Living in the "Along"

Each June our team protects time for an annual staff retreat. It requires discipline to set time outside of our daily routines and normal ways of working. But the time matters - this year particularly. This year, we got back to basics - actually "doing" the public humanities together.

What do I mean by  "public humanities?" The humanities are all the things that make us human. In a school setting it means things like art, history, heritage, literature, dance. At Illinois Humanities the emphasis is on "public"  - people, together with others, being in community. When I say public, I mean that we center people's lives and experiences as the starting point rather than ideas, data, or scholarship in abstraction.

On the morning of our first day we used the "Illinois Mosaic" activity from our new Community Conversation toolkit with the theme (and the theme of the series): "A Place in the World." Senior Director of Programs, Robert White, and Director of Teaching and Learning, Rebecca Amato served as our hosts: they invited us to take turns reading the short story, 854130 by Juan Ugarte, out loud. They asked us questions: "What stands out to you? What did the object mean to the narrator? To his grandfather?" Together we began to notice details, connections, themes.

Then we were invited to share objects or memories that connect us to our sense of home. We paired up to talk about the objects. After the story, we paired up to share an object that connected us to our sense of home. One person brought in a childhood keepsake, another brought up memories of passed loved ones; I brought a piece of pink stuccoed adobe from my childhood home in New Mexico.

What does it mean to live in a town or neighborhood, perhaps for generations, while staying connected to the rest of the world? What does it mean to leave one’s home and create a new life in an unfamiliar place? How can we learn from our neighbors, welcome new ones, grow our understanding and perspective, and become more interconnected? 

By sharing our objects, we shared ourselves. By listening to each other our worlds simultaneously grew larger and smaller.  We created a moment in which we could just "be" - no news, politics, meetings, caregiving. It was as if we had gone on an actual journey to another place - just for a little while - and came back different than when we had set out.

When we stepped back to consider implications for our work with one another and with partners, we found new ways to be empathetic. Critical thinking, empathy, belonging. creativity, connectedness, justice. 

This is how it happens - by doing the public humanities.

If we don't make time and space to be part of these kinds of experiences, it can be very easy to lose our "feel" for it. Being human is a skill we have to practice with other people. Even our staff - a passionate group of people who spend their working lives trying to ensure this exact kind of opportunity is available to other people. Making and protecting space for this kind of thing doesn't only mean setting aside the news, meetings, politics, caregiving, scheduling and the rest. It also means being in the moment.

I needed it as much as anyone. I've spent the past 90 days in overdrive working to raise awareness about the impact of federal funding cuts on the public square [testimony to Springfield] (NEH, of course, but also cuts to the Institute of Museum of Library Science and the National Endowment for the Arts, Department of Education). I've been working in collaboration with my humanities council colleagues from across the country to strengthen our collective of 56 executive directors. And I haven't given up on trying to get our Congressionally appropriated Illinois funds returned to our state; last week I added my testimony to a national lawsuit.

But the most emotionally urgent thing I've been doing is looking ahead: what is the highest, best use of our time and resources in this moment? How do we make the most of who we are and the unique position we're in as the champion for our state's cultural ecosystem? What opportunities - especially ones that were unexpected or that we're in a position to shape - should we move forward with?

The invitations we are sending out are being accepted with an eagerness I haven't seen in my six years leading this organization: whether it is an invitation to come to a "People's Salon," or to apply to be a student in "Odyssey Project/Proyecto Odisea," to spread the word about the new cohort of "Road Scholars," or to contribute financially to making our work possible.

The energy of our community fuels me every day to make progress on our vision: we need to enable the public humanities in every one of Illinois' 102 counties if we are going to have a state that is creative, connected and just. As an executive director, I live in the future and design backwards. (I've been known to occasionally ungracefully "shove the future into the present.") But hustling, angling, and analyzing - at least for me - needs to be grounded in a deeply rooted sense of purpose. Our retreat rejuvenated my sense of purpose. It gave me a chance to catch my breath and live in what Gwendolyn Brooks called the "along."

I came upon Gwendolyn Brooks' "Speech to the Young*" in early June and I'm holding on to it tight.

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

For anyone reading this who may be feeling a little at sea or concerned about all of the things that feel beyond reach or beyond possibility, know that a little "living in the along" can go a long, long way.

*from BLACKS (Chicago, IL: Third World Press, 1991).