Our Longing for Home Along the Highways of New Ideas

We are all migrants on this continent,  even many of our First Nation peoples whose following of natural food ways resulted in the creation of winter and summer camps.

As White immigrants who arrived here fleeing persecution, poverty, and oppression and seeking something better, we tend to think of ourselves as exceptional and ahistorical -- a country full of "firsts" -- while at the same time being obsessed with the concept of "home."

Yet the internet, that glorious, fast, invisible tool that sends information, our thoughts, and visual depictions of our lives flying around the globe, is by no means the first highway of new ideas in the U.S.

That badge of honor MIGHT be said to belong to the Erie Canal, opened in 1825. 

This new super highway was quickly flooded with those headed west, as it was a relatively flat and quick route that avoided crossing the Appalachian Mountains. It is said that more migrants and immigrants used the Canal to move into and across the western frontier than any other means.

Among those headed north and west in the mid-19th century were many escaped slaves, as well as others who just didn't "fit" where they were -- the queers, the radicals, those who wanted something other than the Puritan, male, patriarchal state.

The Underrground Railroad ran strongly along the canal with critical junctions in Syracuse, Rochester, and Niagara as gateways to Canada. These cities became known for their abolitionists, who also fomented other radical, social justice oriented movements -- including Utopianism, Mormonism, and Feminism. Enveloping all of these movements was the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that was so strong in western and central NY along the Canal that it became known as the "Burned-Over Diistrict." Without access to many trained clergy, individual laypeople created an evangelical air of "extravagant excitement" -- leaving the impression in many others that religion was a mere delusion -- all seeking the path to "go home" to the Lord.

Among those who had his beginnings along the canal was L. Frank Baum, noted author of The Wizard of Oz and a large number of fantasy books, born in Chittenango in 1856. A small, family-run museum alongside the canal exemplifies our obsession with Oz, Dorothy, the Wizard, the Witches, and of course the yellow brick road.

The scene I best remember from the cherished movie version of this book is at the end, when we are back in black and white from our Technicolor fantasy and Dorothy is waking up in bed surrounded by family and farmhands -- all of whom had become characters in her fever dream. "There's no place like home," she is chanting/mumbling as she awakens from her unconscious. There's no place like home.

As an adopted person and in spite of my wonderful adoptive family, I too am a person who will always be yearning "to go home." But as so many have said - from German-Jewish refugee philosopher Hannah Arendt, who spoke of the need of the persecuted Jewish people to carry their libraries with them, in their heads, as they fled pogrom after pogrom; to current musicologist and musician Rhiannen Giddens, who speaks of the power of music to allow us to carry our ancestral homes in Africa and the Middle East within us as we flee and fly -- the only homes we have are those we carry within us.

One more reason for raising readers, writers, musicians and artists, and for developing rich, complex arts and cultural sensibilities in our selves and our communities.

#arts #culture #eriecanaltrail #bikeride #Oz #home #community

God’s Country

Day 4 of cycling the Erie Canal Bikeway found us in Palmyra, southeast of Rochester, about 100 miles and a third of the way along the Canal.

If that name rings a bell for you, it may be because you are aware of enough American religious history to know that Palmyra -- named for a village in what is now Syria -- is where Joseph Smith found the golden tablets from which he translated and printed the Book of Mormon. At the end of today's 28 miles, we participated in a guided tour of the local print shop which took on the massive job of publishing 5000 copies using 1830 technology from two new, 19-year-old female missionaries whose delight in the book's creation and meaning was palpably contagious.

Biking through the lush farmland here, it is easy to feel its inspiration as a source of revelation. From giant black walnut trees whose thick, low arms reach out in broad embraces to hummingbirds sheltering in visible nests and an orchestra of songbirds to the sheep and lambs roaming the verdant hillsides, it is easy here to feel the abundance, generosity, and awe-inspiring beauty that is creation. How blessed we all are, however we choose to make sense of our place in cosmology.

Smith was a determined and highly successful religious visionary, and the first and only home-grown American one. Mormonism is very particularly American in its belief in America and this nation, its citizens and Constitution as exceptional and chosen peoples. These beliefs, as much as the revelatory beauty of the world surrounding Joseph Smith, continue to inspire millions around the world to follow the Book of Mormon and Smith's other published teachings.

Gratitude: On Receiving Bowdoin College’s Common Good Award

President Rose, Trustees, members of the Alumni Council and McKeen Center for the Common Good, fellow honored guests, friends, family, classmates, collaborators and co-conspirators.

It is with stunned humility that I stand before you today and gratefully accept Bowdoin’s Common Good Award.

When this winter I received a FedEx envelope from the College delivered to our island address, I was gripped by a familiar fear.

The College had finally uncovered some bill I’d not paid!

This is comical in retrospect – I graduated 39 years ago. I know the College finance department is much more efficient than that…

Yet my instinctive fear points to who I am, where I come from, and the ambivalent relationship I’ve had to the College for much of my life – all of which make this award that much more meaningful to me.

