||| by Minor Lile, Staff Reporter |||
It’s Labor Day weekend, the traditional end of the summer season. Which leads to this month’s Village Voices question:
What will you most remember about the summer of 2020?
With the monthly Village Voices series, we aim to take the pulse of the Orcas Island community. Every month we’ll be out and about, asking people to share their point of view on a particular topic. Sometimes the questions will be serious, sometimes more light-hearted. We invite you to join the conversation by sharing your response in the comments area.
Asked at the last Farmer’s Market of the season, on September 5, 2020
(comments have been lightly edited for clarity)
Reed: It has to be the whole COVID thing. That’s what really sticks in my mind.
Artha: COVID #1. Trump #2: terrifying, absolutely terrifying. #3: Being thrown out of my house because of a failed plumbing issue and feeling completely without anything under my feet. The combination of all these has led to a couple of meltdowns. I don’t usually have that happen, but it’s been difficult. And finally, the kindness of people, of the community here, and being able to find a place to have a roof over my head for the interim.
Eric: For me it’s been the strange dynamic of separation and togetherness. On the one hand, we’re all social distancing and having to keep apart from each other in our communities. On the other, there’s been a deeper closeness with those we spend our lives at home with. So the experience of feeling more separation and more togetherness both at the same time.
Hailey: My answer is kind of philosophical. I think that for me it is the recognition of the fragility of everything. There are the fires in California, which are reflective of the underlying environmental situation, there’s the virus, politics, just all of it. And there’s just a feeling of everything being so fragile right now.
Lynn & Glen: That’s an easy one, we got married. The ceremony was at the Peace Arch since one of us is Canadian and the other is from the US. There’s a no mans land between the two borders where we had the ceremony. So we will always remember this as the summer that we were married.
We invite you to join the conversation.
What will you most remember about the summer of 2020?
I resonate with ALL of the “voices”.
Artha: I would have offered you my guest room for as long as you needed it.
Eric: My eastern family is much closer now,. It’s a time , also to have the chance to meet with island friends one-on-one, and have meaningful phone conversations. I hope everyone read Diane Craig’s column in the Sounder last week about Virtual Connections.
Hailey: I echo your fragility concept, and think of it as a coming together of distinct “threats” to our human survival…as some have said, “a perfect storm”: wars, pestilence, insect invasions, environmental changes, human error. Survival of the fittest seems to be playing out in many ways. I think of the “joke” of God coming three times to save the guy who’s being flooded out, sitting on the roof of his house, but the flood victim doesn’t recognize the attempts, and drowns. Is that what we’re doing now?
OI Farmers Market: Thank you for your community heroism in 2020. Leaders, growers, producers, creators took their turn at very difficult challenges to make personal and professional statements by showing up. You maintained a tradition of community and connection while, I’m sure, exploring novel solutions to 2020 problems. That’s quiet strength. Hope.
We will remember how many in the community, including regulars who post here on this forum, disgracefully harassed community members, businesses, and tourists during the pandemic. Such a shame.
The livestreamed Orcas Chamber Music Festival’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth was truly a highlight of the summer for me. Experiencing the genius of the Miro Quartet performing all of Beethoven’s string quartets was thrilling and so moving. Thank you OICMF staff and Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann and Artistic Advisor Jon Kimura Parker for making it possible!
OICMF Miró Quartet Beethoven Cycle!
Spending lots of time upside down in my seakayak in Rosario Strait having interesting conversations with starfish. :P
Beethoven! Miró Quartet! OICMF! And, oh yeah, that pandemic thing.
being quarantined off-island for over a year, what I will remember most about this summer on the historic family beach home, I will remember the work I took on dog walks to keep both anxious dog and myself calm and grateful, and also the annoyance of people yelling into their cell phones and building material noise — power tools, hammering.
Also I try to envision the future as positively different, not a return to normal