The other day I was half way down a narrow path leading down to fresh pond when a gray-haired guy in no face mask started up the path in the opposite direction. I motioned to him to wait until I got to the bottom–but he kept going, moving closer and closer to me. “Sir!” I shouted. “Please social distance.” He ignored me (well, he was wearing earphones but he looked right at me) and kept on walking. I pulled as close I could to the opposite fence and turned away from him as he went by, feeling frightened, and, then, shaken. After I’d quarantined for three months, worn a mask and stayed six feet away from folks in supermarkets, on streets and near my condo, had some arrogant middle-aged guy given me a death sentence?

On Saturday, I decided to avoid Fresh Pond and run on the river, in Allston, many people were wearing face masks, but a group of people stood, chatting, on either side of the path. One of them–again, middle aged–wore no mask. A runner coming toward them from the other direction–stopped to ask them which side he should run on to get six feet away…The maskless guy said, “You’re fine.” I said. “You’re not wearing a mask.” He said, “I don’t need a mask, I’m outside.

Two days later, I was in the parking lot at Target, in Watertown, on my way to pick up some coffee, curbside. A young woman stood near me, mask-less. “Where’s your mask?” I asked. She replied, “I’m outdoors, I don’t need a mask.”

I then headed from there to Home Depot, across the street, hoping to pick up some flowers and cherry tomatoes to plant on my balcony. It was my third try.

The first time, heading in–had to go inside; asked the person monitoring the door if there were any rules; he said no. Walking through the store, I heard the occasional loudspeaker announcement to stay six feet away from the next person….but no one was doing that. I made it to the outdoor shop, getting increasingly tense; there were no shopping carts; to get one, I would have had to go back out, then back in again through the store. I decided to check the prices, instead, and come back another time, but shoppers were standing shoulder to shoulder, so I left.

The second time, the same thing thing happened. I picked up small fuschia and seedling lettuce plants. But I needed potting soil; the bags were too heavy for me to carry and, again, there were no shopping carts available. I was afraid to walk through the main store again, as folks had been going every which way, with carriages; so put down my goods, walked out, and asked the guard if I could speak with a manager. I wanted to tell him I thought this was a dangerous situation and ask if would be possible for them to mark floors with direction signals and six-foot distancing, like they do in food stores. The guard called and asked a manager to speak with me, I waited for a few minutes, but no manager ever came.

On Sunday, I tried one last time, but, again, though folks were wearing masks, there was no social distancing. I gave up–and drove to two different farm stands. They were less crowded…but were sold out of medium sized pots of cherry tomatoes, and had no lettuce. Oh, well. I did pick up some flower and basil plants at my local supermarket.

Today, on Fresh Pond, between 7:30 and 8 am I went by at least 7 people without masks–including three, old enough to know better, who were not even carrying masks. Two of them walked side by side in the center of the path, making it difficult for anyone stay far enough away from them; the third was smoking a cigarillo.

As a communications consultant, I’m willing to concede that the rules and restrictions are not entirely clear. Early on, the advice was that masks were ineffective; when it changed to say while they don’t protect those wearing them from catching the virus, they will protect others if mask-wearers are carriers. It’s possible that some people are not aware that that the advice has changed, are unclear about the meaning of changing statewide rules, or don’t realize that many localities, including Cambridge and Watertown have stricter regulations.

Statewide:
Governor Baker’s statewide order-–  effective Wednesday, May 6 requires face masks or cloth face coverings in public places where it is not possible to be six feet away from other people. This applies to both indoor and outdoor spaces. It does not mean HAVING a mask–holding onto it at waist level or wearing it around your neck; it means wearing the mask, even outdoors, if you are less than six feet away from someone.

City of Cambridge:
As of April 29, 2020, Cambridge requires that face coverings be worn in all public places, businesses and common areas of residential buildings. The order took effective at Wednesday, April 29, and applies to everyone over the age of five years old, with exceptions in alignment with guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control or Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Violations may be punishable by a $300 fine. It applies to: sidewalks, streets, parks, plazas, bus stoops, non-residential parking lots and garages, and any other outdoor area…which is open and accessible to the general public.

Watertown:
As of May 4, 2020 any individual who is age five (5) years or older, and not otherwise exempt per CDC guidelines, shall be required to cover their nose and mouth with a clean mask or face covering
(e.g. disposable mask, cloth mask, face shield, bandana, scarf) when in or at any location open to the general public including all indoor locations open to the public, outdoor premises of private locations open to the
public, and all public outdoor locations (e.g., parks, playgrounds, athletic facilities, sidewalks, streets, public squares, paths, and all Town property).

Regulations in many other communities across the state.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/these-cities-and-towns-in-massachusetts-are-requiring-masks-and-face-coverings/2115307/

Please help everyone–and yourself– stay safe.

