Month: September 2020

The Parable of the Lemon Seed

The Parable of the Lemon Seed

Meg

If ever there was a time to make lemonade out of lemons, it is now.

But where to start? It’s small, simple acts that take the circumstances we are given and flip the expected outcome on its head. This is exactly the story of Keki and the Lemon Seed, a true, modern day parable. Never heard of it? That makes sense because it has never before been told. But here it is:

There once was a woman named Keki. She lived in Hawai’i, where her work required her to fly between the islands regularly (back in the day when that was possible). In those 20 minute puddle jumps the airlines attempted to quickly serve beverages between take off and landing. The cabin crew would roll their carts down the aisle passing out drinks in little plastic cups to each of the passengers and then hurriedly collecting them and any other trash before landing. This was true all day long, every day, on the little flights that hopped between each Hawai’ian island.

As a series of islands, Hawai’ians tend to be extra careful about their environmental impact. And, yet, this standard way of operating persisted. Keki typically just said no thank you to the cabin crew and brought her own, re-useable water bottle. But one day she forgot her water bottle and was incredibly thirsty so she resorted to the only option available: to take the airline plastic cup.

This bothered her – A LOT. As she sipped her airline water, she thought about what she could do to ameliorate the fate of the single-use plastic she was holding in her hand. She didn’t have a lot of time to think since it was such a short flight, but as the cabin crew came around to collect everyone’s trash, Keki held onto her cup and the lemon slice inside it. When she got home, Keki filled the plastic cup with soil and buried one of the lemon seeds deep within it. She then placed the little airline cup in a sunny window. Within days, a sprout had pushed through the soil, the budding of a lemon tree.

Keki’s was a simple gesture, and also an incredibly authentic and refreshing one. Keki repurposed a tiny plastic cup that would have gone straight to a landfill into something beautiful and alive. She didn’t exactly make lemonade out of lemons, but she did make lemons out of landfill.

Imagine if we all took stock of our daily impact on the Earth, as well as our connection to it, with the same consideration and consciousness. Imagine if we all went about our days intentionally, thoughtfully considering our choices and contemplating the way we live and act. Imagine if we weighed the impact of our actions on our global community as well as our local neighborhood. In the middle of a pandemic that has upended the world completely, if ever there were a time and a call to make lemonade out of our lemons, it is now.

For more on what we can do, the United Nations recently published a series of Sustainable Development Goals and monthly actions. That’s a great place to start.

As a reminder, I know I say this every time, but I can’t emphasize it enough. WE are the solution. At a time when nothing feels within our control and the problems seem extraordinarily large and insurmountable, we need to dig deep inside, pivot, and rise to the occasion. Small but measured steps – planting one little lemon seed at a time – is the way it is going to get done. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you. We need to do better starting now – and we can.

Rebuilding in Times of Uncertainty

Rebuilding in Times of Uncertainty

Meg

The only way to hear another’s story and to truly see their reality, is to be assured that our own stories have been heard, that we have been seen. Social isolation drives a stake deeper into the systemic social divisions that already exist between us, wedging ever wider the yawning gap between our reality and that of “others.”

Malcolm Jenkins Narrative

Months of coronavirus isolation have provided a stark window into how isolation affects an individual and a community. We are living what happens when people are cut-off and feel they have no control over their life: hopelessness prevails; children fall behind academically and emotionally; a scarcity mindset stokes protectionism and hoarding; anger and frustration simmer and then boil over.

Fear, powerlessness, and uncertainty have become unwelcome, familiar feelings. With the sand perpetually shifting beneath our feet, we find ourselves quagmired by the overwhelming tidal wave of disillusionment, division, and disenfranchisement. We can’t stay here. We need to take a deep breath, set our course, and keep moving forward so inertia and negativity don’t suck us in.

You might wonder where exactly we are supposed to move forward to, being in the middle of a pandemic and the wheels clearly coming off the cart and all? While everyone is focused on the loss of now, on this period of sacrifice and challenge, we have to constantly remind ourselves that this is a finite moment in time; that great opportunity comes from overcoming adversity; that history is full of stories of struggle, resilience, and hope.

There is SO MUCH WORK to be done to move our society toward being more whole and equitable. As a country reckoning with a heightened awareness of our divisions, how do we do better?

The way to begin to heal is to come together, solving the issues of isolation and racial division through deliberate, intentional connection and engagement. North Brookfield, a rural community of 4,800 in central Massachusetts, is spearheading a regional creative arts program – ROAR (Rural Opportunity through Art and Restoration) – to do just that.