I am deeply moved by, and grateful for, the College’s recognition of my lifelong passion for the arts, and of their power in my work in cultural and economic community development  in Maine. In particular, in our more isolated rural areas and with our young people. Work I have undertaken, in large part, as a way of returning to the State the great privilege of the excellent education I received here. And everywhere I go in this expansive state, I am awed by the number of Bowdoin alum I encounter serving the common good. It does seem as if the beautiful Offer of the College works deeply in us. With so very many deserving of this recognition, I am especially humbled by  this award, one I look forward to sharing with my many peers in service.

Having my my work recognized and amplified in this, the 50^th anniversary year of women at Bowdoin, is a huge honor and a tribute not only to me but to the many women who’ve worked collectively over these 50 years to make so much change possible.

I love the word common. I am proud to be as common as they get.

I am a queer, working class activist  whose heritage is only two and three generations deep on this continent. My grandparents had sixth and eighth grade educations; my parents were awarded high school diplomas; and it was hoped for if not expected that I would take the next step, to college.

An important part of being common is being PREVALENT: there are many of us. We are not exceptional, and that’s a good thing.

Yet there were not many of me when I arrived at Bowdoin in 1979. My family was always deeply uncomfortable when visiting. I and several of those here today, and many more, quickly learned to create commonality across differences to collectively battle our shared oppressions –boarding school students to financial aid kids, CIS gender to queer, black women to white women.

My best work and biggest successes have always occurred in the creation of these commons – the free, open, public spaces shared by all – and their communities. I am honored to have been one small part of the greater collectives that launched Bowdoin’s Women’s Resource Center, now the Center for Sexuality, Women, and Gender; that created Opera House Arts and restored the historic Stonington Opera House; that is currently forming the Cultural Alliance of Maine to strengthen the state’s commitment to its important indigenous, immigrant, and local cultures.

Every time we come together, for any reason – a meeting, a movie, a musical performance, church - we create new community: unique gatherings of commoners. From each community, we learn something. From each, we are able to launch collective action for healing, for hope, to advance our common good.

Our work is not done. Too much violence, and great and painful inequities, continue to exist and threaten to divide us. And so I will leave you with this. In 1980, one of the first books we purchased for the Women’s Resource Center was lesbian poet Judy Grahn’s The Common Woman Poems. In it she wrote a verse that appeared on many of our walls and T-shirts for years to come, a poster of which has since wound up in the Library of Congress. “A common woman is as common as a loaf of bread,” Grahn wrote.

“And she will rise.”

Let us keep rising. Let us commoners keep gathering in the commons.

Thank you.

 

Are We Too Late to Adopt "Community Rules"?

An annotated tax map of downtown Stonington, ME.
The pink dots represent properties owned by non-residents.

 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated and exacerbated a trend that was already well underway: the sale of our communities to investors and "non-residents" -- people who do not work here, vote here, or live here year round.

The map above shows the impact on the village of Stonington. Only 30% of our downtown properties are owned by residents. And only 15% are commercial enterprises. 

That means 55% of downtown properties are owned by non-residents. And outside of the village, 80%+ of the total Stonington shoreline is the same.

Some call this gentrification: when wealthier people from other areas, in search of a higher quality of life, gravitate toward beautiful, end-of-the-world places formerly populated by people there because of birth or work -- including artists. Because property values and incomes are higher where they originate, their interest in and purchase of local properties in communities such as Stonington drive real estate values beyond the reach of local workers.

Change is inevitable and those who engage with the same place year after year know the glories and the heartaches of these changes. The questions are: can we direct and influence change with community values and actions? Knowing what history has taught us: how could we do this differently? How might incoming property owners show more respect for preserving the cultures and places where they want to spend time, too?

Because in some ways, we might also consider some of these changes as a kind of ongoing colonization. After all, the generational White islanders who make up a majority of today's Deer Isle residents replaced the indigenous people who stewarded and used the natural resources for more than 2,000 years before we asserted our own White European cultures.

Here's a suggested, partial checklist of "community rules" for everyone's consideration -- feel free to add to and share this!

Get to know a place and its people and economies before purchasing property. Buying property in bidding wars "sight unseen" on the internet is no different from being part of a gold rush. And just like previous gold rushes, it's destructive to a place's natural and cultural resources. 

Our community is more than your financial investment. We live here year round, through the cold and muddy grind climbing March hill. We raise children here and struggle to maintain our local schools. We work here and what we harvest and make creates a sustainable year-round community. We vote and volunteer as firefighters and ambulance drivers; we serve on committees and participate in the municipal process, moving the gears to make a livable, sustainable place that can welcome visitors such as you. 

