The Masons

I really appreciated Paula coming in to class on Monday; her intimate knowledge of Mart and the nuances of community revitalization was unique and interesting, and I was interested to hear what she had to say about identity perception and joint-effort facilitation. 

I don't know what I would do if I really had to answer the question of the Mason Meeting House, and I have great respect for the Paula and the people of Mart trying to come to a consensus. I understand how a physical building can seem so important, as if it is unfathomable to live without. My childhood home was the inspiration for many things in my life, including my career choice, and after we moved away from it, everything about it seemed perfect to me. Every house afterward, I compared to my first house, and all were found lacking. Of course, what I wanted the new houses to have were intangible, emotional connections that were improbable to replicate: that one memory of being woken up by the rising sun streaming through my window, that Christmas morning when we piled on the couch to see what Santa brought, those countless days of swinging from the treehouse onto the trampoline until it was too dark to see. In my mind, those moments and the physical characteristics of my old house were integrally linked. It may have been irrational, but it was definitely real. I wonder if that is how the Masons view their meeting house, if the memories and the actual building are so connected that tearing down the building would be like erasing the memories and rejecting the days spent within its walls. 

I think Augustin's group mentioned something about recording the stories and memories of the area, and I think that's a great idea, but what if they actually recorded the voices of the Masons telling stories and found a way to replay them in the halls? If the old stories were reverberating against the walls of a new building (excepting the secretive ones), maybe it would make the transition to a new building easier and less sad. It seems like the town probably has a lot of open, abandoned lots, so I would be wary to just make a park, but I feel like an intervention that is outdoor-focused and available to the community would be great. A place to gather, cook out, raise the kids, or simply pass the time together seems like something the town might enjoy, and while I know these ideas don't exactly address the needs of the Masons, they do address the presence of the community. It's a shame that it would be so expensive to repair the old building, but maybe with enough volunteer labor, recycled materials and funds from the greater Mason community, the Masons of Mart can meet in their old house again.