Volunteering with readers, building community

Good morning, DMV! It’s Tuesday, April 7.

Last month when former surgeon general Vivek Murthy launched a Substack, a friend shared with me his first post: “If You Want to Build Community, You Have to ‘Waste Time’ with People.” Murthy writes about loneliness as a health risk and describes how “small moments of connection … unhurried conversation or shared presence” can help.

I love this concept — sharing unstructured, aimless time with others to just see where the winds and our whims take us.

When I was a teen, my friends and I used to leave our school campus for strolls, writing in a log we were required to fill out that our destination was “wherever our feet will take us.” (It was the 80s.) When my husband, daughter and I lived on a riverine island near Bangkok, we hosted guests on weekends, taking them for hours-long meandering bike rides, with breaks for coffee-coconut smoothies.

These are some of my favorite moments in life. Unplanned. I expect nothing. I expect anything.

I spent hours yesterday responding to reader emails. Several of you invited me on outings: to volunteer at a community kitchen in Baltimore; relocate turtles ahead of a pond-dredging project; join “weed warriors” to tackle invasive plants; and my favorite invite — feed orphaned baby squirrels.

I realize volunteering isn’t really “wasting time,” and of course, these projects are well planned, with clear, expected outcomes. But for me, it’s a new adventure and a fun way to meet you and learn about our wider community.

I’m in.

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A few months ago while roaming the internet for things to do, I stumbled upon the National Museum of Asian Art’s twice-a-week online meditation sessions. Then in recent weeks, someone I met at a party and a reader both recommended it. So I’m giving it a try. I’d prefer in person, but I’m exploring all avenues.

I feel like this is a path I need to walk — that meditation would be a helpful tool to get me through this difficult moment and the many more that will inevitably come.

Samantha Higgs, 34, who lives near Rock Creek Park, took this photo yesterday evening of an owl perched in a bamboo forest between her house and her neighbors.

“Last week while taking my dogs out, I heard and saw a bird swooping downwards in the bamboo next to our home. I paused and my patience paid off as I observed him (or her) hop to another branch in an unmistakable owlish manner … Nearly every morning since, we’ve set into a pattern. I walk out the side door, he hears us, and swoops down to a lower spot in the trees,” Samantha wrote me in an email.

“Today I saw him on our evening outing and I finally got a (semi) decent picture. When I came back inside I grabbed my binoculars and watched for quite awhile from the sunroom. This appears to be a Barred Owl. My favorite feature are his feathery eyelids. He blinked slowly a few times, perhaps sleepy at this time of day.

“Also, I just went back to check on him around an hour later and he hasn’t moved … My husband and I are both lawyers so we made an admittedly bad joke that it’s fitting that our new owl neighbor is also barred.”

Share your recent photos of life in the DMV here.

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