There’s currently a movement sweeping the country – the anger that’s been fueled (in part) by Fox News and the Tea Party has grown exponentially, and it’s  impacted national politics.  There’s a growing cynicism and anger with the greenies I meet as well – folks on both sides are fed up and frustrated. Powerful emotions are flaring up, and people are going to get burned.

I moved down to Douglas County, one of the largest and poorest counties in Oregon.  I reluctantly left Portland and its microbrews, bookstores, and bikepaths behind, and traded them in for a trailer in the woods.  I found a caretaker position at Alder Creek Community Forest, a baby organization that wants to catalyze change and provide “a place for lifelong learning.”  Now I have 78 acres and 3.5 miles of trails all to myself, in exchange for volunteering to help this organization to grow.  Sound good?  It is.

Douglas County was described to me as “the battleground between environmentalists and loggers over the largest tract of old-growth forest left in the country,” but that may be a slightly dramatized version of the story.  Since I’ve gotten here, I learned that at its height, the timber industry employed somewhere between 40-75% of the county directly, and still employs 25-30% of the active workers.  Estimates of unemployment range from 15-25% in this county, depending on who you ask.

When I started asking questions about the “battle” between the environmentalists and loggers, I was told that it’s relatively moot at this point in time.  The price of lumber is so low that the costs eat up any profit, so landowners are holding on to trees.  Most of the big mills have shut down, and the ones that operate now have found leaner operations to sustain themselves – automation has probably done more to reduce timber jobs than any other factor.  I was told that “mills are processing exponentially more timber for significantly less cost” than they once were, but that “greedy corporate fatcats” told the workers that the environmentalists were to blame for the loss of jobs.  That story still sticks – “the hippies took our jobs!” is much easier to swallow than “I need to enhance my skills to keep up with a rapidly evolving technological society.”

So greenies – if you really want to help Momma Earth, join the quiet revolution and leave the intellectual fortress behind.  Ditch the cities and come out to the sticks.  Don’t preach your beliefs – grab a shovel and a paintbrush, and get to work.  Be a model of the behavior you want to see.  Do your country and your Momma a favor and start a green business where one doesn’t exist.

If you’re a solopreneur like me, this is even easier.  All I need to work is my cell phone, my laptop, and an internet connection.  The DSL isn’t as fast out here, but my desk has a great view.

Who knows, you might find out you love country living.  The air is clean, there’s plenty of trees, and there’s great art supplies – tons of old junk that needs fixing up.  The DIY spirit has been popping up all over the cities, but DIY is a way of life out here.  Country folks are resilient, tough, and kind-hearted.  People stick together out here, because cooperation is a survival skill.

If you don’t need to live in a city, quit!  Start exploring, and leave the smog and congestion behind.  The economy has ravaged these places, and foreclosures are cheap.  You can buy an old bar in Riddle, Oregon for $75,000 – and that’s just the asking price.  There’s a whole amusement park for sale off I-5!  Who hasn’t wanted to own their own roadside attraction?

Sustainable solopreneurs – you know who you are.  Join me, and help spread the love as we grow a new way of life together.  Leave the city behind, and get a little closer to your country roots.  Do it for your Momma.

CHIRP is designed to stem the flow of the foreclosure crisis while allowing communities the opportunity to use federal funds to stimulate local economies. There are many safeguards that must be built into CHIRP prior to enacting legislation, but by understanding it as one part of a larger growth and reinvestment solution into America’s future, solutions are possible.

CHIRP allows communities the chance to band together to repurchase homes and invest in their futures. By meeting a set of stipulations, a community can be eligible for a series of federal loans and insurance programs that will allow municipalities to purchase homes from banks for under market value. This provides a much-needed flow of capital throughout the banking structure, while giving communities valuable assets that can be maximized as investments.
Chirp’s stipulations would include a vision and business plan for the municipality, created with direct community involvement. A sample plan would include the rental or sale of community-owned property to increase the funding of public services provided at the state and local levels, such as schools, libraries, police, and fire. This would provide much-needed relief to strained budgets.

A portion of the CHIRP funds for each project would go to ongoing asset management planning – this allows communities to invest for long-term sustainability. By making greater amounts of locally-owned property available for rent, local communities have greater power over their futures. This direct empowerment speaks to grassroots organization efforts on both sides of the political spectrum, and could be a useful olive branch of real bipartisanship in an otherwise hostile environment.

Business, investors, homeowners and governments have explicit self-interest in maintaining and growing property values. There is direct evidence to support the rationale that a rising tide lifts all ships – when prosperity is high, crime is low. By building strong local communities of ownership, we can grow sustainable local economies across the country.

I’m sharing it here because I’ve had access to some very ambitious people who are motivated by money, and they don’t think in the same way that normal people do.  I’m speaking of the people who put aside their families and their relationships for the sake of business, and those who wage war to make a profit.

My family members are primarily good-hearted working-types who can’t even conceive of the type of greed that they hear about in the news each day.  My grandpa can’t imagine that people would actually wage war over oil – for him, there is nothing as valuable as a human life.