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and consultant based in Cambridge, MA.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

For some unfathomable reason, in the Peoples’ Republic, folks either do not know or do not care that the city’s covid rules now require both face masks AND social distancing, even in parks like Fresh Pond–with a possible $300 fine.

Running on Fresh Pond this morning before 7 a.m., I found that many people were respecting the order, but several runners ignored the requirement.

Social Distancing
A couple with white hair insisted on staying two abreast in the center of the path, refusing to budge when I asked them for some distance. They went so far as to tell me both that I should not have stopped on the path and that I should walk slower, until they got ahead of me. I am usually mild-mannered, but I confess, I lost it–resorting to the F-bomb–before I turned and sped up my pace in hopes of out-distancing them.

When I asked another woman –nicely–for some distance, she laughed at me .

Masks
When I reminded a twenty-something couple that masks are required, they ignored me; when I asked if they knew they could be subject to the $300 fine, the guy told me I should be heading clockwise. True, that’s a guideline, but it’s not a requirement, because not everyone goes all the way around the pond. I said, “I can’t make it all the way around.” He said, “That’s not our problem.”

Soon after that, I ran into a dog friend I’ve nicknamed “Smiley.” His human asked me how I was doing; I mentioned some of the above. She said she goes out even before 6:30 because “After 7, it’s too anxiety provoking. ” She added, “I don’t understand why people won’t help; we’re all in this together.”

I don’t “get it,” either. Yesterday, I asked a man, his wife with baby carriage and two children–none wearing masks– for some distance; they refused to move. He said, “I have a mask.” True….he did have a bandana, but it was around his neck. One day last week, when I reminded a runner (less than 6″ away) that masks are required, he called me a M’fucker. Also last week, a guy walking with his kids in Central Square pulled a knife on a runner who was not wearing a mask.

I’m very concerned about divisiveness and anger that’s plaguing our neighborhood, our city, and our country….but having lost a close friend to the virus, and nearly lost another, I find it difficult to keep calm..and to keep my mouth shut. I go outside a couple of times a day to relieve stress during this difficult pandemic; it’s not working!

Anyway, in case you have’t seem the new regulation, here it is:

Cambridge Face Covering Order

The City of Cambridge issued an emergency order requiring that face coverings be worn in all public places, businesses and common areas of residential buildings. The order takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, April 29, and applies to everyone over the age of five years old, with exceptions in alignment with guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control or Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Violations may be punishable by a $300 fine.

“While we are grateful to those in Cambridge who have been heeding our previous mask advisory and taking this issue seriously, we are concerned about the number of residents who continue to shop, walk, run and bike throughout the city without proper face coverings,” said Mayor Siddiqui and City Manager DePasquale in a joint statement. “We must all do our part in flattening the curve and make sure we are preventing the further spread of COVID-19. This mandate emphasizes the importance of wearing a face covering, not as an option, but as a requirement in our effort to combat this pandemic together.”

The order applies to everyone over five years old “without limitation, when on, in or about” public places, defined as:

• Sidewalks
• Streets
• Parks
• Plazas
• Bus stops
• Non-residential parking lots and garages
• Any other outdoor area or non-residential parking facility which is open and accessible to the general public.

The mask requirement also applies to anyone working in or visiting an essential business, as well as shoppers and consumers. Masks must remain on throughout shifts or visits to those businesses. The businesses covered under the order, include:

• Grocery stores or supermarkets
• Pharmacies
• Laundromats
• Dry cleaners
• Hardware stores
• Restaurants, cafes or similar establishments where prepared foods, meals or beverages may be purchased
• Local government buildings
• Commercial office buildings
• All essential businesses defined in Governor Baker’s March 23, 2020 Executive Order

In residential buildings of two or more units when people cannot maintain a 6 foot distance, masks will be required prior to entering any common area, including:

• Lobbies
• Hallways
• Elevators
• Stairwells
• Laundry rooms
• Garages or parking lots
• Walkways
• Yards and other outdoor common areas
• Mailrooms and other indoor common areas

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is the founder of the Harris Communications Group, and the author of Ithaca Diaries and Broken Patterns: Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and digital marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.

Once again, the Lacoste Keane gallery in Concord MA presents a stunning new show–in which ceramicist Ani Kasten uses the concept of visual poems to reflect on issues such as environmental collapse, social collapse, and inner and outer strife. 

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In the show, Kasten creates sculptural compositions from fragments and debris. While some vessels are quite large, other, smaller pieces Kasten calls “poems,” are three-dimensional objects which she likens to written verse. A poem, says the one-time literature major, ” shears away everything but the most essential, evoking an emotional response through the sparest communication, constructing concepts and feelings into a hewn verbal form, without engaging narrative or logic.”

