2005-09-02 - 11:44 p.m.
This week I was insulated from the most immediate, horrible news from New Orleans, staying on Monhegan, an island 12 miles of the coast of Maine. I was visitng my friend Patch, who I met when we were both in high school because we both ran DIY cassette labels from our bedrooms in our parents houses. It's quite amazing to still feel connected with someone (if not more so) after many years. It feels gratifying to know that some community links I forged doing "DIY stuff" have really lasted and become real, actual community that sustains me emotionally day-to-day. I realize I talk about this a lot, but to actually have it and live it still feels so incredible to me, I never want to take it for granted.
As I was leaving the island on the ferry boat, Patch pushed a handfull of flowers into my hand and instructed me to throw them overboard as the boat pulled away. The idea is that "petals float to the shore" and I thought about it in a way that is not only that I will return to the island, but that bonds of friendship and place will remain strong accross distance. I have been in Maine this past week and it has been a welcome opportunity to slow down a little after my summer job ended and before my 10 month gig doing education at the Brooklyn Museum starts.
I have been struck how strongly being in Maine has effected me- for the first time in a long while I have felt sure enough inside myself to be happy about where I come from, to feel strengthened by it.
And what little words I can say about the "big thing" here- that daily I am happy to have clean water to drink and the people I love to be safe and close, that I am angry about how the US gov't can have so many thousands of troops deployed in Iraq but can't do much to help poor and suffering people in it's own borders and I am shocked at how few scientists will up and talk about how global warming is effecting hurricanes (though I heard a few bold ones on NPR today, not not before someone from NOAA was fast to try to refute it).
I started a blog for riffRAG at http://riffrag.blogspot.com, so check it out if you get a chance, soon it will be updated regularly with scintillating commentary, analysis and events from the riffRAG editors.