For many rich and powerful people, money in the bank is worth a lot more than a human life.  The role of government is to safeguard the people from this type of dangerously ambitious greed.  When this type of myth is spread, it results in policy that undermines the ability of good people to make a decent living – much like the recession that we’re in today.

from Aaron McManus to ngmankiw@harvard.edu date Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 11:57 AM subject Ambitious people don’t work less, but academics might.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

[I should interrupt myself here—if you plan on watching these amazing videos linked above, do so now.  I will continue to spoil their surprises.]

Elif Shafak is an amazing woman. I must start there.  Her presence and composure is comparable to the grace of Sophia Loren.   I haven’t read her books, but watching her speak has brought her books to my short list. Ms. Shafak’s words are cool raindrops falling on my face on a hot day.

Elif Shafak was born in Turkey, and in one of her novels a character refers to the slaughter of the Armenians as “genocide.”  For that, she was persecuted in a Turkish court for defaming Turkey.  In her TED talk, she spoke of the connective way that stories bind humans through imaginative experience, and the ways that we fail to draw the lines between fact and fiction.  After all, the character who dared to utter the word “genocide” was fictional.

Ms. Shafak urges us to draw those lines carefully, to remember when a story is just a story.  She spoke of her time as a child in an international school, and the way that she became a walking representation and a target for anti-Turkish sentiment.  Because she is a Turkish woman, some people expect to find a stereotypical perspective within her fiction.

She said she spoke in Harvard Square with two other writers—an Indonesian and a Fillipino.  “Like a joke,” she said.  The panel was advertised under the banner of Multicultural Literature—anything written outside of the West.  In this way, she felt others would (if given the opportunity) deny her right to explore the avant garde and the far reaches of her imagination.

Ms. Shafak cautions us against blurring the line between fantasy and reality, and asks us to understand the distinction.  Stories move in circles, and when we define something we draw a line around it that boxes it in.

On the other hand, Naif Al-Mutawa reminds us that we have the power to create new political realities out of the stories that we tell.

Dr. Al-Mutawa spoke of reframing—the term from family systems therapy that asks us to shift our perspective and to look at something a new way.  His 99 heroes give children a positive take on Islamic archetypes without proselytizing in the slightest.  His mission is cultural, not religious.

Gary Engel said that Superman represents the true assimilated immigrant who has managed to successfully merge two cultures through his dual identities.  Dr. Al-Mutawa seeks to help children to heal by creating Islamic heroes who have merged their own identities—like all good superheroes, his characters are tortured with internal conflicts.

Both Ms. Shafak and Dr. Al-Mutawa have found the political and social power of stories through their success.  Stories are social collateral—by sharing a story with you, I show a tiny part of what I have to offer in a relationship.  We barter our emotions through the stories that we tell—especially those we tell ourselves.

Although Ms. Shafak has encountered the power of stories, I don’t think that she has used it to its full potential.  If I can paraphrase the comic book V for Vendetta, artists use the truth to tell lies, and politicians use lies to tell the truth.  Ms. Shafak is an artist.  Perhaps the only distinction between artists and politicians is the extent to which one desires power more than the other.  Each wields social collateral through stories, visual and spoken.

Dr. Al-Mutawa is more political in his reach for influence, although I believe his motives are pure simply from the joy in his face as he speaks of the impact his work has on children.  It is a shame that one rarely sees pure love on the faces of those who lead us in our politics.

I will end this in the same way that Ms. Shafak ended her speech: with a poem from the Sufi philosopher Yunus Emre.

Come, let us all be friends for once
Let us make life easy on us,
Let us be lovers and loved ones,
The earth shall be left to no one.

It’s for sale.

I want to buy it and start a social enterprise – I have a profitable plan that helps kids and makes a difference.

The property has been a lodge/ranch since the 1950s, and it has a decent income stream from guests coming to enjoy the nature and ride horses.  It’s about 20 miles North of the Columbia River in the Southern part of Washington, about 90 miles outside of Portland.

There are 80 acres, 6 cabins (including 2 caretaker homes), and one lodge house. The property sleeps 36-70 guests in its current use as a bed and breakfast.

The lodge house has 12 guest rooms, and would be perfect for a group home for foster kids.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_care if you’re not familiar with the state of the foster care system.  The upshot is that this country has a severe crisis on its hands.  There are too many beds, not enough kids, and the effectiveness of treatment programs is questionable.

As a nation, we need more quality programs to help kids.  I’m going to make some assumptions here, and at some point I’ll do more research.  I believe that kids separated from their families struggle more to adapt to society.  I believe that anti-social behavior (think crime) is ultimately cheaper for society to prevent rather than punish – schools are cheaper than jails.

Some kids are too tough for foster homes to handle.  When kids experience a high degree of trauma, they can’t cope with the expectations of school and “normal” family life.  These kids need help learning how to process their trauma while gaining life skills—and quite frequently they need to learn how to get along without using destructive behavior.

