreline Project (below) with hundreds of lighted umbrellas on the main beach at Laguna. I also don’t know what the hawk made of the event. I suspect he was eying the drones as either potential competitors or dinner. But I do know that Looking Up made me both hopeful and happy. And I can use a bit of each.