These days have that flavor of the early pandemic lockdowns, or that weird week every year between Christmas and New Years, when you aren’t sure what day it is or when you last showered or exactly how many days you are getting out of your underwear. It is only now that I am reminded how much of my days are punctuated and reset by showering and how the only routine I can keep is the cadence of laundry rolling from baskets to machines to the shelf.
I dump little pieces of what I want to share together in a document that spans the week and spend Thursday afternoon constructing something to share and schedule to ship for Friday morning. I didn’t realize yesterday was Thursday. I don’t realize, right now, that today is Friday or tomorrow is Saturday.
In a landscape of disaster, a lot of things you thought might be important, aren’t. Days of the week, for example. Yesterday the wife and I wandered out to support our favorite businesses who have found ways to partially opened up (basically, whatever they can do without ice or running water/ washing dishes) and the afternoon was nothing short of amazing.
For one – there were no tourists. The people at the bars and counters were locals who had spun down their days to do exactly this. Some were artists who spent most of the days mucking out their studios or running supplies out to other areas of the county. Some were left completely unemployed by the storm, making face time with sympathetic bartenders who buy them a shot out of the tip bucket.
Everyone has a story about loss. We all lost our water; most have lost power. Some lost homes and loved ones. Just about everyone has lost a sense of stability, normalcy. Everyone shares their story freely, everyone listens because we’ve been starved for this kind of intimacy, honesty. Rae, a bartender we’ve gotten to know well at Bottle Riot, tells us that the business is gone. Bottle Riot faced the river and flooded with five feet of water, destroying everything.
“No insurance on it, so it’s done.” Rae says, like they have told the story a hundred times over, like they have resigned to the reality of it. They’ve always had a full spirit, always ready for what’s next. But the story is same all along the river. Even if the building is still standing, no one was insured for something like this. No one thought the river would ever get THAT high.
“To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” – Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark
The region will divide in two – pre- and post-Helene. Those who endured, lost it all, and had to retreat to somewhere else, and those who saw an opportunity to buy up while the real estate was plentiful. Everyone is afraid of developers taking over and ruining what was, but they forget that a developer is what allowed River Arts District to be what it was. For now, the region grieves as it continues to assess just how bad everything is. Roads are still washed out, communities completely cut off, cadaver dogs walk the riverbanks and sniff out the lost ones buried in the silt.
This morning I stepped outside with the dog and felt the cold, damp morning dew. The nights are getting cold and I feel like this will be a winter full of hard freezes – necessary to control the population of ticks, but it can be harsh on the already fragile public water systems. It will be harder on those who are still without power, who are still reliant on batteries, propane, and generators to light their darkness and heat a pocket of life in the cold.
If the past two weeks have shown me anything, it is that we all need a little help with something all of the time. The relief bucket gets passed around whenever a natural disaster strikes because who knows when it could be your turn. Communities come together and a trauma-bond forms between everyone – a shared throughline for our independent continuities. But should it take such an extreme for us to see the human-ness in one another?
There is someone you can call right now. Check in. See how they are and if they want to grab a cup of Joe tomorrow. What if there was the kind of world where we just gave support without it being the start of a transaction?
Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous.
-Erich Fromm
The question posed: What kind of community would you want to build?
Lord knows there is the space – mental, emotional, real-estate and open tables and open minds – so what would you put there? Over the past few months I have taken a different approach to how I publish online. A lot goes to my primary domain and exists in disjointed-yet-oddly-connected entries – a digital garden of sorts. I see it as a way to visualize and build the world I inhabit. Here are the interests, here is how I am building those interests.
I am long over the idea of “publishing content.” No, this is the age of Joyful Creation. This is a time when I push myself to think: what is creativity in the age of crisis?
The idea of creativity, of being a creative, builds resilience. A few months ago I met Frank Lombardo through the figure drawing sessions that have been central to my social existence. Frank is a brilliant painter, Frank’s studio was also in downtown Marshall – a town that was completely flooded after the storm. Maybe the painting has something to do with his resilience. Since the waters receded, he has documented the cleanup efforts in his town on Instagram. He, like so many, is making the best of a bad situation. He, like so many, is counting on the very communal idea of ART to secure funds to restore the studio that has housed so many.
I could post a never-ending list of links of people who need help. Communal restoration funds fill the gaps left by insurance. Individual, direct donations to Venmo accounts help the suddenly unemployed get groceries and cover rent. A little bit helps a lot.
For now, I’ll post my own link to my print-on-demand store (something that needs attention and sorting and figuring out among all the other little projects I’ve wrapped myself in). Maybe it suits you to pick something up.
Or, maybe I’ll return to data analytics.
Friend, be well.
-David Pennington