This means using a restrictive environment—one where boundaries are firm and expectations are clear.  This doesn’t have to be a prison – boundaries and expectations are constantly established in a well-run company.  Let’s face it, we all require a certain degree of structure—especially during the teenage years, which are tough for us all.

I’ve been planning this business for years—when I saw this property, I got so excited.

I work in corporate transformation—my team gets hired to teach leadership how to produce cultural change.  I realized that I could bring executives out to these cabins every day to work with the kids, and that they would pay us for the privilege.  I can tell the executives that they’re teaching the kids, and the kids that they’re teaching the executives—both will be true.  We’ll all learn a little something, and take it with us each day.

Not to minimize it.  We work with a psychotherapist-turned-consultant named Sylvia LaFair—recently outed as the “life coach” (not what she calls herself, although she does do coaching) for Jon from Jon & Kate + 8, if you follow tabloid gossip.  Either way, she’s been teaching leadership to executives for about 30 years, and has led trips up the Inca Trail and into Chaco Canyon as a part of her work.  She’s a fascinating person, and I am thrilled to have her involved.

I know tremendous teachers, therapists, and social workers who will all help to create a fantastic curriculum for our programs for the kids and execs.  I can pull together the plan to finance the purchase, which is where you come in.

We’re going to “cloud-fund” this together.  That’s where thousands of tiny donations combine to form a “cloud” of money – just like how Move-On.org was able to change the face of elections by pooling the resources of people who want to make a difference.

Except this will be a social enterprise – a business that puts doing good before making profits, but still wants to make money.  I like having a nice lifestyle.  I think everyone should have one.

Our investors should expect a reasonable rate of return—nothing fancy, but enough to put us on par with stocks, somewhere around (I’m estimating) 10% per year.   Thanks to the high profit margins of group homes and executive leadership, we’ll actually have more profit, which we’ll reinvest into other group homes like this one.

The curriculum we develop will be the work of some of the best minds in experiential learning, education, and therapy.  My plan is to donate that curriculum to the Creative Commons—so that anyone, anywhere, can benefit from what we create.

Everywhere across this country, we need to pull together the people that struggle with those who have a lot, and give them the chance to learn from each other.

There are lots of homes for sale, lots of people who need places to live, and a real lack of good “life-skills” curriculums out there.  You know, ones that work—programs that actually teach people the skills to thrive, not just survive.

I want to call this Microcosm, because I want the kids to represent a diverse population—like a microcosm of this country.  Culturally, regionally, ethnically, geographically—there is a need to bring people together, to allow them to experience diversity – not just preach about it.  We’ll be a little tiny America, out there in the woods, saving the world one child at a time.

Stay tuned, and contact me directly at 630.240.3072 if you want to be involved.

ps all these pictures are from the property, courtesy of http://picasaweb.google.com/copperwestoffice/MtAdamsLodge

“Because people think they’re Gods.  I don’t know, you’re the one who does that kind of crap.”   My fifteen-year-old sister’s response to my question shouldn’t have surprised me, especially since I’d asked it to my friends on Facebook.  I am in the process of collecting answers; I want to know why people climb mountains.

“It is not the mountain that we conquer but ourselves,” said Sir Edmund Hillary, the most famous member of the team that was the first to summit Mount Everest, that famous highest peak.  He once closed a lecture with the line, “nothing can keep us from our goal.” Sir Hillary delivered that speech in school fourteen years before his ascent of Everest.

The spirit of that statement fascinates me.  I believe that sentiment expresses the same ruthless desire for success that creates corporations, the same belief in the self that propels great artists or writers to succeed.  Sir Hillary does not say that nothing will keep him from his goal; he says that nothing can.  In that statement, there is no possibility of failure.

Of course, upon examination, this is not a reasonable belief.  Plenty of things could have kept him from that goal, such as wind, snow, or a bullet to the head.  His determinism falls into the category that child psychologists call magical thinking; the idea that he cannot fail is not rational.

My sister says that I am “the one who does that kind of crap”, but I do not consider myself to be a climber.  Yes, I have climbed mountains.  I sing in the shower, but I am not a singer.  I know people who are climbers, and they are a different breed entirely.

“When I started I enjoyed it and saw it as a hobby; now I feel it is becoming a way of life,” said Billy, who posted on a web site in response to someone else asking why people climb mountains.  ”I sometimes wonder why I am here, in this place which is so close to death or injury.”

I wondered that same thing last year, while I was clinging to an ice axe on a glacier at the top of Mount Edziza in Northern British Columbia.  I was working as a field guide in a wilderness therapy program based a few hundred miles away in Alaska.  I was the least experienced of our three-guide team.  Our head guide, Erik, was exploring a crevasse in the glacier above the group.  I wondered what would happen if he was to fall into the hole in the ice.  Matt, the other guide, was back at the base camp with the three-hundred-plus-pound  child who could not summit the mountain’s peak.  That young man had accomplished the largest goal in his life to date by hiking forty miles to arrive at the mountain; Matt helped him to celebrate the accomplishment that day, while Erik and I took the other eight children to the top.

