Posting (or not), Plays, Presentations & People
I am posting again after my longest gap (8 weeks) since I launched this blog in February of 2023. I’m grateful to report the hiatus was for no seriously adverse reason. It was really just low energy and some languishing months. I know you’ve been there too.
March this year felt like an incubation time here in the Great Lakes region. It was a hard January and February that drove you to want to hide under blankets in your bed. The months were exceptionally cold and snowy (including Cleveland recording low temperature of -10 degrees celsius on January 30, 2026). Parts of the region were rocked by political conflicts (Minneapolis, January 2026). Now engaged in a war, an economically fragile region continues to face high gas prices and manufacturing sector logistics nightmares. Military families (significant numbers in this region) face the prospects of deployments and unknowns.
March felt like a waiting game. Maybe you wanted to climb out from under the blankets. Maybe you didn’t. The meteor that exploded above Northeast Ohio on St. Patrick’s Day morning causing a thunderous boom across the entire region pushed you toward the latter.
And now in late April, with the return of some sun and warmth, it feels like it’s time to move forward – to accept and engage with the moment and find a way to love the world.
So I am back, and while I was on break from posting on the blog, I actually had three of my most affirming, exciting and gratifying Great Lakes interactions in memory.
On February 26th, my friend Hannah’s short play was produced at Public Assembly, a non-profit community theater in Los Angeles whose monthly shows are a hot ticket. The play was called Topiary Dreams. There is a unique history of gas stations in East Los Angeles maintaining topiaries on their property. Get gas. See a bush carved like a rabbit.
Hannah, an Ohio native who has listened to me natter on in recent years about the Great Lakes, wrote a plot with three characters, two gas station attendants and one angry middle manager. One of the attendants is asked to refresh the topiaries. Instead of trimming, they recarve them into the shapes of the five Great Lakes.
The ensuing interactions and conversation between the characters was brilliant, funny and touching and it sounds like it was a hit with the audience. To know that an LA audience sat with, and perhaps briefly pondered, the Great Lakes region and water resources, makes me so proud. It was also a very special moment of a friendship that has lasted for almost 29 years now.
On February 28th, through my ambassador role with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, I was invited to speak to educators attending a convening organized by the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP) here in Northeast Ohio. I had a lovely time eating lunch with those in attendance and then giving a presentation on the Alliance’s position on a range of issues facing the Great Lakes region.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had a videocall with Chris, the brother of a neighborhood friend. Chris works for the Cleveland Metroparks (a truly outstanding organization) and is launching a Lake Erie, Great Lakes, and water related educational initiative for youth in some of Cleveland’s east side neighborhoods. As we chatted about the Great Lakes advocacy and educational landscape here in Northeast Ohio, it dawned on me how much I’ve learned and how much more I know after four years of investing time in this place, issue and topic that I care so much about.
And this felt good. It felt solid. It felt like I have made a home for myself in this space and this place. I continue to love the creativity and opportunity of this blog. But in the end of the day, the blog remains a channel to people.
I hope you, my people, are well and perhaps finding some new energy with the seasonal change too.
