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Community Meetings are the part of my job that simultaneously get me the most excited and the most nervous. I go in with all sorts of competing flutterings in my tummy. I have this strong background in community work and this major desire to work with and for and in the community around me so I get a little thrill just attending public meetings where the community has its voice, where the everyday citizen gets to stand up for what they love about their community and what they fear is threatening that. It’s supposed to be a place where every voice is equal and where collaboration and the common good reign. (Not that it always works that way!?)

Now what gets me to almost dread these exact meetings is that when we’ve worked so hard, so long and with so much heart on a project, it is a very intimidating, and somewhat nauseating prospect, to someone so terrible at confrontation as I, to walk into a public workshop where no one knows the hours you spent thinking about the design of a project, the thought you’ve put into how it blends with the surrounding neighborhood, the care you’ve taken to preserve all the trees possible, the balance you strived for between density and livability, the struggle to reconcile what you believe is smart and healthy design with what a city ordinance dictates for us to do, and the ideal-killing realities of budget you’ve swallowed. Too bad we can’t wear our hearts on our sleeves.

And that’s the other thing I hate about these meetings. I hate how insincere we inevitably sound saying that “we really care” about this neighborhood. The first time I went to one of these meetings, I had a horrible stomach-dropping moment of “Oh wait, I’m suddenly that guy! The guy everyone else sees with dollar signs eyes and no consideration of the individuals that actually live here.” And it’s true- we don’t live in this particular neighborhood. I just google-mapped it, as the car drives, I live precisely 4 miles from this project. That’s not exactly my backyard, and that’s why it is absolutely essential to have this feedback from the immediate neighbors of our project. But at the same time, there is a definite attachment and personalization, an investment of self, that comes in focusing on pulling all the right elements into this little corner of a neighborhood and creating a wonderful place for people to live that is not always evitable on your face.

I guess simple humility, flexibility and strength-of-stomach are the key to letting the excited butterflies win out.

Vanessa