BRATTLEBORO — There's still poop dust all up and down Frost Street. You'd think the rain would have washed it away, but all it does is pack it down so it doesn't blow away, so that next time the sun comes out it can dry up again and mosey on right through your window every time a car rolls by.
That's Brattleboro. It's a bizarre, dirty old town where the most expensive restaurant can sit right across the street from an unfinished house where fights break out every weekend and mattresses sit unused on the porch all summer long.
But right up the street, there sits a bright little café full of life and art, where the strange took over and opened the doors for everyone and said, “Look! We aren't to be feared. We are beautiful, and you are too.”
All of this sits within literally 30 feet of each other, at the most, and I know you've been there, because that's how Brattleboro works.
You walk through it on your way to work, you drive past it going to the bank, and sometimes you live right in the middle of it.
Sometimes it scares you, it jumps out at you and growls with fire in its eyes and murder in its teeth, and it makes you see threats where there are none, so you hide your eyes and you ignore the real problems: the threats and the trash and the ruin.
Sometimes it grabs you with its greedy paws and keeps you, never allowing you to leave or grow up.
Sometimes, though, it saves you.
Sometimes it sheathes its horrible claws, and it holds you and shows you beautiful things and amazing people that you would never see anywhere else.
It brings you up to the top of its roofs and its towers, and from there you can't see the ruin and you can't feel the dust in your teeth, all you can see is the shine of the people and all that they create.
Sometimes you need to hold onto that.
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But the thing that really sets you apart, citizens of Brattleboro, is that everything you see, from the smear to the shine, is yours.
You can blame the Selectboard, you can blame the cops, you can blame the dirty kids on Flat Street, but just as much, you have to blame yourself, because the town is yours, and everything you do or say or write or don't do affects everything just as much as it affects you.
We're too small and too close for you to be thinking that you can't.
Now, go get things done.