Festival days

The weather had finally lost its post-storm humidity, there was a cool breeze blowing through and a kind of springlike warmth. The perfect kind of day for enjoying the park. The fair had come up in Yalsnag park almost overnight and the whole and everyone from 2 towns over had come out to enjoy the weather.

Elaina’s office had been instrumental in organizing the fair, while for everyone else things had come up overnight, Elaina had been working tirelessly with Jenna her new intern to get the fair in order. A lot of the work she had needed help with was to get her team to do the work they needed to do, and Jenna was able to take over a lot of the smaller paperwork things that had been driving her crazy before.  

All in all, she thought that things had been successful. The city rec center was premiering a bunch of new programs, there were tons of new paths all though Yelsnag for running and biking, and she had Jenna work with their business liason Alex to bring in food vendors for the fair who would rotate in and out of the park.
Still, everything wasn’t quite settled. She had started looking at those job sites again now that Jenna had helped free up some of her time. From time to time the same unsettled feeling she had a few months ago would creep back in. That if she worked just a little harder she could get hired again in one of those big cities, with big award-winning projects. Most of the time within half an hour she would shake it off and turn her focus back towards the fair and all the other projects she was working on.

Now looking around at all the payoff from the work she’s been doing, Elaina smiled to herself and within 3 minutes of walking around the festival, she knew she wouldn’t need to worry about being in too small a pond. There was always more she could work on, more things she could improve, and now she didn’t need to worry about what could be.

Ice cream carts and inboxes

A couple of weeks after the start of her new project at the City Planner, Elaina was losing

a bit of steam. No one in town was really approaching the potential for storm repairs and city

improvements and creating a balance between aesthetic and function. She missed the vigor

that people went about City Planning when she lived in New York, where people just felt the

need and energy to move quickly. Here in Pointe Place, there was none of that speed. As much

as she tried to tap into those sentimental small town feelings, it was tricky when she was trying

to get these projects off the ground.

Suddenly, from the window in her apartment living room where she sat hunched over her

laptop working on editing the proposal that her teammate Zach had sloppily put together and

needed to be submitted to the country as soon as possible, there was a sharp green light. It

flooded the entire room casting everything in an almost ethereal glow. Guessing that she

probably should pull herself away from her work and investigate since there was no way that

such a light was insignificant, she grabbed her jacket and wandered outside.

Once she got out on to the sidewalk she took a look around, everywhere she turned

things were popping up seemingly out of nowhere. When an unwieldy ice cream cart popped up

right in front of her path causing her to almost trip she decided to slow down and turn an ear to

the conversations around her. After listening in for a minute she realized that the objects

popping up were people’s wishes.

Elaina knew immediately exactly what she needed to wish for. The thing was it was a

little bit complicated, not like the simple ice cream cart that the kids seem to be demanding en

mass. Saying it out loud but under her breath, she raced back inside opened her laptop and

checked her email. Nonetheless, in her inbox 3 unopened messages laid the subject lines

reading “intern application”.

And Nevermind

Elaina had been in a mostly good mood lately, she had gotten to lead some projects at work, and finally was feeling excited about things again. Not everything was perfect though, her boss was still stepping on her toes on an almost daily basis. Not only that but the mayor’s office seemed reluctant to get some of the ideas they had agreed on started. It was frustrating and put a damper on her new found enthusiasm, but on the whole, she could feel the new possibilities and excitement that had come with the whole new leaf kick she was on.

 Despite the fact that it was Saturday, she wanted to continue the productivity from the week. She has some massive grant application to fill out for Yelsnag park and wanted to get a head start so they were ready to submit by Monday. Back when she was living and working in New York she would frequently go to work in the library and when she first had arrived in Pointe Place it had been a popular spot for her as well. She decided to get out of her apartment coffee shop usual working spots and backed her laptop and headed to the library.

