Juneau must be the most supportive arts community if you look at it in terms of arts support per capita. This community of 30,000 has more arts organizations than I can count and more events than a person could attend without the use of time travel. This weekend I took part in a Rocky Horror showing at the independent Gold Town Nickelodeon, saw the Juneau Symphony’s performance of Sweeney Todd, and missed out on numerous other events, including a roller derby bout and a guest musical artist. We have the umbrella Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, several dedicated galleries, organizations dedicated to every facet of the arts, and once a month there are several art show openings at galleries and cafes and retail locations.
We, as a community, support a professional theatre, plus two or three smaller troupes, two organizations dedicated to opera, a symphony orchestra, the Jazz and Classics festival and related events, community studios and every other citizen is a photographer, painter or musician. You never know who you are going to see, but you will see at least 3-5 people you know at any given event, usually as a member of the cast or band or showing their art. These creators are your neighbors, your co-workers, and your servers (even bouncers). Mrs. Lovett – I’ve been to her house! I’ve taken shots of whiskey with the popular bluegrass band. I have seen a musician who performed at Lollapalooza wearing a wacky blue wig and sunglasses on stage, performing after a group of middle school students playing death metal.
Another great thing about the arts here is how accessible everything is. There is live music most weekends, usually for free. First Friday Gallery Walk is free each month to attend. The Juneau-Douglas City Museum is free for the winter thanks to some sponsorship, there are pay-as-you-can performances of even the professional theatre’s shows, and there is a good chance that you can have a chat with the actors or musicians or artists. The most known musicians and actors are still regular people, rather than distant celebrities.
The best thing about it is that it makes for great date nights. Who needs dinner and a movie when you can have dinner and a live performance? Clearly, I’ve set my standards higher with such classy date nights – no more are the “dates” that involve cheap beer at a dive bar and late night Pel’meni. Who am I kidding, there’s room for that, too, especially if there is live music.
Now, if I were a numbers person like Nate Silver and a great graphics creator like David McCandless, I would figure out some numeric equation to quantify the arts in Juneau and come up with some fancy graphic for arts per capita. Looks like I have a new project!
Note:
Dear Nate Silver, I’m linking you back for that time you linked to my OWS – Juneau article in your blog. Thanks. Also, I admire your work.
Dear David McCandless, I also admire your work. If I succeed at this infographic bit, I thank you for some inspiration.
Edit: Oh Google, how I love thee, I’m taking my cues from this article: http://www.seattlepi.com/ae/article/Seattle-area-tops-nation-in-arts-per-capita-1148342.php
For a few months this year, I had the privilege of working under the amazing communications director of a non-profit organization as her assistant. Due to lack of funding, my position wasn’t able to be renewed, leaving me unemployed and, worse, hoping for another job I would actually enjoy.
I’m going to assume that we’ve all held jobs we didn’t much like, for the sake of paying those pesky bills. Especially with the whole economic recession thing. Working as the communications assistant for this organization was one of the first jobs that gave me the satisfaction of feeling like my skills were being utilized. Sure, I can competently file documents or answer telephones or enter data, but I can do things that a number of people cannot.
Still, after this position, I was in the mindset that I needed to find another job in the non-profit field, even if it was back to administrative drudgery. It was kind of a blow to the ego when I didn’t get a job for which I was qualified at the same organization, but it wasn’t an insult at all. The office manager knew, my old boss knew: I wouldn’t really be content with administration. I might sleep well at night knowing I was indirectly saving the world, but I’d be sleepwalking at work doing a job that wasn’t challenging enough.
I value administrative professionals for their competence and contributions, and at that organization especially, most people did a lot more than basic administrative work. They were often also grant managers, working on interesting projects, and they were integral to the organization running smoothly and being as successful as it was. It wasn’t right for me, though.
For a few months after this failure, I stagnated in unemployment, applying only for jobs that seemed particularly interesting or challenging while sleeping until noon and losing all ability to function as a contributing member of society. I am really bad at unemployment. The only productive things I did for three months were learning to bake sourdough bread and continually changing my resume in my copy of illustrator. I occasionally worked a little retail or even babysat for my former boss’ daughter. One day at her house, she suggested I apply for a job at the paper. The paper had three or four openings at the time, two of which interested me, though both were a bit of a stretch.