Erik and I were in charge of a group of eight young men ranging in age from twelve to seventeen.  In order to perform my job, I had removed a certain level of personal responsibility from my mind.  I would do anything in my power to save a life, but I was well outside of my comfort zone.  This was my first time on a glacier, my first time on what I would consider a real mountain – I believe that there should be a category somewhere between Mountain and Hill.   The summit of Mount Edziza has been measured at 10,220 feet above sea level -  not the highest elevation I have achieved in my lifetime.  The journey to get there represented far more to me than simply the lack of a trail, crossing the slow incline of the tundra towards the base of Mount Edziza, or even the steep slope of the glacier that I found myself upon.

Edziza is a glaciated volcano – a mountain that was formed from a volcanic eruption and subsequently covered with many compacting layers of snow and ice over millennia.  There are a small series of other peaks directly around Edziza, but she is the tallest in her particular grouping.  During a discussion with our group of boys a couple days after our summit, I told them of the weather patterns that are typical of mountains.

Most non-volcanic mountains do not appear in isolation, but as a range.  Either glaciers have carved out steep channels as they receded, leaving mountains behind, or tectonic plates beneath the Earth’s crust moved together, pushing up mountains with their force.  All across the world, the topography of the landscape helps to shift and create corresponding weather patterns that connect the entire globe.

Heat from the sun soaks into the Earth each day, and rises up, bringing moisture up to form clouds.  At night the cool air sinks as the Earth chills, and leaves dew behind on the leaves of plants.  The topography of each region intersects with the rising and sinking temperature of the air, forming localized weather patterns known as microclimates.

Mountains form distinct microclimates—hot air rising up the slope of the warmer landscape around the mountain collects water as the air cools, and glaciers at the top of mountain peaks help to chill the air into clouds of rain and snow.  The snow collects over eons, compressing into the ice layers which form the glacier.

One of the strange ironies of life is that many mountain climbers rarely get to see the view from the top—because of the clouds.  When we made it to the top of the mountain, clouds obscured our view.  We stayed on top long enough to eat a snack, and to congratulate the boys for their accomplishments.  For many of them, that climb might be the most challenging accomplishment of their life.

On the way up, I was in charge of the eight boys while Erik navigated the crevasse, determining the places that were safe to step.  When his probe plunged through the snow layer, he would carefully poke a region around the area, to figure out which portions of the glacier would support the weight of a human.  This is a standard climbing practice—glacial navigation is slow and tedious work.  Snow bridges – areas of the glacier which look sturdy, but do not hold weight – are common.

The slope of the glacier was roughly thirty-five degrees – we had used our boots to kick steps in the side of the snow, and held tightly on the ice axes which provided an additional hold in case we slipped.  The climb was relatively straightforward.  I trusted Erik’s experience to guide us through.  When he left me in charge of the group to probe ahead, I worked hard not to panic.  My heart rate increased, and my breath rate elevated.  I tried to reduce the tension in my shoulders, to slow down my breath, to convince myself that I would be able to handle the situation if Erik was to plunge into the glacier.  I did not have a plan, and that scared me.

I figured that if he fell through the ice, I would have to evaluate the situation.  First and foremost, my obligation was to the children.  I could not abandon them – if I fell in after Erik, there would be eight boys alone on a glacier in a completely remote area of British Columbia.  Rescuers would take at least forty-eight hours to reach us.  Should I abandon Erik, bring the children down, then come back up to rescue him?  What if I could save him?  My wilderness rescue training was racing through my head, but I felt totally unprepared.  Wilderness medicine is never composed of right or wrong decisions; it is always a best guess, a lesser of two evils, a hope that perhaps the right decision can be made and a life saved.

While these thoughts were going through my head, the young men were getting restless.  Many of the kids in the program have trouble staying focused in school; many have a hard time staying still.  I reminded the boys constantly to hang on to their ice axes, not to throw snowballs, not to jump around.  Finally, I got frustrated. I yelled at them that this was real shit, life and death, and they had better shut up and pay attention.  I had been waiting to use my big-poppa voice, the booming one that means business.  Since the kids had not heard me pull that card out of my inner deck in the four weeks that we had been together, twelve people in almost total isolation, they shut up.  I resumed worrying that Erik would fall through the ice.

Erik did not fall through the ice.  I did.

Before that happened, Erik had been using small wooden poles with neon flagging tape to stake out our path, and had returned to rejoin the group.  He was standing five feet in front of me, and told me to lead the group up the path he had marked.  He was to bring up the rear.  I took four steps, and the fifth did not hold.  My foot plunged through the ice.  The weight of the pack on my shoulders pushed me down fast, and the ice crumbled under ice that had felt stable with my first foot upon it.  Instinctively, I jabbed my ice axe into the ice in front of me, and Erik grabbed my pack.  I was clinging to the edge of the ice in front of me.  I did not look down to see if there was an end to the hole that I was hanging on to; my only thought was to escape to safe ground.  My heart was racing faster than it ever has in my life.

