Retreat to Rydal

I helped lead a Pelumbra writing retreat recently, snug in a grand house of the English Lake District where Spring rain alternated with brisk sunshine, and a lively band of writers engaged with each other. Serious work occurred, but also walks, food, drinks, pub crawls, and a fitting injection of a little Wordsworth history. Led by an old friend, Jonathan Gosling, academics, novelists, and poets coalesced into a jolly little community, constantly shifting seats at tables during meals, crossing discipline lines and boundaries, and converging in a nearby, somewhat uninspiring meeting room (conveniently located next door to the beer/wine supply) after dinner, glasses in hand, and making it a happy place by their presence and conviving. 

Four days of pleasant labor passed swiftly, momentum reached impressive heights, products of these efforts became whole, and, mostly, a thriving community took care of its own. All the life emotions possible were explored from deep grief to great achievements, punctuated by daily poetry and wild swimming. 

Frankly, I was a little stunned and temporarily wordless - not necessarily a good thing at a writing retreat. The words eventually came, and I hope I helped a few trusting souls, but the thick magic of connections and caring startled. The WhatsApp group created before the event by Miriam Gage, the retreat manager, should have presaged what was to follow. Almost instantly, a week before we gathered, the travel planning and train meet-ups surged into existence. Total strangers, suddenly chatty, linked and met. During the retreat, there was no need for the digital tools, but once the departures began, mostly everyone started exchanging posts with each other, again. And so it continues, four months later.

I believe that covid hurt us badly, certainly with all the killing accomplished by that disease, but also with the fear it created that somehow we could or should no longer connect with each other. The strong hearts and brave creators who chose to convene in the damp English countryside, (perhaps within a zone of safety with a pandemic receding), connected and risked by laying their creations before their peers - while joyfully plunging into this community.  

We hope to try this again - this time in the changing colors of a Maine Autumn, somewhere in the foreseeable future. In these uncertain days, perhaps the best medicine will come from strong hearts and brave creators.

The Big Texas Freeze - Part 2...the birth of PUMAs

“Wicked problems” increasingly populate our so-called VUCA world, especially as the climate crisis unfolds. In the US, allegedly one of the most prepared for this onslaught because of large investments over long periods in emergency and crisis management, the evidence is not optimistic. In less-developed countries the outlook worsens.

In mid-February, 2021, most of Texas got very cold. Clearly, Texas became colder than anyone had previously planned for. State and county level government, together with many cities and towns, flailed and prevaricated. Communities and neighborhoods were largely on their own to cope or even to survive. Plainly, this was a disaster that required management, but it sadly did not work at extra-local levels, for numerous reasons.

Historically, in crisis management studies, this might be called a “complex emergency”, (though these usually feature a violence component, like war or a terrorist incident.) However, the actual response seems more distinctive and intriguing, particularly because the most useful areas of response came from below, from local sources, whether individual or organizational.

Local people realized no one was coming to save them, so they had to save each other. In numerous places, the coalescing of neighborhood efforts, often emerging from the actions of a single individual, virally extended through social media, showed a pattern. “Pop-Up Mutual Aid” resulted.

Hence, PUMAs.

What are PUMAs?

PUMAs are local, activist crisis responses initiated through social networks (having no previous existence), characterized initially (and perhaps long-term) by largely leaderless and locally-bounded networks solving a specific need with extensive communication (usually social media), which eventually fold when a need is met. Some form of cooperative decision-making emerges. However, the “organization” is specifically not sustainable because it is intended to stop and disperse at the end of the response; the mission is limited to one narrowly-defined task and nothing else. Management of funds is transparent, no overhead rates are involved, and no member receives compensation for their work.

PUMAs are NOT:

•          existing nonprofits carrying out their missions

•          existing nonprofits adapting their work to meet needs outside their missions

•          previous PUMAs which have ossified into nonprofits

•          for-profits serving their communities

•          government entities of any kind

If a PUMA pursues permanence after a crisis it ceases being a PUMA and becomes some other form of organization.

Example

A crisis hits and needs arise. Either someone begins to meet the need and posts or tweets what they’re doing, or someone posts or tweets the need and people start showing up and helping. Communication spreads through electronic means and the helping becomes a flat network, with individual decision-making nodes, generally doing the same things and constantly sharing information. When funds are needed, efforts are individually supported unless others outside the PUMA contribute but are not otherwise involved. Outside funds are tracked and spent through transparent mechanisms like Venmo. When the PUMA closes, leftover funds are given to other nonprofits. However, most contributions are in-kind, whether time or other resources.

