This past summer, my husband and I took a trip to the American Southwest to see and walk national parks on a visit we’d each spent our whole lives imagining.
So much was memorable. One experience in particular rocketed me right back to the corner of Sloan and Mock. During our visit to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, we watched We Are Grand Canyon, a moving video produced by members of the 11 aboriginal tribes that call the Canyon home. In it, the power of place surfaces again and again as critical and meaningful grounding for our sense of self and community.
At one point in the film an elder urges visitors to sit quietly with the landscape, to take in its features, its colors, its sounds. “This isn’t like the movie Vacation where the family pulls their car up to the rim, piles out, looks down, and then jumps in the car to go to the next place,” he advises. Unhurried and purposeful reflection, he reminds us, is where the magic lives.
As we sat, watching in that darkened theatre, I couldn’t help think about the power that I feel all around me when I sit to work on the front porch at 220 Sloan. This neighborhood is a through-line to history, culture, and individual and shared stories that are different than my own, even as they shape my own. It stands as witness to the things that divide us and the things that unite us. And it places each of us in a timeline that extends far behind us and far ahead of us.
In the weeks that spooled out after Dave and I returned from our trip, the Davidson community stepped up, as it has time and time again on behalf of affordable housing. Our Raise the Roof campaign, pulled in just under $43,250 in individual donations for our capital improvements projects at The Bungalows and surpassed any previous spring/summer fundraising effort. With that money, we will continue to update appliances, repaint interiors, spruce up exteriors, and replace HVAC components and water heaters as needed.
As critical as those repairs and updates are, the story of affordable housing in Davidson has never been just about the structures we build. It is about the neighborhoods we create and the lasting impact they make. It’s about how we respond to each other as neighbors who are bound together, ever by proximity, if not always by circumstance.
None of us is simply passing through here. We leave an impact on the people and spaces around us that either builds them up or tears them down.
The choices we make shape and amplify the power of this place. If you’ve made a contribution, thank you for choosing to being part of the magic.
In the quiet moments, it is a privilege to bear witness.
PS
Your chance to keep on dancing with US is just a month a way! Mark your calendars: our Fall Block Party storms the corner of Sloan and Mock on Thursday, November 6 from 5-7 pm!