There are so many ways to work in this world. I was reminded of that last night while attending a shiva for a friend's son who died recently in Washington, DC. He was an alumnus of the Jewish Service Corps, Avodah, where he worked with its partner organization Bread for the City.
Although my friend's son cared deeply about politics and systemic problems, the stories shared last night painted a picture of a young man who worked through personal relationships. He cooked, and he read, and he listened, and through small daily actions, he created a network of people whom he inspired every day to make the world just a little bit better.
Tikkun Olam, or "repair of the world" is not accomplished through revolutions. Instead, it is a way of life that rests on the simple precept that building beautiful things is never complete, because things can always be more beautiful (until the world is made so whole that it disappears entirely)...
This is the spirit that pervaded my experience of the 2024 LEAD conference held in Seattle, Washington, at the beginning of August.
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| Me at the Chihuly Museum in Seattle |
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| The Space Needle from Below |
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| The Seattle Public Market |
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| Looking east from a park near the harbor |
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| A barge on the harbor, early morning run |
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| &... |
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| View from the harbor ferry to Bainbridge Island |
The acronym stands for "Leadership in Arts and Disability" but the focus of the conference was oriented more toward accessibility than compliance. I've never met so many people in one place who share a more similar goal: making experiences available, enjoyable, and meaningful for all. The crowd was neither naive nor monolithic. Some people were focused on legal requirements, while others imagined radical alternatives. People with the same types of disabilities often had sharply differing preferences. For example, after attending a session in which blind consultants advocated for audio descriptions rich with identity-specific context, I sat next to a blind accessibility consultant who laughed when I described myself as a short 40-year-old white Jewish woman with curly brown hair with silver highlights. He shook my hand and then said, "what I will remember about you is your cold fingers and the somewhat reticent pressure of your handshake. I don't know why sighted people always insist on describing the color and texture of their hair."
The last session of the conference offered a menu of debrief activities. I chose "zine making" specifically to push my boundaries and go outside my comfort zone. My creation made ample use of fabric, markers, "magnetic poetry" index cards, and magazine cutouts. I present my "zine" in a photo collage below.
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| Layers... |
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| Support |
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| Commit |
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| Decide |
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| Together, Intersectional |
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| Center Your Audience: Offer Options, Don't Wait, Listen & Learn, Don't be Afraid |
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| A smiling (40-year-old white Jewish) woman with curly hair blown by the breeze, wearing sunglasses, a turquoise poncho, and an agate necklace, on the deck of the Bainbridge Island Ferry, August 3, 2024 |
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