Without getting into the gritty details about the application process, the wait, the interviews, the peeing in a cup – I got a job offer. I am the neighbors editor for the daily paper and, honestly, I am so glad to have had a mentor who encouraged me to apply for positions outside of my comfort zone. As it turns out, I’m a fine writer, AP style isn’t too difficult to pick up, and layout grows less exasperating with each week. My job includes writing one or two features a week (sometimes more if I’m feeling particularly productive), editing my section and proofing the A section twice a week, plus doing layout for my section and occasionally some of the A section. It’s a job that is almost never dull and it encourages me to learn and be creative.
I wish everyone could spend 40 hours a week doing something they love and getting paid for it. I don’t think I can ever turn back.
Having lived in Alaska for nearly five years, I have noticed a pattern. Each spring, I feel a surprising sense of relief when the days start to get longer and there is more light in my life. Maybe it’s not quite science or medicine, but this tells me that I may be dealing with a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some people suggest taking vitamin D capsules, but I can’t take pills on time or regularly to save my life. Another option, some people have said a few minutes in the tanning bed cures their blues, but my delicate and pale as a halibut belly complexion and tanning beds don’t really go well together. What is left, then, is the “SAD light.”
Hopefully the “SAD light” is effective, either as it claims or as a placebo. I went to Costco over the weekend and bought one that looks like a weird modern lamp.
Everyone at Costco seemed really concerned with my mental and emotional health – nobody can stand to see a cute girl sad, it seems. I had seen the light on display the week before and had been thinking about it since. When I got back to Costco, there was a different and $100 more expensive and less attractive “SAD Light” in its place. I asked someone who worked there, pointing, “There was another light there before, do you still have it?” He looked at me knowingly, “Ah, you mean the happy light?” and directed me to the pharmaceutical section. I put the light in my cart and was already getting happy thinking about increasing my (pretend) natural sunlight intake. When I got to the check-out line, the woman scanned it and also commented on the light. “Gonna get happy, huh?” I joked that I was going to put it in my office. A joke not because of its location -it is at my desk at work – but because I actually like my job and feel happier since working there. Upon departure, because it was Costco, I handed my receipt to the man at the exit for him to check off.
“Are you sad?” he asked, “Are you unhappy?”
I explained to him, as I explained above, that the sense of relief I feel in the spring is likely indicative of Seasonal Affective Disorder and I thought the light might lessen the effects of the short days and endless gray skies. His response was along the lines of, ‘this place is depressing and there’s nothing to do and you’re crazy to live here by choice, especially being young (and cute)’ and I had the longest chat anyone has probably ever had with the door guy at a Costco, explaining why I do like Juneau and how there is plenty to do and how I don’t mind the rain and cold, at least in theory. Even though I was buying a lamp to make up for the sunlight I don’t receive.
According to the website for the lamp company, 80 percent of people benefit from the lights and most notice results in two to four days. Here’s hoping.
Out of curiosity, if I am unhappy with the light, do you think the people at Costco would take it back out of pity for the sad, cute girl?
I can’t have pets at my apartment or I’d probably have picked up a pound pup after one of my petfinder.com searches. To make up for my puppy-less-ness, I sometimes agree to walk or watch other people’s dogs, with more interesting results than anyone would want.
When I sat for a friend about a year ago, I was pretty enamored with her medium sized King Charles Spaniel with all his exuberance and soft fur that would decorate everything I wore for the week my friend was in Hawaii. We would go on walks together and sit on the couch for petting sessions and everything was great.