The Brookfields region has been wrestling with its identity and isolation for twenty-five years. As with many rural communities nation-wide, un- or underemployment, intergenerational poverty, depression, and drug dependency have permeated the region. Small businesses that were the life-blood of small town centers were decimated as retail was sucked outward to major highways and big box shopping centers. Health care and social supports are difficult to access. Though Vibram continues to manufacture shoe soles locally, employment and advancement opportunities have declined. Isolation here has become status quo.

The Friends of the North Brookfield Town House (“Friends”) have worked for over a decade to preserve their community’s vacant town hall, an architectural masterpiece and once “the center of everything.” The deteriorating building’s location in a small, isolated community has meant that a traditional commercial use would be challenging, if not infeasible. Two years ago the Friends contacted Architectural Heritage Foundation (AHF), a Boston-based preservation organization, to help them with the puzzle of how to sustainably occupy the building.

Townhouse from Main Street, photo by Jason Baker
Townhouse Interior, photo by Jason Baker

AHF collaborated as a thought-partner, helping the Friends to recognize that renovating the Town House could catalyze change in their community and throughout the region, but only if complemented by additional economic development efforts. AHF recommended repainting the building, a small, empowering act that proved transformative in garnering broader support. The repainted Town House caught the attention of many area residents and was the catalytic spark that ignited a partnership with local recording company Long View Entertainment. Long View worked with the Friends to envision the building as an art and music center for at-risk rural communities.

ROAR, an expansion of Long View’s award-winning after-school program, will partner with Boston’s Berklee College of Music to offer educational and cultural programming featuring music, writing, storytelling, audio and video production, art, and theater click here for program offerings). Creative commerce education will build life skills, foster change, and inject energy – and hope. The program, anchored in a centrally-located historic structure that is meaningful to the community, will address from the inside-out the impacts of social isolation that divide and perpetuate separateness. ROAR will also provide work experience for Berklee students, infusing artistic talent from beyond the region and tearing down the rural-urban divide.

How does this help to heal? Data shows that tight family and community social networks can shield people psychologically from the stresses of having lower incomes, lower educational levels, or generally stressful living conditions. Dr. Tony Iton, from the University of California Berkeley, found that the social vulnerability resulting from poor schools, housing, transportation, and lack of access to healthy foods creates incubators of chronic stress that reduce life expectancy by 15 to 20 years as compared to higher income, healthier environments.[1] While Iton’s research primarily focuses on the inner city, poor rural areas face similar issues and outcomes. Meanwhile, a January 2019 National Governors Association report showed that rural counties that are home to performing arts organizations experienced higher incomes, population growth, and greater well-being and social inclusion than rural counties that lack performing arts institutions.[2]

Arts programing aimed at connection and diversification addresses both the turmoil boiling in our streets and economic vitality in distressed regions. In fact, the 2019 Massachusetts Rural Development Policy Plan highlighted “encouraging dialog and partnership between towns and regions; forming strong partnerships with regional academic institutions; developing youth leadership programs; redeveloping and reusing vacant industrial sites; growing local jobs and leveraging local assets; devoting more money to education; developing tourism and hospitality services; and promoting racial diversity”[3] as best practice. ROAR is all of these things.

ROAR at the Town House is piloting a replicable model that can be applied in other communities, not only in the Brookfields’ region but across Massachusetts and the nation. According to the New England Foundation for the Arts, “The creative economy is a powerful engine of growth and community vitality. A thriving cultural sector leads to thriving communities.” Creating a regional hub at the North Brookfield Town House will address downtown economic depression as well as rural social isolation.

When the world stopped, the arts, in all its forms, entertained and comforted us. It broke the barriers of quarantine and isolation by drawing us together. Now more than ever we need to be brought together to tell our stories, to be heard and seen, and to listen and learn.

All photographs are by Jason Baker @ jasonbakerphotography/

Footnotes:

[1] Iton, Dr. Anthony. (November 4, 2016 You Tube). “Change the Odds for Health,” TedX San Francisco, https://youtu.be/0H6yte4RXx0.

[2] Rood, Sally for the National Governor’s Association. “Rural Prosperity through the Arts & Creative Sector: A Rural Action Guide for Governors and States.” January 2019.

[3] Rural Policy Advisory Commission. Rural Policy Plan. Commonwealth of Massachusetts. October 2019, pg. 22.

