maine journals/12.1.20

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Behold, a half-day’s rainfall made the figurative pond-space a pond.

For me, witnessing hyperlocal, backyard-level change unfold is the best part of being here.

The oak, crepe myrtle, willow and other giants of Louisiana were remarkable, heart-stirring… but city neighborhoods always make me yearn for forests, hills, water, open space.

Nature claimed my heart long ago.

Whenever possible I make donations to food-based charitable groups I’ve worked directly with or where I know folks who lead the charge. Today I’m donating to food pantries in New Orleans and New York, and thinking about recirculating stagnant wealth - how we achieve global action. The problems are big and complicated, so the solution needs to be organized. I believe food pantries are a big part of the solution.

Our change needs to be structural. The ideas of council, representation and entirely new perspectives keep recurring - visions not for existing political infrastructure but truly separate from and unreliant on it.* In a “what would I do if…” writing moment, one inspired morning back in June, I scrapped the entire US federal system and created nine departments with teams of three to run them, and a council of several leading decisionmakers bringing everyone together. It’s a writing prompt, sure, but an earnestly practical response to what is ahead. We need a draft of medical professionals and a pandemic support corps. We need immediate homelessness and hunger assistance in every community. We need better options for children deprived of too much already. Yes: these problems are big and complicated, so the solutions need to be organized.

Who else needs food in our neighborhoods? A place to live? Medical care? Then we could call it change, and the land of those who truly want to be free.

* Obviously tracked to the nine Muses of Greek myth for whom a section of New Orleans streets are named. First it was a concept for an improvised play [The Nine] and then grew visually as a mixed media series [The Nine Labors of the Muses, viewable on this site in early 2021]. I love the morphability of ideas. -A

Alison McConnell