What an awesome photo from 2015. I hadn't seen this image until today: From NASA (and this article also includes an animation of there moon crossing): EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates, providing scientific observations of ozone, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in…
For several years I have taught week-long courses at law schools in Istanbul, Turkey. Those visits have been put on pause due to COVID. I was a couple weeks from traveling to Istanbul once again in early March, 2020, but I reluctantly cancelled that.
I often think of the many people I repeatedly visit when I'm in Turkey. Like most of my friends in the U.S., digital technologies have made it possible to keep in touch, but I look forward to the day when I can once again take it all in through all five senses.
Back here in St. Louis, Missouri, I tend to my ordinary life. Every week or so, however, I fondly think of something that I couldn't have predicted before I first visited the Middle East. I often think of the call to prayer.
In the Middle East, the muezzin calls out from the top of nearby minarets five times each day (sometimes more than one at the same time if you are between minarets). It's a call, for sure, and almost seems like a song, but I've been told that it is not singing. The calls seemed like intrusions on my ears until I heard many of them. Gradually, over my repeated visits, the call to prayer became an exceptionally beautiful moment for me. I write this as an atheist who doesn't understand any of the words of the call to prayer. For me, its beauty is about the sounds and the moment, coupled with images of the venerable mosques I visited (I took these photos in Turkey and Egypt). Also coupled with the second-to-none hospitality of the people I met in the Middle East. It's different than church bells, because it's only five times each day and because you are not hearing a mechanical bell--you are hearing a human being earnestly calling out to you.
As I repeatedly visited Turkey, I started looking forward to the calls as opportunities to stop and think about life and my place in the world. I also took it as a reminder to always be tending to things that really matter because the day is always slipping away. It is also a reminder that you are part of a much bigger community because that call is to everyone in hearing distance, not just you. 
There are many reasons for craving an effective vaccine for COVID. For me, this is a reason that I didn't anticipate. This is a good example of a reason that you should travel to new places: If you travel with the right state of mind, you will be changed by what you encounter.
I'm repeatedly falling in love with Tower Grove Park, which is a short walking distance from my home in the near south side of St. Louis. At the TGP website, one can read: "The mission of Tower Grove Park is to be an exemplary, well-preserved and well-presented, wooded Victorian park of international significance . . . " Absolutely true. I took these photos tonight to offer you the opportunity to see why I tend to exude over the top when talking about TGP. The sun was setting as I took these photos; there is no time of day when this park fails to inspire. I avoided invading the privacy of the people in these photos, but even total darkness is not a reason to leave for many of them.
While COVID keeps wearing us down, a newfound appreciation for magic places like TGP is a silver lining: People from the surrounding neighborhoods are increasingly celebrating this park. I never seen so many families using the park. Friends gather at a distance under the gazebos or on picnic blankets. It is a sacred place of peaceful celebration. No matter what day it is, I am likely to think of that classic Chicago tune, "Saturday in the Park." It is impossible to walk through TGP without soaking in upbeat social vibes from a vibrant melting pot of people representing numerous languages and demographics. I speak for all of my neighbors when I say: This upbeat diversity is why I live in this neighborhood.
That TGP serves as such a respite from COVID is not a surprise. TGP's 289 acres are covered with more than 7,000 gorgeous trees. You can easily and safely social distance from many hundreds of people in such a vast area. BTW, Central Park in NYC is 840 acres, which is smaller than the biggest park in St. Louis, Forest Park, with 1326 acres.
I try to get at least one long brisk walk every day in Tower Grove Park. I also tend to do some of my writing on a park bench or under one of the many gazebos. Along with my own photos, I'm going to include a compilation of sketches by a lithograph company called Compton & Dry, which created a detailed drawing of the City of St. Louis in 1875, probably with the assistance of some balloon flights. In this compilation, you can see that TGP had been laid out before any of the houses in the surrounding areas were built. This is city planning at its best, thanks to a man named Henry Shaw, who donated this land to the City of St. Louis in 1866.
That's it for now, my Ode to Tower Grove Park. I hope that you too are finding relief from COVID, at least once in a while, by reconnecting with your community at your neighborhood parks.
Makeup artist Mimi Choi has over 1.3 million followers on Instagram, thanks to Photoshop and buckets of creativity.
Tomorrow we are expected to hear from Istanbul that the Hagia Sophia, which Atatürk declared to be a museum in 1935, will be converted back into a mosque. Whatever one might think of this decision, this 1,500 year old building will continue standing in all its glory. I took these photos a couple years ago. Walking through the Hagia Sophia takes one's breath away.
