On Faith, On Disappointment

A year and a half ago, I peddled a rolly cart all around West Seattle with my power book and food and water and asked women what they wanted. After about five months of this, interviewing about 200 women, I presented a workshop at the Youngstown Cultural Center called Envision Women. Nine people came; ten if you count my friend Mark, who fell asleep on the floor and left when he woke up. The West Seattle baker Bernie of the beautiful heart catered the event. The event was soulful, kind and wise; a high school girl cried, talking about all the pressure she feels from parents and teachers and peers; an executive talked about serious challenges in her job; a West Seattle activist talked about how she made her dream book come true. I worked and worked and worked; I'd written for newspapers and magazines for years, but I'd never come close to working this hard. Sometimes, I'd walk about six miles a day, selling my project, asking people to buy tickets to the Envision Women event, and connecting with some very generous merchants who not only helped fund my work, they even donated to it for the auction. Many Moons ended up giving the necklace the high school girl took home for $20: I could have charged more but I wanted to make sure as she cried that she could go home with what she wanted. The experience was heartfelt and well meaning.

Now, I'm working on 2012. I'm aware, of course, that not everyone values the work of a public interviewer, and that's OK. I also do not need everyone's offerings in my life. I am noticing as my child enters this work as an experiment how disappointing it can be to have any expectations whatsoever about how many people we'll be interviewing, how much money we'll make, how many tickets we'll sell. This work is really about offering up what I can do fluidly for my culture and myself, and I'm noticing how Sam is growing as a writer and a thinker through it. He's learning how to take notes in the moment, which is hard as hell but a fun challenge. He's learning how to write his impressions. He's giving the art of kind, deep listening to people who might or might not share his point of view, or mine. At its best, journalism is connecting and assisting others, and at times, I'm assisted as well and so is he.

At the Free Range Choir last night on Vashon, I announced the project. We lacked the time for meaningful interviewing there, but several interviews were promised and five people said they will buy tickets to our presentation. Carpooling home, I met a new friend who took an online course on 2012. Wait till you hear what she said!