When disaster comes, some of us will stand on / the rooftop to address the ghosts.
On a plane leaving Las Vegas, where the temperature hit 41 degrees Celsius, or just about 106 F. Thinking about why people live there, about why I enjoyed living there.
There are ways to live in the desert, and then there is the Las Vegas Strip.
On a plane leaving Las Vegas, thinking about the lessons of the conference I just attended, thinking about all the endless media hand-wringing about pipelines compared with the relatively under-appreciated emphasis on building benches.
Laughing about how easy it is to change the face (ahem) of a team or company when you have the support and resources to hire people who you know will challenge the status quo. Exchanging stories about how rare it is to find the boards or executives willing to invest outside the default. We trade names and experiences, we toast to the folks with the courage to be challenged, we discuss strategies for coping with everyone else.
“At least it’s a dry heat,” folks say, as they fan themselves with plastic and cardboard conference swag and maneuver for the shade.
On the Strip it is always whatever time you think it is.
Attribution:
When disaster comes, some of us will stand on the rooftop to address the ghosts. Some of us will hold the line. Some will look for the shards, run our tongues along the floor.
: : :
I say when like disaster hasn’t come, isn’t already growing in the yard. Do I have to run through the list? The firefighter prisoners—my friends’ islands slowly swallowed—war in my faucet, remember? Syria is the name of a drought. The name of this hurricane is Exxon, Exxon, I shout. I can pull as many weeds as I want. I stalk the garden pulling them, thirsty for the sound of their true names wrenching out of the soil. (Do I have to say it? They fly out of my arms.)
— from How To Let Go Of The World by Franny Choi