That exuberance I was talking about, though, it meant that he wanted to go a bit faster than my bipedal frame and admittedly less than lithe figure could manage, so I decided that I would let him off leash based on generally obedient behavior and how he always seemed to want to be everywhere I was, especially when I needed to take my own pee breaks, closing the door to the bathroom right in his cute little face. I was having good off leash experiences for the quick morning jaunts and decided, later one evening, to let him roam free for a bit. Winter in Alaska means it is dark by around 4pm and cold. I didn’t have a flashlight (I am still cursing myself for not buying a stupid headlamp, come on already) and when he dashed off outside of my field of vision, I started calling his name. Repeatedly. For about a half hour. While wandering in the dark among trees like an idiot. At least the bears are hibernating in the winter. I called a friend, who talked me down, convincing me to go back to my friend’s house because the dog was probably there. He was right. The exuberant dog was sitting in front of the door looking all too exuberant for my mood at the time, with something adding to his exuberance in his mouth. Again, it’s dark this time of year, and I reached for the mystery item in his mouth to find that it was a salmon head.
A slimy, cold salmon head (Alaskan problems).
That evening continued to be adventure filled because, of course, I had to give the exuberant, dead-fish-smelling dog a bath. He was less exuberant in the bath, shaking and pouting, and clearly aware of his much deserved ill favor for the hour I looked for him and then had to bathe him.
We made up, don’t worry.
Another friend of mine has a dog that can best be described as the embodiment of adorable. She’s a pom-chi-gle (Pomeranian-Chihuahua-Beagle) and the belle of the metaphorical ball. My friend had to work some pretty long shifts and the embodiment of adorable needs a break during that time, and my friend and her out-of-town (now) fiance needed to enlist someone who could handle that much cute without acting on the inevitable urge to steal a dog that cute. I would take the cutie on walks around town and everyone would be beside themselves, squealing and cooing at her. This was a summertime gig, too, so I had the occasional chance to parade around town in sundresses with the most sought after accessory of all, an adorable dog.
One day I was on dog walking duty (or had dog walking privileges?) and there was also an event going on at a nearby park. I asked permission to take the cutie to the park for Punk Fest, and apparently neither my friend nor I thought that maybe, just maybe, a tiny and adorable dog might be terrified of discordant, three-chord, punk songs and crowds. Once bitten twice shy, I was hesitant to allow her free roaming abilities and, as it turns out, I was right to be worried. As soon as the first band started their sound check, the ball of adorable disappeared from sight. Again, I looked everywhere for a half hour, enlisting friends to search for “the really adorable, tiny dog” until an acquaintance casually mentioned seeing said dog up the hill. By her house. Of course.
The embodiment of adorable was sitting on her little deck at home, apparently not desensitized to loud and discordant music like my neighbor’s girlfriend’s dog (my neighbor listens to a lot of Screeching Weasel). Luckily, we were able to fix it all with cuddles, so in the end, we all won.
If you are curious as to why I’m suddenly inspired to write about a year’s worth of darling and occasionally frustrating dog sitting experiences, it’s because I’m writing this with a 13-year-old pug snoring at my side. A family I know had to head out of town suddenly to see an ailing family member on the East coast and I offered to sit. Now, in my experience, dogs can exhibit uncharacteristic behaviors when their schedules and situations are altered, but at least this little guy isn’t going to run away. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t really want to run, walk, or waddle anywhere.
At age 13 (which is 81 in dog years), my current canine pal is not in peak physical health. He is also used to the attention of a family of four, with at least one adult working from home. I keep a weird schedule – job related – more on that another day. This confluence of factors means that the little guy and I do not have the most compatible schedules, or that is the determination I’ve made based on our two days together.
Let me set the scene: It’s October in the rainforest of Southeast Alaska and, naturally, rain is falling. It’s gray, it’s cold, it’s kind of depressing (we’ll revisit this theme soon, also) and apparently snuffly-pug-face isn’t really into that. Most times that I try to coax him out of the house to go pee or poo, he will stand in the doorway staring at me like I am out of my mind. I have tried cooing and clucking and whistling and beckoning and bribery with treats. He’s got an iron will, this one. I think I’ve gotten him to pee outside three times so far. So far, he has peed indoors once. Pooped indoors twice. The first time was due to a slightly longer wait time between caretakers than he is used to, due to an early flight, and my work schedule for the day – which should have been no work but ended up being hours of work due to my post-unemployment terror at spending a day outside a workplace(?) or my incredibly slow, but ever quickening layout skills.