Don't put your own desires above the community's needs. I know this is a tough one given American individualism, but...well...it's not all about you and what you can afford and to what you feel entitled because you happen to have the cash -- or the real estate to attract the cash. Feel blessed by and grateful for your privilege. We didn't allow our "rusticators" of the past to gobble up all the real estate so that workers had no places to live, and they in turn didn't rent their seasonal cottages to others to churn in and out of every three days as if this is a party boat. Love Deer Isle-Stonington? Buy a non-winterized cottage and spend five months here, volunteering for nonprofits while you are here. Or establish a regular rental from a year-round person who needs the income to pay their property taxes. Already doing these things: thank you! Remember that you already own a place and vote and work somewhere else: you don't need to own here, too. 

Be of service, make a positive impact. If you've made it through the first three bullet points and are still determined to buy, sell, or rent a place, consider how you can contribute -- with your time, expertise and heart, in addition to your wallet -- where the community has the greatest need. Some communities add transfer fees to real estate sales to fund needed community projects. Or if you buy and are only going to visit for two weeks of the year, consider renting it for the other 50 weeks to a year-round, working community member. It's not as sexy or as flush with cash as being an AirBNB host, but it will eventually help you to become an actual member of a real and beloved working community.

In the meantime, the Stonington Economic and Community Development Committee is running a Short-Term Rentals Task Force with the objective of lessening the negative impacts some of these are having on our communities. We meet monthly and welcome your input to econdev@stoningtonmaine.org.

Our island is suffering from the top-heavy impact of a new wave of colonizers. Our workers have no places to live and are cut off from the source of their labor and passion on our working waterfront. Our natural resources and infrastructure -- such as Stonington's Sanitary and Water districts -- are stretched beyond their capacity. Our schools don't have enough students to be sustainable, and our teachers and nurses can't find housing. Our beautiful village is dark and empty for great swaths of the year.

What can we do differently?

Losing Our Nonprofit Religion: Bad Boards and Misunderstanding JEDI

Myles Jordan and Kirsten Monke, two members
of the DaPonte String Quartet, in a 2012 concert 
of new music produced by Opera House Arts
at the Burnt Cove Church in Stonington.
Photo by Karen Galella.

This weekend's news about the hostile board takeover of the Friends of the DaPonte -- ousting the founding musicians as salaried employees and changing the organization's name and mission while waving a false flag of "diversification" -- is, I can only hope, the straw on the camel's back of nonprofit board culture gone seriously awry.

The nonprofit sector, and the "culture of philanthropy" that supports it, has been -- like the "fourth estate" of the press -- an important leg of the stool that is the U.S.'s socio-cultural economy.

We all need it to be functional.

The sector's purpose -- to fill unique charitable needs -- is intended to take the capitalist rule of transactionality off the table: experiences and services are not measured solely on attendance and earnings; community relationships are more important than transactions. In the U.S., the sector, like government, exists to serve the common goods of our communities, filling gaps in public services that in other industrialized countries the government often provides more of -- including the arts.

And in the nonprofit cultural sector, some organizations are appropriately leading the way in doing the work of JEDI -- justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion -- centering the voices and work of those who have for so long been excluded, as well as adopting new ways and teams of cooperative, equitable working.

Yet over the last 40 years, in parallel with the "Reagan Revolution" move toward "supply side" economics, we've experienced an increasing amount of dominant, capitalist culture values and strategies creeping into the nonprofit sector, until today our common goods and charitable purposes are awash in a flood tide of transactional programming (services and events without relationships) and egocentric leadership (building individual resumes and prestige). Boards are too often comprised of affluent people suffering from the entitlement of "father knows best" because they've been successful in the capitalist marketplace, and they bring those unexamined, dominant culture values with them.

Nowhere is this more starkly apparent than in the recent actions of the Friends of the DaPonte board.

The DaPonte's uniquely charitable, laudable, and purposefully specific mission was to advance equity for artists. The founders knew that to truly practice and present their craft, strengthening communities through access to live music and music education, they had to create a stable income base. Remarkably, over 30 years they achieved this. 

Now along comes an ambitious new Executive Director/composer and a board that misunderstands not only its governance role to steward the nonprofit's mission but how to pursue JEDI. The result: by changing the name and purpose of this nonprofit and firing the musicians as employees, they are stealing assets that don't belong to them and flying in the face of JEDI values.

Diversification of programming is laudable and necessary. So are equitable pay for artists and good governance values such as respect, listening, relationships, artist leadership, and stewardship. 

It seems clear the ED and board could not get the DaPonte to go exactly where they wanted them to go -- specific programming not being the purview of the board in any event -- so instead pulled the rug out from under them.

The DaPonte are artists who created a nonprofit with a small, singular purpose to sustain their craft and their community impact. If, after discussions with them, the ED and individual board members remained dissatisfied, they had several options open to them -- notably recognizing they are in the wrong place and departing to start their own nonprofit chamber music series. 

Instead, they've chosen the path of theft and disrespect, laying bare the damaging mechanics of inequitable governance run amok. 

Let's hope this incident can, first, be over turned and secondly that it sparks the necessary conversations, awareness, and changes the nonprofit governance model desperately needs.

#nonprofitmaine

#governance

#culture