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Write Here. August 27. Earth Place

Earth is a place where we all live . How easy it is to forget the

importance of the land, trees, plants and creatures who reside

here. We are only visitors, yet the footprints we humans make,

may determine the outcome of all the inhabitants of this planet.

I was fascinated sitting here among the tall upright trunks and

canopy of leaves to learn of the connectiveness of trees.

(a gentle wind blows quietly through us and and the trees

joining us to this space)

It seems almost unbelievable that these stately trees are

connected to each other through an underground fungal network that

allows them to reach out , and care for each other. This is a perhaps

a lesson we all need to learn if this place of earth we call home

is to survive for future generations.

tk

“Westport musings”

You drive by, from one place to the next. As a long-time Westport resident, you know the shortcuts to your destination of the day. Only sporadically you pause to contemplate, to relish the many places in town, at least that’s what happens to me sometimes. Reconnecting with the town, through writing, offers an opportunity to reaffirm our desire to remain anchored.

The WriteHere idea was simple: Open to the community, participants were encouraged to unveil their writing creativity by connecting with our place, Westport.

Writing about life and experience in Westport led sometimes to dig into past memories that brought some nostalgia for the old Westport; other times to reflect on current town life, our hopes and sense of renewal.

The placemaking writing project leader was as bright as a bulb, as bubbly as fine champagne. She convened her cohorts of the day to quintessential community places where even town old-timers either had never been to or had visited those places a long time ago. Open to the whole town, some people joined, some others couldn’t. Regardless, her enthusiasm never diminished, the same caring and cheering for that one day, that one moment, that one place.

Inspiring places and settings were called on: Starting and ending with The Library. The Brick Walk welcomed us on a beautiful mid-day with a chorus of crows inspiring stories of the Saugatuck. The visit to an emblematic coffee-shop at our Saugatuck Train Station, part-taking doughnuts and coffee while some participants composed poetry, kids wrote or drew their story; while others wrote about their experiences as commuters or incorporated historic events after a great history lesson of the Westport railroad station. The visits to the police station and the firehouse showed us what community service looks like, filling us with gratitude, as evidenced by the writings. And the playhouse, ah… It inspired many wonderful stories that linked the playhouse to old times, to famous people in town, to the resilience of that little art-house to remain vibrant and spread appreciation for the arts and culture in town.

The writing sessions at the Dimes Marina, Compo Beach, and Longshore provided settings of bright sun and the summer taste of Westport

Using the Earthspace as our muse brought us in close contact with our environment, with earthly things, and inspired us to write about and connect with nature, recognizing the effort involved in preserving a healthy ecosystem. From our town’s environment and caring for the Earth, we focused our imagination on the space beyond – the Universe, the Cosmos. The Observatory visit reminded us how committed people keep our Town apprised of what lies in Space, the history of the place, and inspired writing about that part of science that makes children’s eyes widen in wonderment and excitement, and make us adults act like children. These and several other places visited define Westport, give it its character and inspired us to write and write.

WriteHere was a great idea that merits repeating. Thanks to the people who graciously invited us to the places visited. They radiated their devotion and enthusiasm to the cause of their place of work, shared their love for what they do, how they got there and showed us that they are people with a mission, worthy missions. …

Thanks, Jan for your indomitable enthusiasm, your ideas, your hard work. From constant reminders about posting our stories to carrying heavy shopping bags to keep us hydrated and munching on our snacks. I am pleased I had the opportunity to hear other voices, other stories, other experiences rooted in this place, Westport.

“Westport Skies” (Astronomical Society)

The Universe, encircling us, tranquil made of galaxies that are thousands, millions, billions of light-years away encapsulating a profusion of stellar events of swirling galaxies like our Milky Way and our neighbor Andromeda.

Galaxies in suspension, the calm after explosions, expansion, and contraction, where nothing is ephemeral, and nothing can be proved eternal. Where calmness is not stillness and faraway galaxies twirl in rhythmic gyrations, some stars dying, others being born.