 When she got to the library it was shockingly crowded, this is weird she thought to herself. She looked around and saw a few giant TED signs and a crowd of people heading into the main atrium. She had work to do, but this seemed like something she should check out, she let the crowd carry her inside and took a seat. The speaker turned out to be Ryan Lochte, not the most exciting to Elaina. The swimmer had had a couple falls from grace and now he seemed to really have gone astray given that he was at a tiny TED conference in a tiny town, insignificant to say the least. He started talking and talking and talking, and Elaine found herself zoning in and out of the discussion. At one of the moments where she was actually tuning in, she heard something that was kind of interesting.

“Here’s the thing guys, even if you are a titan of your field, people fall off the path all the time, but you know what you gotta do, you just have to keep moving, keep doing stuff, it doesn’t matter what stuff, but you just have to keep doing something.”

 That’s actually a good point Elaina started thinking. She kept listening.

“I mean you can take that from me look at my story, I never stop doing stuff, I’m a prime example of this, and look at how successful I’ve been, a much more American swimmer than some other people.”

And there it goes though Elaina, she let herself zone out again.

Fresh start

Elaina surveyed all the damage as she made her commute home from work the next day. She saw plenty of neighbors trying to get their affairs in order from the storm, taking pictures for insurance, clearing away branches, working together to push cars over to the junkyard. As sad as it was, and as many people as had been hit, there were few truly horrible casualties. Any injuries were minor, people had places to sleep, the power had come back online relatively quickly. The work part of Elaina, as disillusioned as she had been lately, was buzzing with all the potential projects that such a fresh slate after the storm presented. She and Joseph had done quite a bit of brainstorming in relation to Yelsnag Park, and that was just the beginning of the changes that Elain could see. In that moment, Elaina did something different that she had done since she had moved to Point Place. For years she hadn’t taken advantage of the wave of energy that came from having an exciting idea, instead, she had let it come and go. This time she noticed the uptick in brainstorming, the nagging at the back of her head to write it all down before she forgot. She made it home, and before even taking the time to make coffee, take off her makeup, or anything besides open her laptop. She started typing away writing down all her ideas, making to-do lists, starting proposals. She didn’t stop until she looked up and saw that it was 3 am. She was both surprised and happy, she was tired in the way that you were after working extra hard, not the same listless caffeine driven day she had been having. The next morning, Elaina woke up with unusual vigor. Checking her computer to make sure that god forbid all her work from last night hadn’t deleted, she skipped her usual job site scrolling and instead sent an email to her boss, asking if they could talk for a bit that morning. Gearing herself up as she went about her morning, getting ready, driving to work, and walking in the building, she thought back to those cheesy dove commercial ad of the woman in the bathroom hyping herself up before asking for a raise. Taking a deep breath she walked and said “Good morning Mr. Anders, I have an idea I want to run by you.”

Postcards

Elaina smiled as she walked through downtown, she was happy to have gotten out early from work.
The weather was in that perfect pre-storm perfect phase. Where the breeze was cool, but not cold,
and strong enough to blow your hair. The clouds were coming in but before the sky was angry
and purple. She had seen something about a hail storm coming in this week and it was painfully clear
that it was on its way. As glad as she was for the weather, she knew that it meant that she wasn’t going
to have one of these perfect walks in a while.

As she enjoyed the small town beauty of being able to reach Yelsnag park in a hop skip and a jump,
she noticed that Joseph seemed to be walking around enjoying the weather too. Feeling sappy about
the whole small town life, she decided to stop and say hello. After some small talk about the weather
and much-needed improvements for the Park, getting her wheels turning on all the possible projects.

The weather seemed to have no appreciation for maintaining Elaina’s good mood. As always is
inevitable with the perfect pre-storm weather, it came crashing down with an epic hail storm. Elaina
and Joseph started running for shelter at the abandoned night guard shelter. As they ran, they noticed
Mr. Po asleep on a nearby bench. Joseph nodded over at him and together they ran and grabbed him
and took him along with them.