“I should have told you that was there,” said Erik as he grabbed the back of my pack to help me out of the hole.

“Yeah, that would have been nice to know,” I said.  I was getting used to pretending to be far more calm about life than I actually feel.  I turned around to speak to the boys, who were droop-jawed and big-eyed with wonder and fear.  ”Hey kids, there’s a hole there.  Don’t fall in.”

We helped the kids to take a big step across the hole, and navigated a few more hidden snow bridges on our way to the top.  When we made it to the summit, we held a small ceremony.  Days earlier, at the base of the trail where we had started, we asked each of the boys to bring a small rock representing something that they wanted to leave behind: a behavior, an attitude, a mental pattern that had held them back.  We were constantly trying to use metaphors to help the boys to understand that their actions and choices determined the course of their lives.  Each of us placed our rock in the snow, and spoke aloud what we wanted to leave behind.  I don’t remember what everyone left behind.  One was anger, another wanted not to steal, another said he wanted to leave behind his habit of being irritating and annoying to get attention from others.  I’m pretty sure I wanted to leave behind my frustrations at circumstances beyond my control, but I was still in a little shock at my plunge through the ice.

We made it down the mountain and back to our other guide quickly.  The boys were elated at their accomplishment.  We were stern in our reminders to them that most accidents on mountains occur on the way down; climbers forget that the mountain is just as dangerous in the descent as it is on the way up.  The lack of caution kills more people than any other factor.  Often it takes the form of summit fever – when the goal is close, people rush in and forget the safety precautions that held them in place on the way up.

“Why the hell are we doing this?” one of the boys asked me on the way up the mountain, before we reached the glacier, when we stopped for a snack.

“You know why,” I told him.  We had talked about the metaphor of the mountain with these boys so many times. “Because once we’ve finished climbing it, no one can take that away from you.  Once we reach the top, you will always be the you that has climbed a mountain.  Because you thought you couldn’t do it – you saw this mountain from a distance, and you said that there was no way that you could climb it.  Now you are.”

That night, we ate so much chocolate that I thought I would burst.  We had prepared for the celebration with the boys by bringing extraordinary quantities of food and desserts with us, lugging them along for twelve-hour days (at times when portions of the group were slow), all for this moment.

“Now that you have climbed the mountain, you can no longer say what’s possible in your life,” I told the boys as they crammed chocolate in various forms in their mouths.  ”That mountain is just like any goal that you set – it doesn’t matter which mountain you climb.  You just have to choose a goal, and go for it.  Every goal is attained one step at a time, just like the mountain is climbed.”

I wonder about the results of that experience for those boys.  I know it helped them; I know it was transformative.  It is impossible to measure the impact of an experience like climbing a mountain.  The boys held their heads higher, stood straighter, and had more confidence in their behaviors after climbing that mountain.  My hope is that the boys will retain that knowledge; that they will know that they can, like each of us, choose the mountains that we climb each day.  Many people seem to circle around the base of the mountain that they have chosen, afraid to take the first step, afraid of failure.

“It is not the mountain that we conquer but ourselves,” said Sir Edmund Hillary.  The mountain is not dominated by the experience of a climber.  No one with any sense would presume that clinging to the side of a slope and making it to the top and back down again constitutes mastery of the mountain.  If an ant climbs up my pants while I eat a picnic and makes it to the top of my head and lives to tell the tale to his ant friends, has he conquered me?  No.  In the same way, our only battles are inside ourselves.  We choose our goals, and thus we determine the course of our lives.

There is one quote by Sir Edmund Hillary that I believe adequately describes the experience.  He was asked of the scientific nature of the mission, the reasons why people were paying for him to climb mountains.

“Nobody climbs for scientific reasons,” he said.  ”Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but really you just climb for the hell of it.”

Every business should look to the emerging field of community development for tools that will help to grow their corporate culture.

Every community should look to successful business examples of internal cultural development for the techniques that work to establish consensus.

Steps that work:

1 – Ask questions, don’t presume solutions.

Too often external consultants presume that they know what’s best for a group of people – in an organization, community, or corporate environment.  The first and best practice should always be to assess first, analyze later.

2 – The solutions are always within the group.

Group dynamics are the same wherever humans gather.  The process itself is the solution – too often people sit through ineffective meetings where the same things are regurgitated, the same people dominate the conversation, and the leaders don’t know how to lead.  I guarantee you that there is a solution to any problem within any group that has organized around a collective purpose.

3 – Never underestimate the importance of politics.

Human emotions and relationships are irrational.  All fields of study attempt to categorize irrational behavior into sequential and logical portions – that’s a large part of the human quest for knowledge.  We’re doing a great job.

There are always unknown relationships at play.  Step back, hold the big picture (the mission of the group), and know that the process will never go as fast as you would like it to go.  Don’t tell anyone else to do the same thing – when you encounter frustration (or other negative emotions), make time to listen and understand the layers under the surface.

