Dear team,
Next week is my last week at The OpEd Project. I'd like to take a minute and (in less than 500 words) say thank you.
On my first day in March of 2012, I was 22 years old and we had just 20 Public Voices fellows- our inaugural cohort. Today we account for some 1,140 of them and over 10x that many alums -- a community through which we've had the ear of the President and of Congress; our work has helped to create new non-profits, new columns, unlikely connections, and better communities. We've built our own thriving community (you, me, us) of journalists and activists committed to making the world more just. Approximately 262 Tuesday staff calls have gone by, billions of readers, thousands of cancer scenarios, 1.5 successful lanterns in Alabama. It's been hours of visioning with Katie over beers and a bounty of wisdom from this PVTL thread.
On a personal note, my time here has overlapped with a transition from my early twenties to my late twenties. And in this 'defining decade' where one attempts to make sense of who they are and who they're becoming - a rapid tide of friendships, apartments, significant others, millennial think-pieces - I have been buoyed by this work and by you. What a gift. In hopes this isn't painfully hyperbolic, serving OEP has been the greatest privilege of my life.
I'll join The OpEd Project Board in 2018, and I'm excited to play a different role as this incredible organization grows into the future. For now, I'm off to Ohio where I'm hoping to explore a different pace of life with my partner, and will experiment with our mattering curriculum through local OH politics as the country gears up for next year's elections. If you find yourself in the heartland, I hope you'll come over for a meal.
Over the last few months, as I've prepared for this transition, I keep coming back to Sally Mann's memoir. In the book she uses her lens as a photographer to talk about time, memory and how we take stock of our lives. In one memorable passage, she writes:
"When an animal, a rabbit, say, beds down in a protecting fencerow, the weight and warmth of his curled body leaves a mirroring mark upon the ground. The grasses often appear to have been woven into a birdlike nest, and perhaps were indeed caught and pulled around by the delicate claws as he turned in a circle before subsiding into rest. This soft bowl in the grasses, this body-formed evidence of hare, has a name, an obsolete but beautiful word: meuse. (Enticingly close to Muse, daughter of Memory, and source of inspiration.) Each of us leaves evidence on the earth that in various ways bears our form."
Please know that each of you, in your own varied and unique way, has left a significant mark. I'll carry it all with me the best I can.
With gratitude,
Court