The second indoor pooping, though, that was just him exacting revenge for not enough petting, I assume. At this moment, we are best friends, with him keeping my left thigh warm (can I get him to sleep on my feet?), but earlier today I provided only about 2 hours of in house time and only about 10 minutes of active petting. Not acceptable, I have learned. After two attempts at bathroom breaks, one a no-go, the other successful in the liquids department, we were hanging out in the living room and I was reading a Cracked.com article and chuckling to myself when I saw the all-too-familiar squat of a dog about to poop. Seriously, within the half hour before that moment, I had offered him the vast outdoors twice, yet here he was, squatting on the carpet.
I used the proven method of making a really loud noise to scare the impending poop back into him (okay, I was not near enough to see if it was that close) and herded him toward the back door. We made it half way. It was a compromise, really. I wanted him to poop outside, he wanted to poop on the beige rug – instead, he pooped on the linoleum. Much easier to clean up, but still involving picking up poop with a paper towel and some floor scrubbing.
I am hoping that the more normal hours I will have the next few days will be more to the little guy’s liking and that our time together will involve less indoor pooping and cleaning and more petting and leg warming.
Reasoning with dogs is about as easy as reasoning with a 7-year-old. I should probably explain that later, as well.
All said and done, I still enjoy dog sitting and I still consider myself an excellent candidate. Don’t you want me to watch your dog?
Today I was bored and wandered into the Observatory, a dimly lit and somewhat labyrinthine, though small book store in downtown Juneau. Day in and day out, it is tended by the owner, a smiling, bespectacled woman. She keeps the bookstore stocked with books on all possible topics, with small collections of mostly hardback books. I can get lost in there for days. Today I found a number of nice books but I decided that I really wanted this 1940 hard cover, illustrated edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, neatly encased in a slip cover. I had it in my head that the shop only took cash and casually commented that she must only take cash, right? Adding, “or checks?” She actually accepts credit cards for purchases over $10 but offered that she accepts checks too (the book is more than $10) but I don’t know why I even brought them up, I told her, because I don’t have checks because I think they are so old fashioned. But despite the wonders of technology (and e-readers, specifically) I still love the look and feel and the concept of a book in my hands, especially an old hard cover book that has been around for longer than I or my parents have been alive. Hell – my grandma wasn’t born until 1945. Now I really need this book. Old fashioned or not, I hope actual, physical books, whose pages we can turn and dog ear to mark places, remain for a long, long time.
It’s sweeping the social network landscape, a wildfire of cartoon character faces in place of the faces of our friends. Similar to when women were mysteriously posting the colors of their bras. In the name of fighting child abuse or breast cancer. How? How is changing a profile picture or posting a status update doing anything?
Awareness, they say. Awareness.
I didn’t realize that there were people who were not aware that some children are abused or that some women (and even some men!) will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
Perhaps I, myself, am unaware of the unaware. With my multiple organizations, many relating to women’s issues (and therefore also children’s issues), perhaps I had overlooked the fact that some people are so busy with farmville that they didn’t realize that bad stuff was happening in the world, except maybe if they were causing it.
My problem isn’t with people using new media and social networking, it’s that people are patting themselves on the backs for doing something that in no way, directly or indirectly as far as I can tell, actually benefits victims of child abuse or cancer. I’ve seen a handful of people post useful links to sites that work to prevent child abuse, but mostly people have googled an image from their childhood (ah, nostalgia), saved the image (does this fall under fair use?), and then uploaded the image to facebook. And everyone reminisces about Rainbow Brite and the Smurfs and three people took a further step.
What I would like to see is people taking the time to do the following with their social networking:
1. Post a useful link to a shelter or an organization where people can donate money or volunteer
2. Post an article about statistics or prevention tips, signs to look for, or something that is in some way educational or helpful.
3. Go and actually donate money or volunteer your time.
4. Understand that you did not just save the world, whether you changed your facebook profile image or you actually posted an article, and think about some ways you can make changes – you obviously have some time on your hands.