4 – Find shared purpose, and hold on tight.

Why do people organize into communities?  Why do we decide to work for one business and not another?

The answers always come back to shared values. To effectively manage any group, you must constantly remind the participants of the benefits of their involvement.

Studs Terkel said something to the effect that communities form where there is shared action with purpose.  Whenever we get together to accomplish something, we have formed a community.

The largest question that remains:  What do we want to accomplish?

One June morning in 2008, like all the other mornings that year, I went to Dolores Park to write. I lived in a flat on 19th Street, just a few doors down from Dolores Avenue. Proximity meant I could spend a lot of time in the park. Each day, I would walk with my dog a few blocks to Phil’s to get my coffee, then head back to sit in the park while my dog ran around, sniffing, pissing, and smiling at me with his tongue lolling.

The sun almost always shines on Dolores Park. I was told that there are 37 distinct microclimates in the forty-six-square-mile area that encompasses San Francisco, but the exact number is often debated. I know that Dolores Park is the best one.

I write to observe.

The weather patterns in the city occur too frequently to be overlooked – each day that famous fog rolls in from Ocean Beach, through Golden Gate Park, and heads East towards the Bay. The fog climbs Twin Peaks, and dissipates as it reaches the Mission. The chill dampens the air, and settles in pockets in some low areas. This phenomenon occurs every day, it seems. Almost every day the sun shines on Dolores Park, even when it is cloudy and cold in other places in that small, crowded and unique city.

I have read that Dolores Park was originally a Jewish cemetery, although the bodies were moved over a century ago. The park provided refuge to the victims of the 1906 earthquake. The full name is Mission Dolores Park – its namesake, Mission Dolores, was the first mission on the peninsula that marked the end of the long journey of the Franciscan monks along the California coast from San Diego.

Spanish architecture surrounds the park, and palm trees dot its landscaping, piercing the sky with green explosions that resemble fireworks in bloom. There are tennis courts, a playground, and the J streetcar line runs through the park.

This particular June morning was a Sunday. I couldn’t stay in bed through the sunshine, so I came to the park to drink coffee and slow hangover’s ascent on my brain. I brought my journal and pens, thinking I would write on my unfinished novel. I wanted to work on a scene that happens a few days after the funeral, where the characters have just begun to realize that they have to face life without someone they relied upon completely.

I write to reflect.

As I walked up the hill to take my place near the top – there is a picnic table just near the statue of Hidalgo, and he and I can share the panoramic view of the city and its bridges. I headed for the table, and saw the group of people gathered on the median of the sidewalk.

At nine in the morning on a Sunday, few people are in the park yet. San Francisco is a bit lazy, and likes to sleep in – but this particular Sunday, a group of people had a well-planned picnic already in progress before even the churchgoers had made it out of the house. Big linen sheets blocked off a wide space that comfortably held twelve people with ample space for more. Three small wooden tables held carafes of orange juice, champagne bottles, and plastic cups. A radio was playing Enya – “sail away, sail away, sail away,” and the members of the group were gazing off into the distance.

What struck my alcohol-addled brain first was their location within the park – why would they pick the median of the sidewalk, when the wide expanses of green lawns were available? There was no competition for space at this time of the day – there would be later, when the hipster picnics were so crowded together that walking through the park became an exercise in dodging drunks and hula-hoopers. Now, there were only a few people scattered around – what would make this group of people, who prepared this picnic so well, choose to seat themselves sandwiched on a thin slice of lawn between two large slabs of concrete sidewalk?

I write for myself.

I sat down at my picnic table, and gave a quick salute to Hildago’s statue. I had a good view of the Enya picnic club, and I figured I could pretend to write a little bit, sip my coffee, and spy on the people while I finished waking up. My dog had spotted canine friends and taken off. I pretended to focus on the dog, while trying to investigate the puzzle of the picnic spot.

The members of the picnic group were in their mid-to-late-thirties, it appeared. Mostly coupled up, with a couple of loose singles. Well-dressed, expensive-without-being-ostentatious sunglasses. Nice clothes – a little too nice to just be park-casual, a little more like church-casual. A little too nice for the setting, but no one seemed bored. On the contrary, each member seemed to be attentive around the needs of one man. He sat between two other people, and they nodded deeply and leaned in close while rubbing his back. I was too far from the group to make out any words, and relying on body language to solve this puzzle.

The man at the center of attention slumped forward. His shoulders heaved up and down with sobs, and his friends held him close. Ahhhh, I thought – this must be soon after a funeral. Maybe a week or so after the death – the friends are here for this man, who must have lost his partner. The newness of the death has worn off for everyone but the lover – they have done their crying, it would seem, and are here to help this man to grieve. I assume that he was gay, since the majority of the couples here are as well. This group has known each other for a while – this is not a casual gathering. These are good friends – they give him their full attention, and they give him time and space. Casual acquaintances would not make it to the park at nine on a Sunday morning.

