Arts Arcata with Dave Silverbrand

    This was my first experience going on an escapade led by my journalism professor, Dave Silverbrand. We walked along the perimeter of Arcata Plaza, dipping in stores in search of art and free food. There were musicians playing inside and out, both amateur and professional, from the fiddle to the ukelele. As our journey was coming to a close we had the pleasure of running into a mysterious woman with a type-writer who whips out poems for donations. She wrote a lovely poem for my friend Carolyna, who is a native of Ecuador. We decided the subject should be Carolyna's experience of coming to America, since she's only been here less then a month. Once she had a topic, the poem lady wrote in a flush of consciousness. The poem, which I included below, was astonishingly deep and moving.

_From there to here
is all polish and ocean,
all land and difference,
and yet as we always do
similarities are found
and the ground might feel
homelike to some small
extent, be it in the warmth
of embrace, the wholeness
of place turning from space,
or simply the snift in one
kind of wet forest to the
rest. It all comes together
as we do so well & full.

Here a woman performed her original songs on a ukelele while Dave Silverbrand filmed.

Here is the finished product, put together by Dave Silverbrand.