The days spent in Durham were bitter-sweet.  Any persons death is sad, and that of a sister is particularly dark.  People count and family members count most of all.

I delighted to see the resurgence of my hometown.  The medium sized, blue-collar town,  integrated into the tobacco farming rural counties when I grew up — is emerging as a twenty first century city.  The amenities and opportunities of a globally informed, diverse way of life are everywhere to be seen.

All of this has not come to pass without growing pains.  An acquaintance who has lived in Durham over the long term described the arc of development as twenty years in the old tobacco town that once was, then twenty years of decay, of delapidation as the old industry and main street shops receded — giving way to shopping malls, which in turn were disintermediated by internet commerce.  And now, — a twenty year phase of renewal.

The hallmark of the transformation is a revolution of diversity, the influx and contribution of individuals and communities of many racial and cultural heritages.  All contribute their realities to form a new Durham, a emerging city both like and unlike what came before.

We had dinner at Dames Chicken and Waffles on Foster Street. Then we walked along the pathway through the trees, along side the creek that constituted the public park, and the children’s play ground.  Restaurants, high rise condo-apartment living quarters, and play areas for parents with young children are all found with a few minutes walk.  Our wait person at Dames Chicken and Waffles was a delightful young woman from New York whose birthplace was Romania.  It was a pleasure to exchange brief conversation with her.  The outcry of the tobacco auctioneer in the old Foster Street warehouses has been replaced by the muted conversation of contented dining at eateries and bars.

In the children’s park we encountered a giant, stylized sculpture of a Cardinal.  The cardinal is the state bird of North Carolina.  The sculpture evoked the imaginative possibilities within the distinctive red feathered form of the cardinal.

Is not “civilization” the evocation of certain possibilities, those which we agree are worthy of celebrating?  These possibilities are codified by reason into the institutions and ways of life that we judge/accept as “normal.”

The sculpture is an act of the imagination as is the city of Durham in it’s present iteration.  The same can be said of past editions of Durham which survive only in the memory of those of us who lived in town in those times.

What is your point, I am sure that you are asking.

My point: the imagination is the precusor to reason, the creative energy which we share allowing us to evolve a commodious habitation for ourselves.  Let us celebrate, cultivate the imagination that is offered by our fellows.

And be wary, to resist the destruction of imagination by those who insist upon the solitude and terror and misery of their own misshapen insatiable ego.

Growing pains.