Last week I squeezed an additional, curious task into my routine of frequent meetings in local coffee shops. I hung some posters.
Yeah, it's not all that extraordinary. A nearby San Diego theatre had sent out an email with the tantalizing offer of free tickets to a play if you hung up posters. Um, sure, I thought! After all, I go to (or near) lots of prime places every week. I replied to the marketing rep and got the scoop. 10 posters. List your locations of choice. Provide photographic evidence. Pick your play and performance time.
I did a quick mental calculation, to make sure that the time it took would not exceed the cost of paying cash money for tickets. I was definitely in the black. However, the possibility of side benefits didn't even cross my mind. You see, as I tromped in and out of coffee shops, ice cream parlors and a token pub, I got to be the instigator of conversation. "Would you mind if I hang a poster about an upcoming play?"
"What play?"
"Where?"
"Are you an actor?"
"I LOVE theatre, you know! It's like my life!"
"They used to offer us free tickets sometimes."
"It's nice to meet you!"
"Let us know about the next one, too, okay?"
When I downloaded the photos from my camera to prove that the mission was accomplished, my chest welled with joy-- not just for being frugal or earning myself a classy evening, but for having encountered new people in the city. Maybe it's from growing up in a small town, but apparently something in me warms to knowing people (is it in everyone? I think not, for the millions who at least claim to crave anonymity in places like Manhattan.). I post about it because I was struck by yet another way of knowing a place. Not something I ever read about in community development strategies, but an "in" and an excuse for random interaction. Sure, not everyone was helpful or willing, but most were. As I tallied up my posted posters, it made a new kind of map-- a map of requests and transactions without money. A map of learning a place through a completely different lens.
Without a moment's hesitation, I will do this again. Who would have guessed that I would get to know shops and sidewalks around town in order to see classic theater for FREE? An all-around win!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Approaching the Night
San Francisco, United States
I walk through a park with my former American editor, John Loudon, and his wife, Sharon. We can see the city of San Francisco in the distance, illuminated by the setting sun.
Sharon wrote a book about a Benedictine monastery, and tells us that the afternoon prayers, called vespers, are songs of faith in the certainty that the night will pass.
- The vespers indicate the necessity we have to be near others at nightfall – she says. – But our society has forgotten the importance of this nearness, and pretends to greatly prize each person’s ability to deal with his own difficulties. We no longer pray together; we hide our solitude as if we were afraid to admit it exists.
Sharon pauses, before adding:
- I was like that once. Until one day I lost my fear of depending on my neighbor, because I discovered that he too needed me.
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