More to come...

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Texas freeze mutual aid – Mother Jones

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The Big Texas Freeze - Part 1

With no storms in sight we innocently set off to Colorado for a family visit. When the date for a scheduled return arrived, we had a storm. Our route took us from Colorado, through New Mexico, then Texas, down the panhandle to the deep South.

Colorado and New Mexico seemed fine – cleared roads, gas available, bright sunshine, moderate (by CO/NM standards) temperatures. Even the panhandle wasn’t bad, though our hotel notices in Sweetwater warned of power outages (don’t get caught in an elevator) and pending water issues, including a coming mandate to boil drinking water.

Blithely we struck out the next morning – a jug of water from Walmart, four-wheel drive pickup, long-suffering wife, and faithful dog. But Highway 83, an aspirational interstate, now featured increasingly troubling wreckages – an inverted Penske rental truck, split-open campers, and jack-knifed 18-wheelers. Eventually merging on to I-10, this dystopian landscape only worsened. The bent and mangled tractor/trailer rigs became a regular and arresting feature of the route. But our day was sunny, and the roads were clear and dry. Entering San Antonio we encountered a bit more slush, but traffic was moving and we pushed on, 4-wheel drive churning through puddles. We had planned a brief stop at Costco, but as we coasted toward the off-ramp, San Antonio PD closed all “dangerous” freeways, forcing vehicles on to side streets. We stocked up at Costco, now adding two large packages of bottled drinking water to our five-gallon jug previously snagged at Walmart. We might run out of gas, but we would not die of thirst.

“Roaming outages”, a (new-to-us) Texas catchphrase, meant that the darkened traffic light system throughout San Antonio was basically not working for anyone. No blinking red lights, no cautious yellows, nothing but panicked Texas drivers stopping obediently, one car at a time, at every light, whether there was cross-traffic or not. Of course, all the cops were tied up ordering vehicles off the freeways, so there was no police activity directing traffic in the rest of the city, where the traffic actually now was.

In Maine, where we’re from, we have some knowledge of snow and power outages. Mainers tune into Central Maine Power on Twitter to determine how many days power will be out, start up the generators, and accelerate up snowy driveways in four-wheel drive, thus getting on with life.

So of course, we jumped on Twitter, now following San Antonio PD, San Antonio Emergency Management, and City of San Antonio.

Nothing.

Two hours later we finally departed San Antonio, sometimes taking up to 30 minutes to progress through a key intersection. Now realizing that “roaming outages” were a Texas euphemism for the absence of electricity, we guessed that no electricity could impact gas stations and their ability to pump gas. Seeing the lights on at one, we topped off, walked the dog, and set out for the Rio Grande Valley.

This was smart. As we progressed Southward down iconic Highway 77 we realized that every small town (and each local gas station), was dark. “Roaming outages” weren’t happening in South Texas, just total outages.

We made it home to a dark house and freezing temperatures. In Maine, we would have stoked up the wood stove, run the generator for an hour to keep the fridge cool, and lighted romantic candles and kerosene lanterns. In unprepared South Texas, we layered up, crawled under the covers with headlamps on, and strategically positioned the dog on the bed to provide max body heat. The next day, accessing amazon.com through our cell phone signals, we ordered a generator, propane bottles, and a Coleman stove, basic Maine survival gear.

Three days without electricity ensued. Stores had no milk, bread, nor eggs. Gas stations opened intermittently and lines of an hour or more formed to refuel.

The lights came on but Texans had suffered. As privileged and fairly prepared white folks, with cold-weather experience, we were “uncomfortable” but certainly never in any real danger.

Elsewhere in Texas, people died.

The lack of preparation, thought, and action at apparently every level and source that a regular citizen might expect help seemed to be absent. Most energy was directed to finger-pointing and blaming at various government levels.

The Big Freeze was certainly disruptive, but classic disruption management would posit a “return to normal operations” or something similar.

But with a dangerous new reality like this one, what’s the point?

The objective should perhaps reach beyond disruption management, and address the ability to survive and flourish in new dilemmas and drive response to the lowest and simplest levels, especially when the command and control systems fail in managing this disruption.