Second Day, Second Story

08/10/2010 Moon in Virgo.

And I felt it. Lifted today at Loprinzi’s. Ate some food and drank a smoothie at Lyric. The day out in the streets was hard. I was having some trouble connecting with people, but I think that when we hold some events and prove the worth of the project, a lot of them will want to support it. The people were all pretty great. Everyone was polite and treated me with respect. So great job Richmond! That is not always the way that it is when your organize in the community. I was trying to figure out how to talk about the project. I was living a bit too much in my head in the community tonight as I worked this out.

The participation in the project was awesome tonight. Many people agreed that the community coming together was important, and that understanding the needs of the community was important to be able to fulfill them. But the problem was, nobody that I talked to tonight was willing to make a sacrifice to fund it. I didn’t feel like using the objection cycle and focusing it on money again and again, but the reality is that if we cannot fund Empowering Community Organization, it cannot last. But I believe that as people start seeing results, and start connecting to their neighbors more, and participate more, we could see a lot of the people that couldn’t give today deciding to change that particular vote.

I felt like I was not a great messenger tonight as well. I could have done more to inspire the public, but it’s kind of hard to fake fire. I know that I’ve just got to catch stride to do better. Highlights of the night included meeting a recent transplant from Minnesota that was ready to jump into community and better understand Portland. She was awesome. There was a DJ that was very down in the hood. I heard he spins some mean Drum and Bass. He’s ready to volunteer like crazy coming up. I met someone who sold me and Kelly a Moonstone at the Gold Door. That Moonstone was more than worth the price paid. Plus he’s always super nice in the store. Met a guy named Wolf, he’d done some organizing for a project in my home town of Bellingham. I liked everybody I talked to today. A lady from St. David’s told me a bit of the history of the neighborhood. I should follow up and see if she wants to tell a story. Wow, so life is good and I’m super happy that Cyd did well. I’m thinking that we should spend some time together every now and then in the field. Keep each other up.