#newsamehope / 4.19.20

#newsamehope

What is new in the last 24 hours?
- A food pantry has opened in Wrigley Field.

What is the same?
- When I wipe down my screens with isopropyl alcohol, the smell transports me. I am 10, sitting on a length of exam table paper. I shift my weight slightly, and the paper noisily amplifies my movements as I wait for my booster shot.

What is the hope?
- In 2009 I interviewed 20 Grinnell residents about their works lives for a devised performance piece. Many of the generous interviewees lived in the Mayflower Retirement Community. After spending hours in conversation with folks, I was lucky enough to become friends with a number of people, including Art Heimann. (If you saw Clean Start, a number of the Maytag stories came from him. He worked for Maytag for 34 years, and served as Chief Manufacturing Engineer for 10 years of that time. “Old Lonely” was a nickname for the Maytag repairman, and he told me his job was “to keep ‘Old Lonely’ lonely.” We’d catch up at Saints Rest, where he’d regularly meet with his morning crew, before or after swimming, I can’t remember which. He always made time for me, and I looked forward to seeing him whenever I’d return to Grinnell after graduation, and I’ve loved him since I first chatted with him. I conducted my interviews at First Presbyterian Church, where Pastor Kirsten graciously gave me space to hold those conversations off campus. I’ve been tuning into Pastor Kirsten’s weekly Facebook Live services, grateful to hear her wisdom in this time, and I learned that Art was nearing the end of his life. This morning, I heard that he left this world after 98 years of curiosity, kindness, and friendship.

Because of the way we’re reconnecting the synapses of community, because physical distance is less of a barrier to sharing space, because we are building new rooms for gathering, I was able to learn about the end of Art’s life this morning and to have spent time thinking about him in the days leading up to his death. What is the architecture we need now? What are the new structures that we can and will construct to gather, to mourn, to celebrate, to process, to dream, to shift, to survive? What will our new house look like?

We are all architects now.

Rest In Peace and Power, Art.

Photo: Grinnell, Iowa. May 2014.