Kasten uses earth materials like clay and rocks as a metaphor to explore ideas of decay, disintegration and renewal. “Working in clay is about the search for balance between the natural tendencies of the materials and the craft that is brought about by contact with the human hand,” according to the gallery writeup. “Faced with monumental forces of nature and entropy, a sadness and feeling of futility is provoked with the notion that human hubris seeks to create lasting structure and survival in the face of decimation by forces outside of our control—earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, tornadoes, violence and war. “

In this work, Kasten “reveals emerging structures and constructs under stress, made by the human hand but fighting against collapsing infrastructure. They show the cracking, warping and erosion that are natural expressions of the material, and explore the beauty and sadness in building from wreckage, such as a little robot made from scavenged shards of something former, with two little ears made from fossilized hornets’ nests.

Kasten says that “In the act of scavenging, building and creating the visual poems, ” she is “searching for beauty and harmony in the act of piecing back together what may seem like meaningless detritus of a collapsing world, reclaiming a tenuous and fragile feeling of meaning and purpose.”

In my view, she is successful in doing so. The pieces look delicate–as if they could fall apart at any second. But with their pastel colors and seemingly -haphazard-yet-powerful shapes reaching out in many directions, they exude tremendous energy–inviting the viewer to enter into Kasten’s exploration and expression of the tenuous-yet-enduring relationships of natural and human forces.

At Lacoste Keane Gallery, 25 Main St Concord MA 01742, through February 8, 2020.

—Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and digital marketing agency, also in Cambridge.

It’s not every freshman writing instructor who stays in touch with a student for more than 50 years, but Cornell University Professor Emeritus James McConkey was one who did…and I was the lucky student.

McConkey was my freshman writing instructor in 1967–I used to go out to his farm to exercise his horses–and he helped me through the student takeover of Willard Straight Hall, from which 130 black protestors emerged–several of whom brandished rifles.

(Jim told me recently that he sat with Dan Berrigan during the Barton Hall Takeover; also counselled University President Perkins–and tried to be a voice of reason throughout all of that). We stayed in touch for some 50 years; he and I held a joint book-signing in the Cornell Store during my 45th college reunion.

I am glad I got to seem him just before he passed away. 

In early October, Jim, his son Larry and daughter-in-law Diane McConkey were on their way back from visiting another of Jim’s former students on Northern Maine ( some 9 hours from Ithaca) and invited me to dinner at the Publick House, near Cambridge, , where I live, and where they were spending the night.

At 98, he told a few funny stories about his mother, who lived to 100 at least…and I  joked that his social life was better than mine. He was still driving–and told us that he would be driving the ten miles from his farm to lunch with friends several times the next week. He seemed frail–but sounded fine when I called to thank him a few days after our dinner.

Anyway, I’ve posted an obit Larry wrote at http://ithacadiaries.com. The Cornell obit is at https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/10/writer-emeritus-professor-james-mcconkey-dies-98 . And here’s a link to tributes from Diane Ackerman, Brad Edmonson and Robert Wilson that appeared in the American Scholar .  https://theamericanscholar.org/remembering-james-mcconkey/#.XdMM61dKg2w   .  —

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. Her books include Ithaca Diaries, a memoir and social history of her undergraduate years at Cornell; and Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity. She is currently working on a creative nonfiction book tentatively titled “Harrisburg,” which is about her experiences founding an alternative newspaper in Pennsylvania, during the trial of the Harrisburg 8.

Our friend Chamelia Sari–a lawyer from Weymouth, MA and Jakarta, Indonesia– recently took what sounds like a trip of a lifetime–spending Thanksgiving in Point Barrow, Alaska, on the North Pole. Before she left, when I asked her if she were going for work or fun, she said it was a mission: she wanted to find out what it was like to be in a place where the sun did not rise.

Chamelia’s travel companion was Arjun Banerje, of india, who has lived and worked in Asia, North America, Europe, and Africa. Currently, he is working on a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Chamelia originally posted the following report on Facebook; I thought it was well worth sharing further.

–Anita M. Harris

I’ve been to North Pole
before. Yes, that North Pole where Santa usually drives his snow cart and gives
Christmas presents to good and nice kids – if they behave all year.

But Point Barrow? Never knew such place existed, not until my evil twin texted me two weeks ago when I was still in Taipei–crying desperately, saying that he needed someone to company him. He knew my endless love for Alaska and so he trapped me with it.

Point Barrow is the
northernmost part of the US – “Top of the World”, they say. It’s located at
71°23’20” N 156°28’45’W.  By air, it takes
16 hours from Seattle to get there. There are no direct flights. We needed to
stop three times: in Juneau, Anchorage, and Prudhoe Bay –before landing at Dead
Horse Airport at Barrow. We left at 6 AM – and arrived around 7 PM local time.

