About Last (ig)nite…

February 6th, 2008

I’d love to write something about how inspiring it is to see people stand up last night at Ignite and talk about what they’re passionate about, about how inspired I am by the diversity of interests and the way people come together and support one another, but it’s being done really well in a bunch of other places, and besides my eyes are crossed this morning from having gotten up two or three times during the night with Rainer, at first feverish and then, an hour or two later (it’s best not to take a disheartening glance at the clock) for no (apparent to us) reason, screaming “No!” (and at this point he was sleeping in our bed) and now I am rushing, getting ready to take Raven to the airport and do the parenting thing solo again for four more days.

So… I will just observe that I realized how many more people I ‘know’ now than I did at the first event, three short months ago, many of them mostly virtually, and that seems amazing to me, and makes me feel all in love with the place we have chosen to live. And second, I will confess to having always had these fantasies about living in a community, or maybe Community, that come straight out of the television — this was the whole appeal of ‘Northern Exposure’ for me, and the one redeeming aspect of ‘Gilmore Girls’– the town hall meetings — and THAT is what I could see last night if I squinted just a little bit, an atmosphere characterized by acceptance and support and learning from one another and a chance for every voice to matter, for Everybody to be Somebody, ideas mattering more than personalities, even, and contagious enthusiasm, how not only are the people around me interesting, but also interested. Finally, I took Aodán and Xander with me to hear the presentations knowing they’d be proud of their dad, and I really like the notion that my pre-adolescent kids are getting imprinted with this model of it being a good time when people share their ideas and passions.

Comments (3)

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Dawn Foster Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

It was great to see you and even better that we found a few minutes to chat after the craziness died down

I love your thoughts about this community of people we are building here in Portland. It really is starting to feel like a community to me, and it is great to get to know a bunch of people who come to most of our events while at the same time seeing a few fresh faces at every event. I love Portland!