The parts of the resplendent Cosmos that human intelligence and endeavor uncover illuminate our understanding of what is knowable, and it humbles us with its magnificence.

We are brought closer to the Firmament and we dream explorers’ dreams. Even as we discover ice water in our own satellite, the moon, explorers imagine breaking apart its hydrogen and oxygen molecules to convert them into rocket fuel. We discover gold and other metals and imagine how will we use it and who should claim ownership. And these imaginings are just about our moon.

We are barely grasping exploring our solar system, much less our galaxy.
And through the vast unknown we recognize the fragility of our earthling existence.

As the race for galactic discovery continues, a special kind of committed Cosmos-lovers come together to share their passion, wonderment, and knowledge with their local communities.
People who form astronomical societies like our own in Westport bring to us the marvels of the Firmament. Their service to the community is meaningful and invaluable.

LM

Westport

Now that Write Here Westport is ending, I feel regret that it is over. It has been a unique experience for me, not only because of its place-focusing design, but because it has opened my eyes to such a variety of facets of my town. I think back on where we’ve been this last month and the different relationships I have had with the places we visited. Some are today almost daily spaces in my life; the Y, the Senior Center, the Library – some are current but only on occasion; the Playhouse, Longshore, the Farmers Market and some bring echoes of a vital past; Earthplace (when it was the Nature Center), Compo Beach, Wakemen’s Town Farm – and there were a few first timers, even for me who has lived here since 1956; the police station, Toquet Hall, the Boardwalk at National Hall, the (Rolnick) Westport Observatory. All have given me a sense of place, but perhaps more importantly, it is the people who were present at each that leave the most indelible mark. I have a sense of Longshore but it is the words tumbling out in enthusiastic intensity about the Gatsby tie, that makes the strongest connection- or the policeman that started out a journalism major, and still brings strengths from that talent to his vocation for law enforcement – the head of Parks and Rec who fought a career that she brings so much to, the site supervisor at Compo whose background in marketing and policing helps to make us safe and welcome, the naturalist at Earthplace that traces her love of nature to a hummingbird’s nest, a town historian who was with us in a few sites and speaks his love of place in every word. Places and people, that’s what makes up my Westport now, my legacy from Write Here.

GRWM New language

Today Im going to start making a number language I think its going to be very fun I so Excited i think I know Just where to start Im going to write one of the Page's with the number and then what letter is means. So In my next articles Im Going to write down the numbers that mean the letter so me and you guys can speak the same Language, By the way the name of my new Language is called Cutemini Girl's.

Bye guys Hope you Enjoyed my Article's make sure to check out my other Article's
By: Alianna nelson

National Hall/Famous Artists School

When I was a child, my parents smoked. I, on the other hand, was the original nonsmoking campaign – damaging to health, yellowing the walls and curtains, that smell you just couldn't get rid of. I took a puff once when no one was looking. It was foul.

But one summer day, a friend and I found a book of matches. Inside was a simple drawing of a man's face and information on how to win an opportunity to become a famous artist. All you had do was copy the drawing, exactly as in the matchbook. My friend and I spent the rest of the day drawing. I wouldn't be confined to copying the silly head. I produced nothing to submit. She did version after version and decided to send one. She was accepted. While she never enrolled, she did become an artist — and a smoker.

Observatory

It rained the night I finally made it to the Westport Observatory. I’ve known it was here since it became the Westport version of what to do with an abandoned Nike site. I mostly forgot it was here after the kids left school. But now, because of ‘Write Here’ it is back in my life. Maybe on some super clear Wednesday I will make the effort to connect myself to the night sky – to squint into some version of what Galileo wrought – to expand my sense of sight – to catch a glimpse of a nebula – the surface of the moon -the milky way. To find out, once again, how miniscule I really am, how insignificant this world I live on really is, confronted by the vastness of the universe that is available by looking through the eyepiece of a scope, as long as it doesn’t rain.

