On Soledad Street

As of this writing, I'm currently residing at Holden Village, a remote community in the mountains of Central Washington. I want to clear a bit of a narrative backlog (blog backlog, a clog, a bog) before I tell you about that, but if you need to know more about Holden right now, well, here's the website.

The events described in this post take place December 12-17, 2011.

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THE first time I set foot on Soledad Street, I'm scared. All those signals that I'd been taught mean this is the wrong part of town are clearly visible: run-down and boarded-up buildings, lifeless graffiti, dingy people slouching on the sidewalk wearing unfriendly expressions, or inappropriately friendly expressions, or no expressions.  There are makeshift tents and shopping carts laden with personal collections of things.  Occasionally, a really nice car cruises down the street, pauses for a minute or two while holding a brief exchange with someone on the sidewalk, and then disappears. My internal alarms are blaring: Get out of here. Get out, now, it's not safe, go.

But I'm here with the Companions, and we're going to Dorothy's Place.