It’s a lovely thing, living in a town that’s small enough, at a pace that’s slow enough, that you can come to know your neighbors and what they’re really up to.

Suzanne is collecting coats to send to a reservation out West. The winter has been so cold and the poverty there is so extreme. And as she says, who doesn’t have a coat in their closet that they don’t wear all that often. She’s sent five boxes so far. She’s thinking about books next, because they don’t have enough books in their school libraries. And we have books by the truckload. Oh, said someone, they’ll be expensive to ship. Could they be more expensive than hungry minds? Probably not.

It was wonderful to talk to her and to hear not only what she’s doing, but why. To begin to understand what moved her heart and then moved her to action. It is good to sit with someone who is moved to action, even when they’re actions very different from ours, you understand the movement and it encourages your own. Hearts on the move toward Peace. However small the movement, however small the Peace. It’s what we need.

But living la vida local is also about the dailiness of life. And so, in Suzanne’s beautiful room, on a bluff high above the river, we sat as the day lengthened into evening talking about Big Hopes and little ones, her painting and my writing, people we knew and loved… just two women, living la vida local, doing the best we can, loving the community, and enjoying our lives to the fullest.

There we were: finding the moments, enjoying the Peace and the connections that’s already here, and then going back to work.