Earthplace

She spoke of how she was moved to be a naturalist. a butterfly that gained his nectar from tree sap with the help of a bird. the trees that reach out to each other using tiny fibers of fungus to communicate and cooperate the hummingbird that builds his nest of lichen, human hair and spiderwebs What motivation more to direct your life? And what better place than this island of tranquility – this place where tree and vernal pool are given room – where woodland trails crisscross the lightly rolling hills – insulated from the affluence of suburbia. Here is a refuge, a safe and innocent spot the deer know all about (too many deer) who have devoured the understory, dispossessing native birds. So, here before our eyes and ears appears the fragile balance of the earth – here in Earthplace the balance exemplified, as we all hang on the thread of a spiders web.

Longshore

We were treated to an enthusiastic and personal history of Longshore and its and Westport’s involvement in the Gatsby-Fitzgerald era and the excesses of the turn of the century and twenties. I find that I am not impressed, but rather oppressed by these tales of the super-rich, they seem to hit too closely to what is going on these days. I know I am hopelessly middle class and the stories of fabulous parties where stagecoach hold-ups were staged importing real cowboys and native Americans, don’t astonish, just shout unnecessary extravagance, and self- aggrandizement. I have never considered that I might be part of this society and remember viewing the muck-e-mucks pictures in the rotogravure sections of my folks Sunday papers as if they lived in a different world. I am troubled, not amused by the spending that marched lines of circus animals down Compo Parkway for no purpose than the fact that they could – although I have the hypocritical feeling that if I was around those days, I would have noisily lined the roadside. The transformation of Longshore from a private kingdom to a public space rings truer to my heart. But even here; I have never learned to golf, my tennis days were gone long before I moved to Westport, and the lessons I learned at the Sailing School long forgot. Compo Beach has been my steady choice.

Theater

For me there is some special connection I have with live actors that is not quite there on a movie screen or TV. Ever since I could remember my mom and dad would make a point of going to Broadway, even in the depression when money was hard to come by. It was always worth being there even if it meant a trek to the second balcony for 55 cents or $1.10 – that was better than not going. That legacy left me, as I had a family of my own and moved to Westport, with subscriptions to the Playhouse in the summer, and Long Wharf in the winter. There is magic in these places. The whole experience; from the presenting of the ticket to the usher, the scrabbling across the early arrivals to achieve a seat, the scanning of the program for the promise of what’s to come, the thrill as the lights go down– the voice of the announcer welcoming and acknowledging, the hush as the setting becomes visible and the first actor begins to move. And then – not always, but if the skill of the wordsmith and the players touch me, I am no longer a part of an audience watching a performance – I am suddenly, unconsciously THERE. I have become part of the texture of what is happening before my eyes, one with the real people living the story unfolding around me – feeling what they are, caught in the magic. The applause is a transition and I gather up my things, not quite sure of where I am, only knowing I have been totally out of myself for a while, often with tears having left a trail I choose not to obscure.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019 “Historical Society”

It's crazy to think about how much of our memories are tied to the place that they occur. How that can effect what and how we remember? Each place that you go even a new place has a history of its own before you even set foot in there. What is that history? How do you connect to it? What are the parts that you find most interesting and engaging? Why this place and why now? What made you say today is the day I will go there? Now that you are here, you become a part of that place's history just as it becomes a part of yours. With each new piece of information you learn, you evolve into a different person. I have always been fascinated by what lies in the history of each place I visit. How it connects with what I am doing now? How are these artifacts presented here in such a way that they are a part of the past and the future?

August 21, 2019 – Westport Historical Society

“Place in History”

Looking at the past to understand the present. Yeah of course. Looking at the past to better understand it, as it illuminates the lives of past societies and communities, and how they impact and shape the present, yeah better.

