Water

3-13-2009
A bench facing the Hudson
Manhattan Island

It’s Friday the 13th. My interview schedule has fallen apart due in large part to equipment weirdness. Symptomatic, maybe of it being Friday the 13th?

Whatever the case, I’ve given in and am now sitting in the 40 degree sunlight – all wrapped up and warm.

I’m looking at the Hudson River, the way the afternoon light shows off its silver and enduring majesty out beyond the fleeting traffic on the West Side Hwy. From this vantage point and to the north, the direction from which the water flows, the river is also unapologetically muscular – reliable and capable like a real working river. To the south, the Hudson’s personality shifts again. Down there the late winter sun scatters across the water’s surface – rippling between cloud passes like laughter at well-spaced punch lines.

I’ve been laughing like that. Now that I think of it, I can’t remember anyone I’ve listened to who hasn’t offered levity to the conversation. Lightness seems to make more room for bravery – for reliability, capability and majesty.

In response to one of my blog entries, a reader using the name ‘patrick’ wrote “You’re listening to people’s prayers.” He may be right. Honest and genuine reflection on the word change brings people to their hopes, and dreams – and to their courage. Today, I’m aware again of the profound responsibility in asking about and listening to these American thoughts.

The Manhattanites I’ve spoken with in the last 24 hours have all pointed to the inevitability of change. All three voices, across 40 plus years of age spread, have carried a noticeable peacefulness in the talk of crisis. Not passivity, but a sort of quiet relief that the manic push for fortune and celebrity, for money and things has been finally laid bare – revealed for what it is: A Siren’s call, the addicting diet of empty calories we suspected it was all along.

In keeping with the oft noted metaphor in the Chinese character that connotes both crisis and opportunity, the urgency of the country’s economic circumstances showed up in these New Yorkers’ talk of opportunity. Opportunity to shift the quality of life for those who have lived with little to nothing. Opportunity to enhance the quality of education for the children and youth who have had less access. Opportunity to improve the quality of our air by reducing the use and thus the polluting impact of petroleum-based transportation – specifically, by walking and supporting safe bicycle routes in the city.

Perhaps apropos to their setting near the Hudson River, there was another theme in these interviews: Water.

“New York City has always been about the water,” my generous host says. He’s lived on Manhattan for about 55 years. He takes me on a bike ride all through the city to show me the amazing progress that has been made on the island for accommodating bikes as real transportation options. He takes me to the river to watch the sunset.

“Trade, commerce, immigration. All of them depended on the water,” he said. “Then came the extension of the city in 1895 to include the five boroughs which happened primarily because of water – the need for its accessibility to homes and businesses and the development of sewer systems. The island had that infrastructure and the surrounding communities needed it. That cooperation and expansion really brought the city into its vitality as the economic and cultural center it remains.”

The 25-year-old foundation worker who walked along the river with me last night echoed the theme. “The biggest question for Manhattan youth in 10 or 20 years,” she said, “will be water. Where will we get it? How will we use and distribute it?” She followed these thoughts with stated expectation that the intelligence and skill of the youth she currently works to support will be entirely up to the task (http://www.robinhood.org/home.aspx). “It will be about the water – and it will be about creativity and confidence and persistence – the things that keep showing up in the ways we New Yorkers and Americans face change.”

The water. The American character.

Like the Hudson River, we’re enduring because we draw from a great range of skill, vision, and talent – muscular reliability balanced with laughter, all sustained in the constancy of flow.

Another poetic conclusion…but, it works – mostly because it’s accurate. Over and over, I’m hearing and seeing it. We really are this way.

Coffee Klatch as Foretold by Mayme

2-22-2009
A hill in Searcy County, AR

Over the past month, I have listened to people in pre-arranged interviews and impromptu conversations. Both ways of meeting and talking have revealed American insights and wisdom richer than I could have imagined. Of the second kind – the impromptu chats – a good number have taken place in coffee shops.

[True confession: I’ve officially given up giving up coffee until I’m off the road and back home again. Anyway, could it really qualify as a full blown American road trip without coffee? (…This question, a pedantic but historically rooted excuse that might inspire smoky images of cowhands around the morning fire readying again to hit the trail). But, back to coffee talk.]

On January 29 in a coffee shop in Portland, OR Nick, a working class black man told me to make sure to get the voices of the working people. He said “Exchange is like this. It’s Ex + Change and it equals exchanging points of view. It’s communicating and doing. And it can’t be a one way thing.” Then he asked me to tell him what I think of change. I did.

On February 10 in a coffee shop in San Diego, CA a bicultural 25-year-old senior at SDSU named Todd took a break from pouring over his finance text to say, “I don’t really know why I changed.” He went on, “I mean, all through foster care and even adoption the adults all said that I would never be anything but a loser. But here's the thing; I’m not living that prediction. I have changed and I’m committed to building a real life for myself.”

The next day in a coffee shop in Tucson, AZ a 65 year old woman named Cheri agreed to an interview. Cheri wants a government for the people – not for business or for bigger government. She wants freedom. She is a retired law enforcement officer who’s lived in Tucson 55 years. She raised her children to be bilingual and herself learned Spanish because “It’s only right to have both languages if you want to do any job well in this city.” Cheri is a practicing Muslim having been raised in the mosque by her Iranian father and Euro-American mother. She says, “I’m Islamic. That means I’m devoted to God. It also means I want all people to be well and at peace.”

February 19 I was leaving a coffee shop on the banks of the Guadalupe River. I had to make it to Ft. Worth in the next 5 hours. Then I overheard David and Tommy talking about their Sunday school class. They were willing to stop their conversation for a minute to talk about change. David and Tommy, both devout Christians, spoke with pride of their church community in Kerrville, TX. They spoke of the 200-300 youth in their youth ministry and the evidence in a recent personality inventory that these kids are ready to be active in making their community a more peaceful and kind place. Both men emphasized the importance of family and the necessity of shifting values from greed and materialism to concern for one another and for the environment. Tommy, the older of the two, said it was time for Americans to get over being hung up on our differences and to start working together on the urgent matters facing our country. “We’ve been majoring in the minors and not in the majors,” Tommy said. “Wow – that’s really well said,” said David.

Yesterday, February 21, I drove north from Dallas into Sherman, TX. In my little car I was very aware of the strong west wind, a familiar harbinger of a downshift in winter temperature for Grayson County. I made my way through an entirely unfamiliar scramble of new commercial outlets to a newish building back from the highway where my beloved teacher is now receiving special nursing care.

I lived in Sherman, TX for 13 years. Got a BA in the college here, met my husband when he came as a new faculty member, pursued advanced degrees, and birthed my daughter. Mayme Porter, the angel fairy godmother mentor sage of a woman I came to visit today was a constant source of wisdom and comfort across those years. In fact, she has been a guiding light in my life since I was 19.

Late one spring afternoon in Sherman when I was toward the end of 20 or beginning of 21 we sat in Mayme’s shaded backyard. We talked about family and happiness. We talked about health and education. Somewhere in there, Mayme said to me, “Mary, you ought to consider going into some kind of work where you can interview people – listen to their stories and give them back to the world.”

I thought she meant journalism. I ended up choosing to be a psychology professor.

Then last month, I started talking to people in coffee shops. I met Nick and Todd and Cheri. I met David and Tommy. I joined in the Ex:Change.

Today, for about half an hour, dear Mayme brightened up from the fog of Alzheimer’s that too often lays siege to her daytime thoughts. She said she wanted to comment on this thing, change. “Change,” she said, “is taking everything we have and listening to it so we can know where to go next.”

She’s right. Mayme was right all along.

And these days I’m listening and listening.