 

Beyond Four Walls

Beyond Four Walls

Meg

We have to think big right now. And wide. Beyond what’s boxing us in.

People have a range of risk tolerances, values, and concerns. That is abundantly clear. In order to set up protocols for pandemic school in the fall means that all those risk tolerances and values and needs and wants are getting stewed together into one simmering pot. What people want and what is realistic may not be the same thing. Everyone wants something and pretty much everyone isn’t going to get everything.

All the arguing and division we are seeing in the national media and experiencing in our own social media feeds result from the sense – strike that, no, the fact – that we are trapped, that there are no good solutions that meet everyone’s needs and wants, and that this increasingly long period of upheaval feels as though it may never end. Sprinkle in a little conspiracy theory here, some uncertainty and fear there, and question science and facts with an onslaught of “what about-ism” and you end up with the centrifugal pull of a fast-spinning machine pushing people outward where we find ourselves with our backs suctioned against a wall, digging in our heels in an attempt to find solid ground, ironically ever more isolated and siloed from each other, and feeling rather nauseous.

Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So here we are.

Much of what we are experiencing is classic grief psychology. Grief is the acute pain that accompanies the loss of something we love. There’s a lot of loss in so many myriad ways right now. The response to that loss is the biggest variable, though. Some appear to be stuck in the anger, bargaining, and denial phases while others have grieved, been depressed, and moved on to acceptance.

What I know about grief, which has been my near constant companion the last several years, is that, while it feels counter-intuitive to face into the fire, that is in fact what needs to be done. While it feels like you should turn away from the pain, sadness, and loss to protect yourself, facing into it actually helps you heal faster, makes you stronger. The more you resist it and want to turn away, the stronger the pain becomes. It doesn’t slink off in the night because you have ignored it. No, it sits, bides its time, and quietly grows. By the time you deal with it it is so much bigger and more intense than it was originally. These days we witness daily the emotional devastation and turmoil that is wrought by crushed expectations and neglected grief.

Here’s a thought: instead of fighting with each other and arguing about the existence of or the impact of the virus and bombarding the superintendent/dean of students/president/you get the idea with hate mail and deluding ourselves into thinking that other school districts or private schools or whatever have figured this out, let’s all take a deep breath, call an adult time out, and step away from the screen. I made a rule for myself decades ago to wait 24 hours before I responded to something that irked or upset me. Typically if it still bothers you 24 hours later, it’s worth addressing. But a lot of problems lose their power if given a little time and, certainly, time affords clarity and calm in a response.

The trigger-happy, community-destroying, faction-inducing sparring on social media helps no one and advances no agenda other than an adrenaline rush. Everyone is so hyped and accusatory, constantly lobbing opposing news articles, demands, and opinions at each other. It’s like watching a pack of amped up dogs baring their teeth and straining at the end of their leashes looking for a fight. Take a day off. Trust me, you won’t miss anything. The needle won’t move one inch if you step away. Everyone already knows all there is to know – there aren’t any good or easy answers and that is what we are all living with.

Fine I won't give up but

SO, we make the choice to dig in and be angry and fan the flames. OR, we choose to take a deep breath and proceed with calm, flexibility, and acceptance. There is opportunity in this total explosion to our normal lives if we choose to see it. It demands that we pivot and get creative, dig deep and be resourceful, and truly think outside the box and beyond our four walls (and certainly outside the fours walls of a school building). The social contract of a functioning society demands that the majority respect each other and follow the established rules. We can all get through this period faster and more whole if we commit to taking a deep breath, accepting that this time is finite and also exceptionally challenging, and being respectful of each other, each other’s values and risk tolerances, and the reality that this is hard on almost everyone (except maybe people who invested in Zoom before March 2020). We would do well to face into the fire instead of trying to resist and hold it off. You don’t have to like it, but how you respond to this period is 100% your choice.

“It’s our choices that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities.”                          – Albus Dumbledore

Happiness is letting go SSL
from @sailorssweetlife

Release the death grip on what was, and open yourself to what could be. Be flexible and think beyond the norm. This period is anything but normal. If we stretch beyond the standards, expectations, and walls that typically box us in, we will find a whole world of opportunity. The natural world continues on without us. There is still so much to be learned right outside our front doors if we just re-focus our attention. Life goes on. Life skills school remains open for business.

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come.”                                                                          – Rumi

Breathe.

You will be alright.

We can do better. We are the solution.

MLK hope quote

Check out my General Resources page for podcast suggestions.