Change for the better

 

Read this first. If you have time, after that, you can come back to me.

So I live in one of the most impoverished areas in the US. We actually have shantytowns. Yeah, they're small, and don't compare to any third world nation, but they're there, and they're real.

But add that to the startling heat of summer and unbelievably depressing fog of winter (the only two seasons we have some years), and the area doesn't appeal to the mainstream citizen (mostly the undocumented, if you really want to know). And why is this? Because we're lame? No! Because we began as a haven for sharecroppers and gypsies? Why yes! And it continues today (If you need background, just read Steinbeck's East of Eden).

So here we sit, a hole of depression and poverty; a big hole that sucks up all the smog from everywhere else. Yup. It sucks. So what are we going to do about it? Can we bomb all the prisons we house? Nope. Can we make everyone ride a bicycle everywhere? Too late for that (blame it on suburban sprawl). Can we make people happier? Probably not.

But we can do something: We can stay. We can commit. We can say "no" when we're pressured, both internally and externally, to flee the hell we grew up in. We can deny our human need for beauty elsewhere, dig our feet in, and fight for beauty here. We can choose to not ride the coattails of others and benefit from the creativity and vision of those who inspire us, and choose to be leaders here, in our own communities. We can choose the thing that has been thrown away by so many before us, that has been trashed by the media from coast to coast. Yeah, we're the Appalachia of the West. Do we succumb to that title, or do we defy it? Do we, as the educated thinkers and dreamers of our communities, leave behind the people and culture that have shaped us and made us who we are; or do we commit to returning the favor and reinvesting in our cities and towns who need people like us, people who care, in order to change for the better?

I choose to stay.