The Greenbelt News Review asked me to find the five happiest places in Greenbelt, in honor of Newsweek’s recent announcement of Maryland ranking as the second happiest state in the nation. This was kind of a big ask, in part because I haven’t been that happy recently. But I have often been told that if you search for trouble, trouble is what you find, so perhaps if I looked for happiness, happiness I would find. And second happiest in the nation is pretty happy, Maryland! I decided to set out in search of happiness. I won’t pretend I can make a definitive list of the most happy places in Greenbelt, but what follows are Kyla’s top five.
The Community Center
The Community Center has got to be near the top of anyone’s list of great things about Greenbelt. There are all kinds of classes, clubs, activities, all year round, at all times of day. Want to learn to make stained glass? The Community Center can help with that! Have an obscure hobby and want to meet folks to hobby alongside? They have a club for people just like you (and if they don’t, they’d probably be delighted if you’d start one). Out in the sun and need a water fountain and a bathroom? Also, the Community Center. So Dan and I popped by on Saturday to hear from the people in the building about if and why they found it a happy place like I do.
Community Center Team Leader Eunice McCullough responded, “… the fact that people can come to this location and commune and enjoy, and just have fun. There is always going to be something fun to do.” She reflected on the people who come in just to have someone to talk to and gestured to fellow team leaders Tiara Claggett and Bryston Ingram, who said, “Like just sitting around talking to one another. Look at the different perspectives just right here, male perspective, female perspective, different age perspectives. A person can come here and find something happy to do.”
And that is why the Greenbelt Community Center is one of my top five happy places, because there is no happier thing for me than to sit in the audience of a Christopher Cherry/Stefan Brodd Creative Kids Camp production, and watch Cherry and Brodd’s faces in the wings as they watch the campers. The joy, the pride, the genuine happiness that radiates from both of them brings literal tears to my eyes, year after year. The music, songs and messages of these shows are beautiful, fun and timely, unafraid to address important issues, while giving young people ages 5 to 12 the chance to perform for their parents, friends and the wider community. Having a bad day? Go to a Creative Kids Camp performance and look at the faces of parents as they watch their kids, and look at the children as they wave to their loved ones in the audience.
As long as Christopher Cherry and Stefan Brodd are in the house, the Community Center will be one of the five happiest places in Greenbelt for me.
Indian Creek Trail
The boardwalk by Greenbelt Station provides a (very short) dappled walk between Beltway Plaza and Greenbelt Station, along with opportunities for bird-watching, stream-gazing and reptile-spotting. It is a little bit of beautiful calm in one of the more densely urban areas of Greenbelt, and feels each time that I am there, a delightful, restful surprise.
Northway Extended
Yes, this bit of unpaved road is one of my top five happiest places, for it leads to any number of wonderful adventures. First, the most famous mountain in all of Greenbelt, Mulch Mountain, at which Dan and I have shoveled back-breaking amounts of mulch but, more importantly, met new friends and neighbors. We have lent out shovels and pitchforks and conferred about gardening, landscaping and the weather. We embark on walks down Northway Extended to Mulch Mountain and back again, stopping to talk to friends we meet on the way. And Northway Extended also leads to a number of paths through the Forest Preserve, including October’s famous Pumpkin Walk, the ballfields and the observatory. In short, this one little road can take you to a Little League game, a star-gazing party, a beautiful walk in the woods, a pick-up game of soccer and a mountain of free mulch. When and where else does one little road lead to so much joy and opportunity?
Greenspring Neighborhood
Every year on December 24, my family and I fill our travel mugs with hot chocolate, blast I Heart Radio’s Christmas carol marathon and drive around Greenbelt looking at Christmas lights. We hit all the neighborhoods, but our absolute favorite year after year is Greenspring. This tradition alone makes the neighborhood one of my happiest places in Greenbelt, so Dan and I decided to head over there now, in August, to see what its residents like about it.
We pulled over at the first group of people we saw outside and they looked at me with the apprehension you might expect if a random car suddenly pulls over on your street and a woman jumps out carrying a notepad and heads towards you with purpose. And it is a sign of just how gracious and lovely the people in Greenspring are that with that introduction they still talked to me.
I asked resident Kelli May what was the happiest thing for her about Greenspring. She told me it’s a safe and quiet neighborhood with one of the best schools in the area (Eleanor Roosevelt High School). As we stood looking around, I said, “You have a lovely park! I recently did an article about parks in Greenbelt for the News Review but I missed yours!”
May explained that her father had been very involved with the HOA and that, after his death, the HOA placed a bench at the park with a plaque for her father, Walter Hamlin.
“Walter Hamlin is your father?” I screamed, “Daniel Hamlin is my husband!” and then, turning to my car, “Dan, get out of the car! Get out of the car!” Because I met Walter Hamlin many years ago, when he was a parishioner at Greenbelt Community Church, of which Dan was once pastor.
Kelli told us that when her father saw the pastor at Greenbelt Community Church had the last name Hamlin, he decided to go there.
“I would always shake people’s hands at the end of the service. And your Dad came up to me that first day he was there, and I held out my hand and said, ‘I am Dan Hamlin,’ and he said, ‘I know. I’m Walter Hamlin.’” Dan and Kelli laughed together, reminiscing about her father and talking about how Daniel and Walter worked out that they were distantly related.
Later, Daniel went to the park and polished the plaque for Walter Hamlin, which is affixed to a wooden bench underneath a tree.
Greenspring was one of my top five happy places because of hot chocolate and family and Christmas lights, but now it is one of my top five happy places because of Kelli May, Walter Hamlin, and a restful bench for an energetic man who gave so much to his community.
Living Rooms
And rounding out my list of happy places in Greenbelt are its living rooms. My living room, your living room. When I think of the times I have been happiest in Greenbelt, they have been among this community. At a friend’s house, with our small GHI full to the brim with folks braving our Hot Soup Night, in a backyard before a firepit. But always with friends. Greenbelt’s living rooms are its happiest place, for sure, and it has been one of the great pleasures of my life to have been invited to spend time in a few of them. What a privilege it is to be invited into a person’s home, to be made to feel welcome, cared for and included. Thank you, Greenbelt, for your happy living rooms.
I heard from some other people about their happiest places in Greenbelt. Sieglinde Peterson said the Greenbelt Farmers Market, and that her heart soars on Sunday mornings. Raul Baptiste loves the Co-op, and said some of the fondest memories of Greenbelt and the friends he’s made, including “the bestest friend I made, and lost, Danny Abebe,” are from the Co-op. “That’s where I met all you fine folks,” he said.
Pam Hamlin’s happiest place in Greenbelt is the Greenbelt Nursery School. “When I taught there between 2004 and 2012,” she said, “every day I would see a group of diverse, curious, happy faces working and playing together. It’s how the world is supposed to be.”
Amal Saleh, when asked about the happiest place for her in Greenbelt, took a moment to think and then said, “It’s the people. It’s a community you belong to. You belong. They care.” She shared about the overwhelming kindness from Greenbelters following the recent death of her sister. “It’s a family,” she said. “People care for you.”
There are, I believe, at least a thousand happiest places in Greenbelt. If you haven’t found yours yet, perhaps one of mine will bring a little joy to you today, tomorrow, or in December. And if you already know the happiest place that I definitely should not have left out, write to the News Review. Where are the happiest places in town through your eyes? We would love to know.