Village Life: No boundaries for fear–A tale of two Flints
By Melodee Mabbitt On Halloween, I’ll have lived for 10 years in my house in the East Village, or what my mom referred to as “management’s neighborhood.” I recently tried to explain to someone in the neighborhood how different my life was before I came here, when I lived on Bennett Avenue and later on M. L. King. I tried to explain the first violent crime I’d witnessed, and then the next one. I don’t even know if I got them right. Was...
Village Life: The Flint River dumped us, but we got a story (or two)
By Jan Worth-Nelson I told Sarah Carson the river would give us solace—that was how I talked her into it, for my part always wanting an accomplice in my adventures. Two writers who revel in sedentary hours alone. Two writers—one young, one old—rampantly hopeful but almost comically expecting the worst. Two writers who’d never been in a tandem kayak together on an end-of-summer Wednesday. What could go wrong? Ha ha! Here’s the...
Village Life: In LA or Flint, tai chi yields gifts of challenge, elation, peace
By Teddy Robertson “Breathe from the diaphragm,” says Beverly, my tai chi instructor. “Clear your mind; try to go slowly,” she reminds us before we begin. We never go slowly enough. We stand in two rows in a large room, the dining hall in a senior center. Some wear the thin-soled martial arts slippers that help in tai chi’s turns and kicks, glides and slides. Through its floor-to-ceiling windows a hummingbird jabs at the orange and...
Village Life: A tale of two signs on the “Eastside” of Flint
By Gary Fisher They’re just metal street signs. Been there for years, decades, a very long time, after all. There they are perched at the top of a standard street sign pole. Nothing to see here, folks. Or maybe there is. Well at least for me there is. That’s because sometimes street signs aren’t just street signs. Sometimes they are so much more. Those two signs were the literal and figurative signposts of not only my life, but also...
Village Life: 85 tubas and a corny sing-a-long one secret to holiday cheer
By Jan Worth-Nelson Let’s face it–you can’t not smile when singing “Jingle Bells” with 85 tubas as your back-up group. I love Tuba Christmas, in all its kitschy Baby Jesus/Virgin Mary/Hark the Heralds/Deck the Halls tradition, staged every mid-December in the atrium of the Flint Farmers’ Market. The gaudy brass of the sensually fat horns reflects all the other colors around it. The booming bass...
Village Life: Of elusive joy, lamentations and “wanton love”
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sometimes you have to fight for joy. At a recent East Village Magazine party at my house, wine flowed and four kinds of pasta from Flour and Eggs, comfort food extraordinaire, disappeared in thick hunks from trays on the big table, two extra leaves put in for the occasion. I’d put up some colored lights and we toasted to neighborliness and the power of words. It was a happy night. But as we jovially...
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