I grew up in Oregon and I grew up without much fear. I lived in a small town and never worried about violence. Most of the people I know who live in Oregon don’t worry about violence. When I was growing up, my overly concerned parents feigned worry over my sister and I taking a trip to Portland to see a concert because we’d surely get shot. Really though, Oregon always felt pretty safe. And even in the wake of 9/11, I didn’t worry that my state had anything to worry about.
A friend of mine who grew up in my same home town posted an article today that would elicit fear in Oregonians. I will post the link to the FBI press release as well. The reason I am posting the link to the FBI press release is because the article leaves a lot vague. Why did this young man believe he was setting off a bomb? Who provided this bomb laden van? Even after poring over the FBI press release, I found that I still had questions, mainly: would this young man have committed a terrorist act were it not for the involvement of the FBI?
As I write this, I am checking other news sources, though The Huffington Post states clearly that the so-called bomb was provided by the US Government, they also threw in a nice inflammatory jihad cry.
Maybe I am too cynical of government and of people in general, but I don’t believe this foreign born, 19 year old kid, who has apparently had disturbed thoughts since age 15, was any real threat. He apparently failed to get in touch with the second person who was meant to collaborate, we are told, on terrorist activities. He could not have (a) afforded, nor (b) figured out building a bomb, which says to me that the FBI played a much larger role in this bombing plot than Mohamud did.
I am also curious as to why they were reading his e-mails to know about his correspondence in the first place. What made Mohamud, a 19 year old naturalized citizen, a target? Is it because he’s a poor, black Muslim? To me, it seems that Mohamud was no more of a threat than your average disgruntled teen who doesn’t fit in and wants his revenge. Some kids dream of taking a gun to school, this kid dreamed of blowing up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. I don’t mean to make light of school shootings, but I’m sure if the FBI ran around offering every teen who wants to blow something up a car bomb, we’d have a lot more lockdowns in our schools.
Note that both Mohamed and US Attorney Holton emphasize that even in Oregon, people ought to be scared/want to kill Americans (so Oregonians ought to be scared). Two posts in a row about America, the fear state? Next time I’ll choose another topic, I swear.
In case I was too vague, the moral of the story is: take everything with a grain of salt, or a metric ton of salt in some cases.
Beep beep beep goes the metal detector.
I didn’t fly much before 2001, being rather young then, but I have watched (and felt) as the procedures for boarding become exceedingly ridiculous. A friend of mine works in my Senator’s office and has been receiving excessive phone calls regarding TSA procedures and I have to admit that I have some complaints as well. My complaints didn’t start when I was submitted to a pat down because of bobby pins in my hair, though. I’ve had my complaints for a long time.
I just returned from a brief vacation and traveling between Juneau, Alaska and anywhere is stressful and inconvenient. It always involves at least one layover unless your end destination is Anchorage or Seattle, it frequently involves being on a milk run with stops in up to three smaller communities, and sometimes your only nourishment along the way will be a small plastic cup of orange juice with a foil top. To add to the regular annoyances of traveling, I had pinned my hair back in a hurry and upon heading through security, I set off the metal detector. Beep. Beep. Beep.
A large man in TSA uniform asked me if I had “lots of bobby pins” in my hair. I responded in the affirmative. There were at least five or six. He then asked if I wanted to take them out. Flustered and annoyed I chose the wrong answer: “I’d really rather not.” I was then ushered into a clear fiberglass closet in the middle of the security checkpoint to wait for a female TSA agent to perform a pat down. Also, while being ushered into the closet I saw them take all of my bags to another location to be searched through because of a “mass of metal” which, to most women who style their hair, would be called a curling iron. I was then submitted to the most invasive frisking I had ever experienced which involved questioning buttons on my sleeves (lucky that it wasn’t cold in there?), feeling most every inch of my body and poking at my hair. It was beyond what I was expecting, inconvenient and, quite simply, an enormous waste of resources.
I have read plenty of articles about terrorism, enough to know that terrorism is about weakening a state through creating fear – crippling fear. I also have the mental capacity to realize that the most effective terrorists are not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, they are not bombers or plane hijackers. The most effective terrorists, in my opinion, are domestic and part of our own government. I am not a conspiracy theorist, nor am I some sort of anti-government extremist. I am educated and I am frustrated that the most effective terrorist organization seems to be Homeland Security.