I write to feel.

As the group centered around this one man, I imagined their life together. I thought of the place that they had lived, going through the exercise that couples do. Shopping for furniture, making meals, throwing parties. Holidays, family drama, fights. Tears, laughter, sex. I hope they had sex on all the furniture in the house, I thought. He is crying because he didn’t know at the time that these things wouldn’t be forever. It is easy to assume that the fairytale has been won – there will be plenty of happily-ever-after yet to come. Now his dreams have come crashing down – this man loved deeply, and I am watching his heart break and shatter a thousand times. I see the rawness here, and I imagine the feeling – how the heart is ripped open, raw like a wound scrubbed with salt, aching with a pain that is physical and emotional and spiritual torment, a torture of mind, body, and soul.

At this point I have been watching this group for almost an hour, writing in my journal about my characters who are dealing with their imaginary lives after the imaginary funeral. I am crying while I watch these loving people, for them, for my characters, and for the people I know well who have lost children, spouses, and lovers. The members of the group have noticed me watching, but my tears buy me access to this small community. My voyeurism is allowed, because I share in the grief. Sadé sings from the small radio, “do you think I’d leave you down when you’re down on your knees/I wouldn’t do that.”

A couple of the members have revealed themselves to be the leaders – they must have organized this gathering, I think. They look at each other, one tilting his head as if asking a question. A slight nod is returned, and the nod is mirrored by the questioner. A decision has been made – they both rise, and make an announcement to the group. The group rises in agreement. Someone has been blocking my view – now I see the reason that they have gathered in the park in this strange spot by the sidewalk. A shovel is stuck into a mound of dirt adjacent to a sapling that has been recently planted in a hole. The hole is waiting to be filled in – clarity dawns in my addled brain – they have gathered to dedicate a tree to the memory of their friend. Fresh tears pour down my face with this realization.

I write to believe.

The group organizes themselves in a circle around the sapling, the dirt mound, and the shovel. I count – twelve of them. One is making a speech, his hands restrained – I imagine him to normally be a bouncy and bubbly person, and it looks like he is attempting to be sedate with the gravity of the occasion. He points at another member of a small group, giving a respectful nod of acknowledgement – the other members clap, and I realize that she must have organized the planting of the tree. Ready? Hand signals, thumbs-up, nods – they are going to begin.
Each member of the group in turn takes the shovel and delivers a small heap of dirt from the mound to the hole, and hands off the shovel to the next person. There is weight in ritual, and almost everyone in the group is crying now. I think about the metaphors at play within these actions – this park is a gathering place saturated in San Francisco history. Surely this group of people shared memories here with this now-dead lover. This picnic must be reminiscent of the times before, the moments that in the future will be shared around this tree, a living memory that grows down into the earth as it reaches to the sky. The planting is a new ritual, a tribute where each member of this small tribe can place their grief into the soil so that death can give birth to new life.

I write to pray.

After each member of the group has spooned a shovelful of dirt onto the roots of the young tree, the last one uses his foot to push the shovel back into the mound so that the shovel does not fall. The handle is straight, like a flagpole.

A robin lands on the top of the shovel’s blade. The bird has flown between members of the circle, directly to his target. He stands comfortably on his perch in the sunshine at the center of the group, twisting his head and looking around at each member. The group has begun hugging and holding each other, beginning the process of drawing the ritual to a close. Small bits of tension-breaking laughter break out among the group as tears are wiped from eyes.
A couple of people in the circle have noticed the bird’s abnormal behavior – it seems strange for a bird to fly into this place, at this time – and are nudging each other, pointing at the bird.

Quickly the circle of friends is quiet again, watching the bird.

The bird is looking at each member in turn, making sure that its actions are witnessed. The robin steps gingerly, rotating himself in a full circle by repositioning each foot in turn – he pauses to look at each person in the circle, tilting his head slightly up at one moment and to the side at the next. The bird makes direct eye contact. Members of the group pull cameras out of bags, and photograph the bird, who remains on his perch at the edge of the shovel. A couple of the group’s members glance over at me, eyebrows raised as if to say – Are you seeing this? I nod slowly, wide-eyed in wonder.

I glance at the clock on my phone – a few minutes have elapsed since the bird has landed, and I want to keep an honest record of this robin’s visit in the group. It is 10:22 on Sunday morning. My dog has joined me at some point, and he looks up at me, panting happily in the sun.

As I look up from my phone and back to the group, I see the robin hop down to the base of the roots of the sapling that has just been covered with dirt. The top of the robin’s head is barely visible over the rim of the hole, peaking up and disappearing down twice in a row. After the third nod down, the robin pops up holding a worm in his mouth. He flies briefly back up to his perch on the shovel, holding the worm in his mouth. He stands there with his worm, twisting his head, making eye contact with members of the circle. Slowly he makes a rotation, looking at each member of the group in turn. The people are silent now, cameras forgotten at their sides, watching this bird.

