May you live in interesting times.....
Interesting: "arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention"
Interesting times
The most common phrase I’ve heard during my Harkness experience so far is, “You picked an interesting time to be in the U.S.” I even said it myself while packing to move, imagining I might arrive just in time to witness the election of the first female President. But in the weeks since Inauguration Day, that phrase has taken on a new and heavier meaning. While the new administration is certainly commanding attention, the phrase doesn’t quite capture the bewilderment, and fear that seem to permeate the atmosphere. That feeling has only intensified in light of several tragic events over the past week.
I’ve been hesitant to say too much about what’s happening—it doesn’t feel like my story to tell. I’m here as a visitor, a legal alien with privileges and rights that many in this country no longer have. But since I started this blog to document my experience, I feel I should also acknowledge how these moments are shaping my perspective.
When people ask what I do back home, the simplest way to explain it is that I work for an agency similar to the CDC, though with a slightly narrower focus. My role, which is focussed on health equity, would almost certainly have been eliminated here. Much of the research, evidence, and guidance I would have contributed to would no doubt have been part of the 3,000 pages removed from the CDC website since Friday night— including resources on promoting health in schools—now under review due to an Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). For me this work is always about responding to health needs and where they present, taking account of the particular challenges and opportunities facing different communities. But it is a stark reminder that moral arguments alone won’t solve health inequalities. We must also build a strong epidemiological and economic case for change—and consistently demonstrate impact.
The last few weeks have also made me reflect again on Marshall Ganz’s definition of leadership: “Leadership means taking on the responsibility of creating conditions that enable others to achieve a shared purpose in the face of uncertainty”. There is certainly no shortage of uncertainty right now, with legal teams working around the clock to interpret the implications of different Executive Orders. I feel pretty helpless, yet I’m also deeply grateful for the opportunity to witness and learn from the leadership at the University who are navigating this uncertainty on behalf of students and staff.
Avoiding ovewhelm
I have done alot of seeking out the words of people far smarter than me for reassurance or optimism in the past few weeks. I am sharing a few of the things that have resonated with me and helped me to better understand:
I have been slightly confused by the apparent lack of voice and leadership in the Democrat response and have been reflecting on the role of the ‘leader of the opposition’ that we have at home. The system here is so different and this post helped me understand more of what needs to happen. I also generally highly recommend anything that Dan Pfieffer writes.
I also loved all of this piece in the Washington post by Annie Lammott about the resistance and in particular:
“The resistance will be peaceful, non violent, colorful, multigenerational…..
Until then this will be my fight song: left foot, right foot, breathe”.
Ezra Klein always has a way of cutting through the noise and I enjoyed this short opinion podcast on the first few weeks.
I talked before here about the documentary I had been to see called ‘Join or Die’ which is now showing on Netflix. It talks about the importance of joining a club for democracy, something i’ve reminded myself on when feeling slightly helpless.
I have a feeling that in the years to come when I look back on my experience here some of the most impactful things will be the things I have ‘joined’. The neighborhood association which meets in the local primary school and reminds me that wherever you go in the world, people will always want to spend more time than is needed talking about parking. The Pilates studio where the instructor greeted me at the door on Friday with the words ‘god your name is badass’. The book club that has made me fall in love with reading again through our most recent book Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. The ‘Love is Blind’ watch party group I am now a part of who are planning a night out to go roller skating on Valentine’s day. The choir who are making me feel part of a wonderfully, inclusive and accepting community, and one that makes some pretty amazing sounds to boost. One of the songs we are singing (Earth Song by Frank Ticheli) contains the line “but music and singing have been my refuge, and music and singing will be my light”, which feels incredibly apt for the time and had half the room in tears at our retreat yesterday.
Another visitor
I was very lucky to have another visitor recently. It is always a real treat to have visits from home and to be able to share my new life and the magic of Charm City with them. Beth arrived in the aftermath of a giant snowstorm and with conditions far below freezing which slightly limited what we were able to do. I planned a pretty bespoke tour of all of Baltimore’s best book shops which went down a treat and also took her to Fort McHenry, a must visit for anyone British.
I had mentioned a potential guest slot in this blog and she has kindly shared some overall reflections.
“I guess an obvious start is that Baltimore is not what I expected. If you asked me to write down exactly what I'd thought the city would feel and look like before arriving, I would probably have struggled to commit anything to paper but architecturally, it's so much more beautiful and interesting than I expected it to be. A lot of this comes down to its history as a port, which I really hadn't fully grasped until I was there -- in fact, I really hadn't understood the fact that Baltimore is genuinely at the centre of everything until I was there and really making an effort to understand the history. I'm not sure how it's managed to be glossed over historically as effectively as it has been but I really enjoyed having the chance to actually finally get to grips with some US history.
For a big city, the infrastructure is poor. I guess that's the product of a culture of driving, but I really just learnt to walk everywhere rather than rely on buses/subway etc. That's fine if you're me and can just order a Lyft if you're going a more awkward distance, but I'm left thinking about the people who couldn't afford to do that -- and how my reflections are therefore on only a very small area of the city, rather than the Baltimore that's home to many of its citizens.
She was here over inauguration and it was very difficult to ignore. On the day itself we did pretty well by going to the Martin Luther King day celebrations at the American Visionary Art Museum, one of my favorite spots in the city.
She then went to DC for the day and managed to tour Congress at the same time as many of the Trump supporters in town, a very different experience from the one I had a few months ago.
“That said, my day in the Capitol was one of the most fascinating and informative I could ever have had, and the more time that passes the more I realise how significant it felt to be well and truly out of the echo chamber and to feel in the minority politically.”
To round off her US political education I took her to a ‘Pints and policy’ night at the Patagonia store. This was the next event in a series of things I have been to in support of the Maryland bottle bill which is going through this session of the state congress. The evening was a panel discussion with speakers from the aquarium, local council, and environmental groups, with a local brewery providing beer for everyone and food from the Baltimore staple Ekiben. It was a very useful reminder that while national politics may be dominating the media at the moment there are so many ways we can support local action. A point also made very well made by Dr Ashwin Vasan, former NYC Health Commissioner in a recent piece for Time Magazine, about the important role local and state public health can play to continue to advance public health priorities.
Finishing with some more words from Beth:
One of the things I'm most struck by after my visit is the sense of the community that exists. I'm presuming this is replicated across the whole city, but it strikes you instantly - everyone is warm, friendly and volunteers incredible amounts of time to local causes. That kind of culture of volunteering just doesn't exist in the UK. Of course, it may well be essential when you have no wider government support to fall back on, but it feels like it runs far deeper than that. People seem to really, deeply care about the places that they live and have a genuine desire to improve them. I did enjoy the community meeting politics/cast of characters being almost identical regardless of the setting though!
I am reminded often of a print I have in my bedroom at home which is just the quote ‘I believe in good people’. My time here has been filled with not just good but brilliant people and that is what is giving me hope right now. Tomorrow, I head to DC to spend the week with the rest of the Harkness fellows, the very definition of ‘good people’.
Thanks for reading and please look after yourself
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