After settling in underneath the shelter they started talking to Mr. Po about him and his life, eventually,
they landed on his experiences as an immigrant. He talked about feeling so alone in America
sometimes, which surprised her a little. Especially since her parent immigrant experience involved
a whole network, with almost all of their siblings having come to America over the years.

Mr. Po began talking about how he couldn’t write because he had left in the midst of conflict, it
hadn’t even been a decision to leave like her parents. He was lucky to have gotten here in the first
place, let alone keep a network of loved ones. As she got back in her car post hail storm, starving
from hiding out in the night guard shelter, but feeling strangely sentimental.

Leftovers for breakfast

Elaina took leftovers our of her fridge from dinner at her parent's house last night. The convenience of homecooked food just 10 minutes across town was hard to resist when you still really hadn't gotten the hang of cooking for yourself at age 31. Still, it was going to help her get out the door on time, way more so than stumbling through eggs.

20 minutes later, she was on her way to work, in fact, she was early. Shocked by this she reached the parking lot, and a wave of sadness came over her as she remembered that this was the place where Mr. Evans had died, causing all of the hubbub the other day. She hadn't known Mr. Evans well, but then she didn't know too many people in her building very well. Maybe she should start to fix that.

Deciding to take advantage of her early timing that morning, and not wanting to spend any more possible time in the office than was strictly necessary, she decided to pop into Jumping Beans for what she promised herself wouldn't be a coffee.

As she walked across the street to get to the shop, she noticed things were a little more busy than usual, maybe everyone was feeling the same sentiment of wanting to find connections in the wake of Mr. Evans death. She saw Coco, the women always talking to Georgie, walking towards Cece's, an odd choice for the morning she thought. None the less, she was feeling an openness to her, so she called out a "Good morning,"

What she got back was an "If you say so," called over the shoulder. Seemingly harsh, but still there was a small smile there, that made Elaina a little more optimistic about the day.

The day started with...

The day started as usual with coffee as usual. Elaina probably went through too many cups
in a day, it was a habit she had developed in college. When she was studying for her urban
planning degree, she hadn't done the best of managing her time. She had always been busy
though, and caffeine fueled many sessions of "writing a 10 page paper in one sitting." Now,
coming up on 10 years later, she was significantly less busy. The coffee buzz that came from
5 cups a day was most certainly unnecessary for searching job sites followed by 8 bland hours
of coordinating street signage.

Elaina was completely zoned out mindlessly scanning job sites featuring city planning jobs in New York and Chicago. In the back if her mind she was thinking about the time back when she had been in one of those jobs. Fresh out of school, she had gotten a job in Chicago, working on implementing micro-parks. Now on the other hand, she was back in her parents town, working in her cubicle on the fourth four of the public works building. At least she wasn’t living in their house, she hadn’t fallen that far down. They still always wanted her to be dropping by, and called her an absurd amount when she saw them 4 times a week at a minimum.

Pulling her out of her thoughts, Elaina’s phone rung. She looked down, first seeing it was her
mom, then looking at the time, seeing it was already 7:20 and she needed to get going. There
was no way she couldn’t answer the phone though. Elaina answered sounding way more
hurried than she had been for the last half hour.

“Hi mom, what’s going on, I need to get to work,” Elaina said all in one breath.

“Good morning darling,” her mom responded, clearly ignoring her tone. “I just wanted to remind
you that your amme is coming for dinner tonight, and tell you I’m making zoolbia-bamieh.”

“I know mom, I remember. I’ll be there at 7?” She actually was glad to see her mom’s sister, plus a home cooked meal meant she wouldn’t be spending money on dinner.

Her mom confirmed the arrival time, and before she could launch into a 20 minute rant on all
the cooking that was involved in her older sisters arrival, Elaina cut her off quickly, saying she
really had to get to work.

By 7:45, Elaina was flying out of her building towards the parking lot, and came to a quick stop
when she saw a flurry of cops and yellow tape surrounding the parking lot. A couple minutes of
lingering told her something really bad had happened, but another glance at her watch told her
she didn’t have the time to find out, or work on wading through the people gathered to her car.