The task of preserving knowledge about past ways of life, customs, how science developed, how technology evolved to meet the needs of emerging societies is fundamental to keep alive and explain the growing human imprint. From tools to spoons, to early ads, to powerful photographs – these products of history, representing a moment in time and place, convey but only a sliver of that one moment among many moments of people’s past. Objects tell us a story, the story we dare imagine of those times. What kind of people were they? Whose objects are the ones preserved? Whose objects were lost, and, along with with them, their stories? Are the stories of the surviving objects similar to those whose objects are gone?

Old photographs bring, for me, compelling stories as they show the people in their clothes of the era, their face and body expressions, the streets and houses of the era, the instruments of the era, the transport of the era, the other characters who complement that scene. All converging at that time, in that place, through that photograph…

LM-LM

August 20, 2019

“Ned Dimes Marina”

I can imagine this place 100 years ago, how it would look like. Bustling with some sailor or fishing activity perhaps? Or a sort of marshland, pristine and far from the activity of an era of growth and expansion.

Somehow, this place has stayed. In its permanence, it has adapted to change without losing that air, that air of “aah”, clean air, blue sky, sparkling water, tall grasses, and varied fowl.

This area of the coastline is, for me, very distinctive of Westport. I use it as my place to come and shoot photographs, particularly during sunsets. It is as welcoming in the summer as it is in winter when birds and snow merge against a horizon in palettes mutating from reds to pinks to blues, then silver and darkening purplish-lavender. The care put into the area attests to the recognition of the importance of open spaces where the community enjoys together, from the 4th of July celebration to regular picnics nearby, on Sherwood Island. Places like this make people sit back and relax. Just forget for a bit the tribulations of life and be grateful for the open space and natural views that remain.

LM-LM

August 16, 2019

“The Little Firefighter”

Like any normal boy, he dreamed of becoming a firefighter. The cartoons presented them as these real-life heroes who saved people from tall buildings, climbing on wiggly extended ladders, and those uniforms! They made the firefighters look super-human, bigger than they actually were.

As he grew up, his dreams and idealization of firefighters grew with him. They saved people’s lives and that’s what he wanted to do. He explored the options, but as time passed, he realized he was not going to be 6 feet tall, ever. One day, a firefighter went to his school to talk about safety and what firefighters did. He could not shake the vision of such an imposing man, with gentle eyes and a friendly smile.

He was supple, he was physical. He climbed rocks and had strength, but he did not feel like the picture-perfect of six foot or above. Nonetheless, he considered his options. He decided to give it a try. He went through grueling training, surprising everybody with his agility and impressive strength to carry heavy loads despite his short height. His strength and willingness were noticed by his trainers and training peers.

Against all odds, he passed all the required tests and exercises. Once he hit the ground, he ran! He was exposed to real-life life-saving deeds and he found his niche among his company. He was the expert crawler, going into tight spaces carrying heavy loads. He furrowed through old buildings with hidden spaces as if going through the underground tunnels of fighting soldiers, with a mission.

In the end, he was a member of the company bringing his own qualities, his capacity to twist his body in tight spaces, to go as high as possible, to almost fly on roofs and still carry heavy loads. All this, regardless of his height. Having conquered this world, he felt super-human!

LM-LM

The House

A building is a funnel, a telescope, a microscope, leading to a world, or many worlds. The Historical Society house is one obvious pathway to myriad stories/places/lives in Westport, throughout Connecticut, or across America.

Every building is a doorway to the past, of the area and the people and objects and animals. A doorway to the past -the good times, the bad times, the families and incidents and events.

But, perhaps this gateway may be seen as a portal from the past to the present – and even into the future. We are all products of our environment, and the house is probably the most significant manifestation of our memories of our past. And how then could it not play a major role in formulating our present (and future)?

Think of that the next time you remember the house.

Thank you to Carley, at the Levitt Pavilion, Lt. Anthony Prezioso, representing the Westport Police Department and Firefighter's Lt. Nick Marsan and Michael Grasso at Westport's main fire station, for welcoming WestportWRITES participants so warmly, sharing their own stories and graciously listening to ours. For all that you do: Thank you!