The phone has rung a fair bit this week. Some of it the usual, with news from far and near, telemarketers wanting to sell us credit-card processing software, friends with whom we could discuss cats and Ukranian history in the same call. But there were extra calls on Wednesday and Thursday, with congratulations for being elected to the Middletown Springs Selectboard.
My first act on Wednesday morning was to walk to my bedroom window, look out upon my domain, and say loudly, "I am a Middletown Springs Selectman, and I command that this snow cease immediately!" I now have a humbler view of my powers, an experience that I'm sure will serve me repeatedly through the coming three years.
I had a lovely call from the fellow who had held the seat I won, and who had been running for it once again. He wished me good luck, and I told him I'd be relying on his experiences and asking for advice periodically as I found myself stuck.
The school budget failed, the town building budget passed. The fire company's repair and replacement budget failed, their operating budget passed. I have to go down for a talk with the Town Clerk tomorrow morning to learn the procedures for getting sworn in and beginning board service.
And I have to make a pie.
The most important things I have to learn are the things I've already learned a thousand times. I know what some of those will be. I've been in a lot of meetings in the past fifteen years, meetings where simple statements are almost always based on deeper beliefs… but the statements are visible and the beliefs aren't, which I find holds us back over and over. We think we're disagreeing about which course should come before another in the curricular sequence, or about where a building should sit on a site. Really, we're disagreeing about what kind of experience we hope to provide—for our students, for our neighbors. The details are just manifestations of some deeper purpose, but the details are a lot easier to talk about.
One of my colleagues at my prior school recognized through my body language when I was about to attempt to reframe the conversation. She was able to mimic it beautifully. I would lean forward with my elbows on the table, put my chin in my hands, and bridge my fingers up so that they formed a triangle above my nose and mouth. I'd be that way for about three minutes (maybe trying to develop a carbon dioxide buildup that would calm me down) before finally offering my belief that we were headed down a blind alley unless we stopped for a minute to consider, and state, WHY we wanted what we wanted. I wanted us to recognize that the simple path we were on represented a significant array of unspoken decisions, and that other decisions were possible. Not even better, necessarily, but possible, and worth considering.
I'm in the middle of writing a novel, and Nora's in the middle of writing an essay/poem/book, and both of them are about this problem, as all writing is. We act, and those actions seem normal and everyday, but they also simultaneously convey and reinforce our values. How can we enact our best selves unless we consider the meaning of our actions?
As a developer, the town has to meet codes and be financially prudent. But we also have to create an experience of arrival and departure, a sense of town center, an aesthetic experience. As an employer, the town must consider the simple facts of dollars and cents spent on wages. But we also provide for the welfare and stability of families, we build a community with reliable players. Whatever decisions we make will enact some set of values, will both enable and portray the way we want to live. Acting automatically, in any situation, simply means that we're locked into our unspoken values and aren't considering our larger meanings.
I'm sure that I'll have my chin in my hands regularly during the next three years, and beyond.
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