what happens when you come back empty handed? | w[h]m pt.6

I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I would receive upon returning to South Bend for Best. Wednesday. Ever.

When I first came into town riding on the wings of an exciting new project, I was afforded all of the hospitality and curiosity available in that Midwestern community — yes, that’s a lot of hospitality. Homes and offices were opened to me, city leaders met with me on a whim, and, in a short period of time, I felt fully embraced, integrated and included into an unmistakably proud and rapidly revitalizing Rust Belt city.

Could I honestly return empty-handed three months later and expect to pick up where everything had left off in March?

There are plenty of communities existing on the margins in this country that have ample experience with the fly-bys and broken promises of politicians, storytellers. and other enterprising outsiders - South Bend is no different. Places that serve a purpose when it is convenient or opportunistic, when someone can gain some political points or be the conveyor of some voyeuristic narrative. It was my crippling insecurity that I was perpetuating this cycle of extraction and inadvertent harm in not fulling the promises and expectations that I had originally set. It is a looming concern I still hold today in even venturing to tell this story.

As I had recently purchased and began storing a tent in my car, I had timidly planned to camp somewhere outside of South Bend on Tuesday night before heading on to Chicago that Wednesday night. Despite knowing people who would gladly house me in town, it was my apprehensive way of acknowledging the uncertainty, my way of ensuring that I had a way out. That was until a local community leader turned valued friend, Willow, offered for me to spend the night on her living room couch. Especially since she had messaged me within 24 hours of initially meeting, stating, “But seriously, don’t f*** this [project] up”, I couldn’t turn down her hospitality.

I pulled into town late on Tuesday night, weary from a week on the road. Willow was there to meet me, but she was spent and in maintenance mode from her demanding double-life as a single mother of three and highly-visible, often over-committed local community leader. We briefly greeted each other and then retreated in search of a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, we were able to find a couple hours to catch up over breakfast at her kitchen table. Even though we had known each other less than a week during my month in South Bend, we had kept in touch and quickly grew to deeply appreciate each other as friends and peers. I think something that I couldn’t anticipate from my journey is the relationships that it allowed me to form with brilliant, intentional and deeply committed people all over the country. Willow is one of them.

I bought a small sticker from The Willow Tree Coffeehouse & Music Room in Johnson City and gave it to Willow as a gift that morning. Not just because it was her namesake, but because the sense of community that space held for Johnson City reminded me of the sense of community Willow offered in South Bend.

The Willow Tree also reminded me a lot of Zen Café & the LangLab in South Bend - they were both cornerstones of convening, integration and exchange as vital third spaces in their respective communities. From breakfast at Willow’s, I actually headed to Zen Café because I wanted to pay homage to the role it had played in the last year of my life as the place where I had met with Jacob at the end of 2018 and seeded the inspiration for my pilot project.

As of the publishing of this post, The Willow Tree has permanently closed down due to the pandemic. My heart hurts thinking about the vital role it played as a safe, inclusive and cultivating space for different minority groups, from the people of color to the LGBTQ community, in that rural-adjacent part of Northeast Tennessee.

After reflecting and appreciating the circuitous nature of life over my coffee at Zen, I traveled a few blocks towards downtown to try to catch up with Jacob, Helen, Dustin, Maria, and whoever else might be working their Wednesday away at Vested Interest - the space where I worked and interviewed the majority of my South Bend participants. Dustin and Maria, the co-founders of INVANTI, were out, but I Jacob and Helen would be there. When I arrived, they took a few minutes to tie up what they were doing, then we ended up convening inside the recently-vacated and currently-renovating former public access television studio as the then Co-Founders of Tutt and Carroll shared their progress and vision for it.

The conversation began with gusto, but didn’t take long to feel lackluster. In all likelihood it could have just been my original paranoia of returning empty-handed manifesting within me, or their work preoccupying them, but it felt like there was a lot unspoken between us, specifically an apprehension of why I had returned to South Bend with nothing to show for the time, effort and hospitality they had offered me there.

About 15 minutes in, the conversation waned. I decided to acknowledge my perceived imposition and leave. We feigned plans to rendezvous at Best. Wednesday. Ever. later that day, but I think those intentions were little more than Midwestern pleasantries. The guilt of perceiving that the people who had once embraced me were disappointed by me upon my return weighed heavy on me as I left.

I think in this case that was especially because why [here] matters, both the project and my company, would not exist if it weren’t for Jacob’s personal encouragement and introduction to his community of peers when I showed up out of the blue in South Bend months prior. I don’t know if I ever explicitly shared this with them, but the work that his crew collectively does - from podcasting to graphic design to events to branding & storytelling - is what I hope would exist and be led locally in every small city across the country. I have an unparalleled respect for the way that they participate in and substantially contribute to their local community. The same goes for Dustin and Maria, who co-founded an innovative, yet community-integrated startup incubator, INVANTI.

…from Vested Interest, I went to the Purple Porch to enjoy a scrumptious, yet solitary lunch buffet before heading over to Western Avenue for Best. Wednesday. Ever., where the answer to my question awaited.