We watch in silence. I am in awe. Tears stream down my face – I laugh out loud as I wipe them away. Some members of the group have linked arm in arm, leaning on each other as we watch the bird. Others have gone back to their cameras, and are recording the bird. I look down at my phone’s clock. It is 10:31.

Around us, the park has come alive. A few dozen dogs are visible, catching Frisbees and balls, marking trees and buildings with urine, and sniffing body parts. Picnics have begun to sprout like mushrooms throughout the park – blankets are laid out, sips are taken from bottles inside brown bags, and the mingled sounds of laughter and chatter can be heard from all directions. A faint smell of marijuana whiffs to my nose from an unknown source, mingling with the smell of freshly-mowed grass, flowering trees, and a trace of dog shit.

The robin stayed on the shovel until 10:37, when he flew away, still holding the worm in his mouth. The group of friends broke the circle, and began to hug each other, say goodbyes, and gather their possessions. One of the members waved goodbye to me, and I waved back.

I write to bear witness.

Detroit’s Green Map – http://www.detroitgreenmap.org/ – is pretty cool. I’m excited to see that these different businesses and folks are working the movement.

The New Republic has a sweet article at http://www.tnr.com/article/metro-policy/the-detroit-project – about the ways in which Detroit’s urban strategy needs to be shaped. Race relations is at the heart of the issue, but the article doesn’t really touch that. It comes from a more European-urban-planning perspective of creating viable urban centers, but I think any conversation about America’s urban core needs to include race.

We’re a nation of immigrants – the ancestors of both the voluntary and in the involuntary. The ancestors of the involuntary have not fared as well as their voluntary counterparts. One can view Natives in a similar way, since very few Natives were allowed to keep their ancestral land and were forced into a sort of involuntary migration. I don’t want to dwell too much on Native issues, because this article is about Detroit. It seems (to me) to be fair to say that one can hold most of the issues of the “involuntary (im)migrants” under the umbrella of “cultural assimilation”.

I’ve been writing for a class about the Oak Park Strategy. My home town of Oak Park, IL is cited throughout Urban Studies and Race Relations case studies as an example of successful integration. In the 1960s there was a huge wave of migration throughout the country as tensions flared in rural areas over forced segregation. Lots of black folks moved into urban centers, and the American ghetto was born. I use the term in a somewhat archaic context – an impoverished area, racially divided from other sectors of a city.

I grew up a few blocks from Austin – one of Chicago’s worst ghettos. I was told that I should avoid it, so my first exploratory mission into Austin occurred when I was in kindergarden. I followed a little girl home from school, got lost, and knocked on someone’s door to call my mom. She came to pick me up and brought me back to the safe side of Austin Boulevard – the dividing line between Oak Park and Chicago.

A few years later, she bought a house only a few blocks away from that line. As a teenager, we crossed it to go buy booze – the Arab-run store on the Chicago side would sell us beer. Oak Park was a dry town. It was started by a Prohibitionist who bought a few taverns – just to shut them down.

The Oak Park Strategy was defined by Carole Goodman in her book by the same name. Written in 1979, it outlines how Oak Park successfully engaged on a campaign to “celebrate diversity”.

The village planners saw that Austin was being blockbusted – real estate agents would “bust blocks” by hiring black folks to push strollers up and down streets, and point to them as they convinced “white flighters” to sell. Those panicky white folks would compete with their neighbors to sell their homes, and they got the hell out fast. From 1969 to 1979, Austin went from 99.9% white to 99.9% black.

Oak Park created a marketing campaign to celebrate diversity. A few core players sold the concept successfully to the real estate community, and did some fundraising for a national ad campaign. They successfully solicited the liberal elite, and convinced them to move to Oak Park to raise their families in a diverse and tolerant environment. Previously a Republican town, Oak Park voted Democratic (overall) for the first time in 1984.

I was born in Oak Park Hospital (which sits on Austin Boulevard) in 1980. I grew up in a climate where diversity was discussed. I am still doing some research and working on a list of questions to ask of the people who have a bit more historic perspective than I, but my core experiences have led me to a strong conclusion.

Detroit needs a diversity campaign. Right now, the city is primarily black, and has been for some time. It may not be politically correct to say this, but my perception is that the black social community as a whole exists independently from the white one. When I bought a house and started a business in Austin in 2006, I had to adopt a different set of cultural values.

I am not qualified to offer opinions on Detroit’s culture. It is incredibly arrogant of me to offer an opinion on Detroit’s needs – I have not been to the city since I was a child. I am really excited about contributing to a movement towards a new Detroit, and to the vision of what that future looks like. It will take many years to conceive, and decades to realize.

Chicago experienced some of the largest population growth after the time of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 – I’ve heard it was one of the largest increases that America has ever seen. It was due to the amazing publicity that Daniel Burnham was able to generate for the World’s Fair.

I’ve grown up in these examples, and I want to make that experience relevant. I’m really excited to build this Detroit project into something – my intuition tells me that helping Detroit will ultimately be my life’s great work.

More to come…