An organization that can perceive me as a threat, an organization that has a threat level system that has never shown us to not be at risk, an organization that has itself created the fear that it pretends to alleviate. Limiting the liquids we can take on a plane, excessive pat downs, wiping down hands for chemicals, full body scans – for what? Homeland Security manufactures fear and sells us overpriced tickets to a circus masquerading as a solution. A curling iron is not a bomb, my shampoo and conditioner are not going to be combined to form an explosive to take down a plane, nobody will again hijack a plane like on September 11th, 2001. People are afraid of impossible threats imagined in Hollywood and adopted by the Homeland Security and are falsely comforted and greatly inconvenienced by absurd half baked solutions to absurd and impossible scenarios.
It is embarrassing to me that in ”the land of the free and the home of the brave,” we are limiting our freedom unnecessarily and fabricating fear. Is it so the masses believe that our government is doing something? Is it so we have some excuse for unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many people are actually delusional enough to not realize that our taxes are paying for large scale domestic terrorism?
Sure, this post is a little inflammatory, but it is absolutely outrageous to me that we are wasting resources on band-aid fixes for our government’s own flimsy lies. I told my friend in the office about my complaints with the policies, let’s hope that those of us smart enough to be outraged are also pro-active enough to say something.
A worn paperback version of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye sat on a shelf in the third floor communal kitchen of Waldhäuser Ost. The abandoned book with dogeared pages and a cover curling at the corners reeked of destiny. He had informed me that I must read this life altering masterwork. I examined the book, left by some departing student on the same day that I was to embark on a 4 hour train journey to a new city, where I would arrive too late to check into my flat, where I would check into a hostel and devour the whole book before 24 hours would pass. Perfect.
Yesterday I finished reading Franny and Zooey and as I was nearing the end I realized that, while there are discernibly universal themes, this book, as with The Catcher in the Rye was about the perceived trials and tribulations of entitled, upper or upper middle class, white Americans.
I found both novels to be engaging, I pored over Salinger’s language, and as so many others have, I could relate to the characters and their dilemmas. Oh, what dilemmas. I think it is even more the case in Franny and Zooey but these are the dilemmas of the young and affluent, those who are afforded fine educations and the time and resources to have breakdowns and personal crises, rendered immobile by internal existential debates and confusion over their perception of self or their role in society.
Coming from a solid middle class background, having received a fine k-12 education and an above average college education from a private institution, I can, of course, relate to these tragedies of the entitled. Those of us who are not truly worried about affording food or housing can afford to spend copious amounts of time ruminating on the authenticity of our peers, the sincerity of ideas, the value of the opinions of this or that intellectual, theology and philosophy and the goddamn stars in the sky. I don’t mean to imply that those lacking this financial comfort don’t have these roving thoughts of great depth, they just don’t have the luxury of doing so in such a casual manner.
Franny or Holden could have breakdowns and drop out of or get kicked out of school, they could go on long train journeys home or to the city and they could spend days on end exploring their personal crises and the depths of their minds and they could sob for countless hours or drink and hire prostitutes – whatever they wanted. They could check out of reality for days or weeks and when their minds are finally at ease, when they are again at peace with their internal demons, they could start where they left off. Franny could easily go back to school and resume acting. Holden could begin school again and could eventually become a financially stable and upstanding citizen.
Someone lower class? Lower middle class? They couldn’t afford to be so frivolous about things. The less money a person has, the more every dollar is worth to that person. To throw away a semester of school is a huge loss! To spend days on end without working or dealing with one’s responsibilities could mean a huge loss of income, it could mean having trouble keeping a roof over one’s head or food on one’s table. I won’t even try to imply that people of all socio-economic classes might have breakdowns, but while some young, white, rich kid can have a breakdown in the comfort of their or their parents’ home, someone with less money available might very well end up shivering on the streets.
