Mikaela Coon is a resident of Hutchinson since 2007. Before that she lived in Japan, Chicago, Denver and Omaha. She has studied linguistics, political science and sociology. Her hobbies are painting, writing, cooking and coffee. SaturdayBeat is a blog about building community.
Mikaela is a co-founder of the Hutchinson Action Alliance, a group which supports the service and advocacy work of citizens through organization and volunteerism, and acts as a forum for social justice concerns. Mikaela describes herself as a skeptic armed with guesswork and incertitude in the face of overwhelming feeling. She is open about her bipolar diagnosis and seeks mastery of manic ambivalence and precision for her darker perplexity. One might sense lust for abstraction, a mind craving commotion, and limb-spinning incandescence as you read her poetry, which you can find at her creative writing blog, thecravedistraction.blogspot.com.
At age three I moved with my family to Japan. Fifteen years later I moved to Chicago to go to college. I have been living in the Midwest since I was 18 and a half, residing in Illinois, Colorado and Nebraska before moving to Kansas, where my mother’s extended family lives. Saturday marked one year living at one residence, a first for me since I was 17. It has been over five years since I visited my home in Japan, but I am very thankful to now have a home in Hutchinson with David.
Every Saturday I have committed to exploring the possibilities of our community. I go first to witness, usually through participation, and then I draft myself into the work of articulating a perspective through descriptive story-telling that drips with pseudo-journalism. My mind postulates questions, grapples with the efficiency of sentences and then dives into a process of creation and destruction.
As a writer I intend to write for myself, yet because of the undeniable function of human language, I write for you. This is something I undergo as a paradox, that the expression I am driven to use as a mechanism for desperate release (yes, the inner machinations of my brain are harrying and tempestuous when stifled), only serves as self-preservation in that the window into my conscious experience is for you to peer through.
This is what my overactive mind construed from my interaction with the crowds downtown at the Chili and Soup Festival on Saturday. I got to thinking about all my own complaints about Hutchinson as well as the many negative evaluations I have heard of what we offer to each other in our city. I came to a kind of hypothesis, that we could see things with enormous optimism if we were to rightly understand what it is we are complaining about and what are the possible solutions.
Earlier this summer David and I strolled through the farmer’s market in Lincoln Park, Chicago while on our honeymoon. Vendors of fruits, vegetables, organic foods, farm fresh eggs, meat, fish, flowers, yarn and herbs, to name just a few things, lined the streets. Foot traffic teemed and bicycles took slow turns at the frays. We didn’t spend any money. We were impressed and delighted, but we were not propelled to purchase anything.
In downtown Hutchinson, farmers, artisans, chefs, cookie bakers, homeopathic remedy creators, soap makers and accordion players come with their wares and wiles to sit under one roof at 2nd and Washington. I have never been to our farmer’s market before this weekend, despite the chorus of friends who have echoed its wonders to me throughout the three summers I have lived here.
This Saturday the rain ended by 9 a.m, but the sky was still hidden after a whole week of gloom and doom mornings. Each resident who rises with the sun is disoriented by this. Will we never see the sun again? I walked into the farmer’s market pavilion with deep-seated expectations.
I expected a small crowd due to the weather and the Kansas State Fair in town. I expected the tight-lipped, can’t-quite-be-friendly-to-strangers people who crowd the aisles of Dillons and Walmart. I expected the tight-wad, won’t-spend-much-don’t-tip-much folks who populate the throngs of today’s American consumers. I expected Mennonites and aging hippies. All of my expectations were met.
It is what I did not expect that made me walk away a changed person.
The sun peeks out mid-afternoon above Avenue A Park on Saturday, just as a wedding party arrives for photos and while volunteers set up the donation booth for Melodies for Munificence. The event, started and organized each year by Jon Dennis, is Hutchinson’s fifth annual partnership of artists and local service agencies to raise funds through donations. Art from Kim Brooks, Skyler Colladay and Mikaela Coon, sculpture by Amber King, photography by Danielle Pia, and a promotional package from The Samuel Band are available for silent auction.
Recordings of previous years’ performers and a compilation of poetry put together by area poets are set out on a table at the donation station next to an email sign-up sheet. Soda and crates of bottles of water are stacked behind the tables, while chilled cans and bottles are made available for donation in jumbo coolers.
The night will feature a variety of musical styles, from bossa nova to ukulele satire to hard rock. Josh Daves, sound engineer for the event, and other volunteers unload the sound equipment from his trailer and set up in the gazebo. As he carries out extensive sound checks, artists are setting up easels and acrylic paints to the side of the stage. They will complete three paintings collaboratively by the end of the night’s performances.
