Stories extraordinary and everyday
As September 11 rolls around again, I went looking to see how many times — and different ways — I’ve written about that day over the years, and how the memories overlay the current reality. This week, I think of 9/11 and immediately think about how national security is yet another huge issue at stake in the upcoming election. My post from two years ago juxtaposed the 2001 attack against a fresher memory from September 2020, when we woke up in the Bay Area to orange skies and experienced a different form of dread and fear:
The smoked-filled September-2020 day was freaky and frightening in its own way, but I recall a lot of hubbub and action amid the sense of threat from both Covid and the fires. Having absorbed the lessons learned amid being in New York during 9/11 — take care, take action, stay open, if possible — I felt determined to do what I could with the lockdown and smokey skies of 2020. We played porch concerts and live streams, I taught yoga over zoom and chalked the sidewalk and took online courses in audio and anti-racism and got to know my neighborhood in a new way. After we did an online version of our Love the Bay music tour I was inspired to start a neighborhood ‘zine, calling it The Bay Station Eagle for two intersecting streets in my neighborhood.
As is the case with most (seemingly!) bright ideas I come up with these days, I try to sleep on it before I take action. Is this something I want to take on? It’s usually easier to start than to finish things, and I have found that every project becomes a process of some sort, with at least one test of will or obstacle to surmount to reach the goal. But a few days after that light bulb moment, I still thought it was an idea worth pursuing. Later that week, I reached out to neighbors to see if they wanted to contribute. Enough people responded with offers of words or design-know-how for me to put together what morphed into The Bay Station Eagle, a very limited-run, hyper-local, pocket-sized journal “penned by local residents and reflective of Alameda island past and present.”
Given it was a “pandemic project,” I wasn’t sure how long I’d continue, especially after some of the original contributors lost interest and/or time as ‘normal life’ got going again. But a few local stores carried the ‘zine, including Books Inc. - Alameda, whose buyer enthusiastically supported the project from the start. Likewise, several local artists and writer friends supported the project at key moments along the way, so I’ve kept it going, albeit on a less frequent schedule.
After I released the latest issue, the events manager at Books Inc. reached out about doing an event at the store. Every one of the contributors signed on to read, local brewing school, Dahoam1516, who is featured in the latest issue, offered to sample their beer and hop water. The bookstore made some signs and set up a bunch of chairs. Patty St. Louis, a local artist who wrote about the Bay-Eagle Community garden for the issue, brought a beautiful bowl of cherry tomatoes fresh from her garden plot.
I truly had no idea how it would go, but to my delight, community members filled the seats, each contributor stepped up to the mic, and it turned into what I’d hoped it would become: not only a record, but a celebration, of a community and its variety of expressions. Hear, hear!