Holden Caulfield is a hero to many, not in the same way as he was a hero to himself in the novel, but I know a number of people who see Holden to be some literary kindred spirit. The same might be said of Franny, I could imagine fellow college alumni commiserating with Franny and her crisis. At the same time that I can relate, I rather hate myself for it, for being so comfortable, for having it so easy that I recognize myself in fictional, moneyed, tragic youth when I want to, like Franny, be able to empathize with the poor, simple pilgrim. Now go ahead and imagine that I am a character in one of Salinger’s fabled unpublished works as you read my verbose and damning commentary about protagonists whose lives and thought processes parallel my own and imagine me sitting at my desk, biting my lip as I realize the loop I’ve found myself in.
In any case, my favorite line from Franny and Zooey is this:
“You’d better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I’m talking about. You’re lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world.”
That’s from Zooey’s lecture of Franny, which is, frankly, most of the Zooey portion of the book. It’s near the very end, when he finally breaks through, when he provides her with advice or imparts some wisdom that she has been seeking or needing all along, it seems.
Who is your literary hero or to which literary figure do you most relate?
Today, the death of a man in my community was headline news, he was in his late 40′s and his death was unexpected and tragic. I had met him before, possibly a few times, but I didn’t know him by any stretch of the imagination. What I do know is that he shared with me similar ideals and mutual friends and a dedication to the community and the environment. Though I did not know this man, I know of him and his contributions, and many others still will know of his legacy, I suppose one could say.
I have a connection to this man, though indirect, and when I read of his death I felt a sense of loss. What I feel is but a fraction of what his wife must feel and that breaks my heart a little bit. I’ve never experienced great loss.
A local artist composed the following haiku, which really moved me. I want to think of this when I someday experience loss of this magnitude:
What I Want to Believe About Grief
Some days our hearts are
rocks too big to skip. But tides
will tumble them right.
TSUNAMEE 10-13-10
You can commission a personalized haiku from this artist at her etsy shop.
This man’s death got me contemplating a number of things about life and death and empathy and now community.
The largest city I lived in was maybe 150 thousand residents. When I was young and lived in Hayward California it was probably home to 25 thousand fewer residents than it is today. And Heidelberg, Germany, a city I called home more recently, has a population of not quite 150 thousand. The University of Heidelberg, where I was an international student, has roughly the amount of students that my adopted hometown of Redmond, Oregon has residents – roughly 25 thousand (If you were wondering, the university boasts the higher number). I guess Salem, Oregon has a population of about 150 thousand as well, though I lived on campus and rarely interacted with “townies.” Currently, I reside in a city with a population of approximately 30 thousand residents and feel now, more than ever, that I am integrated in a community.
Perhaps it is the size of the city (relatively small); or the efforts I have made to be involved (boards and organizations and clubs, oh my); or that I am voting, tax paying, apartment renting, utilities bill paying, contributing member of society instead of an oblivious child or an angst ridden teen or a transient student. For going on four years I have lived in the same general neighborhood, worked in the same general neighborhood, walked the same routes, eaten at the same restaurants, sipped coffee at the same cafes, bought clothes at the same boutiques, volunteered with and worked with the same people, attended meetings and events and fundraisers with the same people, and talked with, waved to, and shared ideas with the same people. I can barely walk to work without running into a friendly face.
For some it could be stifling, but for me it is comforting. It is wonderful to run into my state representative at brunch (that happened today). It is comforting to know that I don’t necessarily need to arrange for someone to pick me up at the airport when I return from a trip because I’ll likely know someone on the plane who can give me a ride. It is pleasantly surprising to discover that the new person I meet is a parent or cousin or child or friend of someone I already know. It is inspiring to know my US Senator, my state Representative and Senator, my mayor, amazing artists, theatre actors, published authors and rising star poets, promising musicians and my neighbors.
Most of all, I find it comforting that, when I die, some near stranger might read of my death and feel something. That the effort I put into improving my community might be tangible. That a person who walked the same morning and evening route might notice I am no longer sharing their path. That the people I interact with everyday might notice and care that I am not around. That the people whose lives I touched indirectly might find themselves experiencing this same thought process that I have today.
Is this desire narcissistic or is it a basic human desire to feel worth?
Is the community one knows in a big city comparable to the community one knows in a small town?