Since it is the northernmost
part of the world, the weather is extremely cold. The temperature was -18° Celsius
when we got there but it felt like like-28° Celsius. But we were eager to visit
Barrow, especially in the wintertime. A friend of mine, a native I had met in
Juneau looked me in the eye – he still couldn’t believe when I told him was
going to visit Barrow, and wished me luck.

Barrow will have no sunlight
for almost two months. The last sunset was on November 18th at1.49 PM. The next
sunrise in Barrow will be on January 23, 2020. It’s a phenomenon called “polar
night”. Which means that the people who live in Barrow will lives in dark for
two months. Morning, noon, afternoon – night – all dark.

Considering the cold weather, we stayed at King Eider Inn, a hotel located 100 meters from the airport. Yes, we stayed right across the airport (yay!!!). Don’t imagine the airport is be like Changi in Singapore or Hamad International in Doha, Qatar. It is small and simple. But one thing for sure is that the people who work in Deadhorse Airport are very dedicated and professional. And punctual.  

When we woke up the first day and walked around to see the city at around 10.00 AM, we it was amazing. Dark all over. Thick snow everywhere. No trees. Only tundra can survive there – even during the summer. We looked at one another in disbelief that we that we had actually made it to Barrow. We laughed to ourselves like Carey and Daniels from Dumb and Dumber.

A friend in Juneau had warned me that there would be no restaurants open during Thanksgiving. I had brought some frozen food but we really craved hot soup, that day. So, while we were busy taking pictures, we walked all over like lost children and hoped for a miracle: that  that we would meet some generous  local people  who would feel sorry for us and invite us to eat at their place and celebrate the Thanksgiving with their family.

Did you know that God is always good all the time? We did not have to wait too long for our prayers to be answered. He led us to wonderful Inuit people who celebrate Thanksgiving with their local community. I met and interacted with native people!!!! I almost cried with happiness and felt so blessed with this opportunity.

We got invited to serve local people – Inuit whose ancestry in Barrow goes back more than 1,100 years. We helped Jim, his wife and his community distribute fish, geese and caribou meat to their people.

Jim is a sea captain who successfully caught a whale this year with his five team members. It was such an amazing feeling to be able to interact and make friends with this community. To see their sincere and loving faces. To get to know Jordan, a little rascal that stole my heart – and his lovely family.

Inuit people are known as whale hunters. They have a tradition of hunting whale every year, with the catch distributed to people in the community. All of it. Even though only five or six people risk their lives to catch the whale (sometimes people get killed while hunting) – they willing to share it equally with all members of the community. I saw it with my own eyes. I even experienced it myself. They distribute the whole catch. If only politicians in the city would think and act like the Inuit people how wonderful life would be. No corruption, no unfairness.

Our amazing journey ended with another surprise. We were finally be able to reach Point Barrow, the place that is extremely cold.  Not even my five Columbia Omni with heat layers could help me this time. Herman, a new local friend, lent us his Itaga – the traditional Inuit winter jacket made from Mouton fur. You can see in the picture what it looks like.

By snow mobile, Herman led us to Point Barrow. We rode the snow mobile for an hour and a half. I kept praying to God during the trip…

First, because my evil twin does not know how to drive, and there was a big possibility that we would be thrown from the snowmobile and get into the cold Arctic Ocean.

Second, a hungry Polar bear might eat us alive. Herman had to carry a weapon in his backpack while riding the snow mobile, just in case we saw a Polar bear on our way.

I remember reading a story on the internet:  If three people are chased by a bear, they have to sacrifice the slowest person in the group. I was the only one in our group with short legs. And my heavy, bulky winter jacket and layers underneath it made it difficult for me to move. That meant they would have to leave ME if a hungry bear found and chased us. Not good. Not good at all.

While we were enjoying the cold – with an unreal view in front of us – Herman pointed his fingers and said “Hi, look – there are polar bears there!”.
“ What ???!!! Polar bears??? “
“Yes, it is a polar bear!!! And not only one – but three of them!!! “
We saw a mama Polar bear and her two cubs playing in the freezing Artic ocean. Herman looked at the two of us with his small eyes, smiling and said, “The two of you are very lucky.”

We did feel lucky. My happiness in Barrow was complete when we had a chance to taste the delicious Chinese foods – right in Barrow. I missed my fluffy blueberry pancakes and yogurt– but I got so much more on this trip. And I will always remember a handsome, smart husky that we met when we walked back to our hotel.

Juno, I love you and hope to see you again someday :). We’ll never forget this wonderful journey.

I like quotes. Sometimes, they do make sense.

 It is true, life is an adventure. As Lori Deschene has said,

Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most exciting moments in life take us completely by surprise.

Camelia Sari, Point Barrow, November 2019.