Sometimes you will be driving through Arlington and see something that reminds you that Arlington is really more like a turn of the century village than an urban hub ten minutes from the roiling Capital. You know there is a story behind the huge, beautifully crafted wooden signs proclaiming LOVE, HOPE, PEACE, UNITY and CARE along North Bryan Street. When you ask, her neighbors tell you about Rachel Burns, the creator of the signs, and the fact that she was battling cancer and the neighborhood came out to support her. But then, you find Rachel, enter her warm, busy house with the music parlor, a black upright piano and Bass, decorated in red velvet like an old-timey saloon, and sit at the dining room table with its big bowl of nuts, and hear her tell that story.
Rachel Burns, at home on Bryan Street. She made the signs on the street to project positivity after a difficult period for the neighborhood.
“I think it’s because we’re very close to DC but it’s almost like we’re in a different world here. It’s always been a neighborhood where there’s been multigenerations living in homes, giving their homes to the younger generations. The kids have always played on the street. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a dead end or what, but pre-pandemic this street was filled the children from 4 o’clock until 8 o’clock at night (in summer) climbing the trees, playing ball, hide and seek. If a parent wanted to know where their child was, the answer was often: ‘Look up in the trees.’ We collectively, as a group of parents, decided we weren’t gonna ‘screen’ our kids. The only time they had screens was Friday night and so we would get together at each other‘s houses and have Friday night movie night. One person would host. All week the kids would negotiate what movie they would watch on the Friday night. It really built a community here, between people of different backgrounds and people of different ages. The kids all grew up kind of like cousins. We propped each other up, watched out for kids, felt the world was okay because our street was full of bikes and trikes and all the signs that joyful children live here.”
“This is how it was in 2016 leading up to the election. The house across from ours was owned by a multigenerational family and we all kind of helped raise the kids. We felt responsible for them because their mother was absent. But things changed. In 2016 they put a giant Trump sign - 8-by-4-feet high - on the lawn. A new resident joined the family and the children from the house started going around the neighborhood using negative language and did things like take down the ‘Hillary for President’ signs and defaced bumper stickers, carving things into the trees. We tried to talk to them. The kids start fighting with each other. I was kind of a ‘den mother’ so I sat the kids down in my back yard, and told them, ‘You know it’s freedom of speech and we have to deal with it. Everyone has a perspective.”
But Burns was just counting the days until the election was over and the sign would come down. She had the same talk with parents in the neighborhood: “We don’t have to worry about it. This is temporary. We’re here to protect the kids. The sign is gonna come down. The harassment on the street will stop.”
“But,” she continued, “ the day after the election, I walked out of my house and saw that sign. Everything in my body just dropped. I was like, ‘that sign is never going away.’ This went on for a while and it was physical: how can we move on? I was driving to work, thinking about it. I was in kind of a daze about it. One day I just came to the basement. I looked at the pile of wood we had down there and I just start pulling out wood. I’m handy, but I have never done anything like that and it took me about 10 days. I blasted Maria Callas opera arias as I sawed away and made this LOVE sign. It is 4-feet-by-eight-feet and it has 50 bulbs for the 50 states on the American flag. My husband and I put it up on the porch and we plugged it in. It was 10 o’clock at night. The couple across the street were sitting on their porch, and when we plugged it in, we heard an audible gasp from the front porch. A day later the TRUMP sign came down.”
“People in the neighborhood wanted signs after that. I asked them to pick a word. I do it for free and I do it when I have the time and space. Leading up to the 2024 election, people would come up to us and ask about the signs and when we told the story they said ‘this gives us so much hope in humanity.’”
But the story takes a twist here. If you ask now about the signs, you might hear that the origin of the signs was to support Burns as she went through a difficult cancer diagnosis in 2013. You might hear about Burns’ singing group. Her album “Living Your Breast Life.” (You can hear her on any audio platform.) But news reports never mention the genesis of the first sign. And yes, Burns did have to deal with Stage 3 breast cancer, and she turned that experience into a non-profit cancer support organization called “Cancer Culture.” The goal of the non-profit is to encourage people with metastatic breast cancer to express themselves with art and culture. “But more importantly, we raise money for metastatic cancer research. We volunteer, do retreats, fundraisers and give 100% of donations to metastatic breast cancer research and support.”
It’s just one more part of the Rachel Burns story, one more indication that LOVE, and UNITY, CARE and JOY aren’t just signs.
If you walk around Bryan Street today, you won’t see so many children out on the street. “The Pandemic had a huge effect on the neighborhood,” Burns said. “People kind of scattered back into their homes and watched their screens. The kids still know each other really well, but it’s not as vibrant as it used to be.”
The big hopeful signs remain, and the lessons of free speech and taking care of children as a village remain, and no doubt will survive the political divisions that try to creep into this city near the center of American politics. Burns has wood for a few more signs, should it come to that.
For more and to donate: see: https://www.cancerculture.org/ourstory
rachelburns.ffm.to/whatanastywoman and see rachelburnsmusic.com