I drove the boys around town this afternoon. Pinwheels was closed, the ECC has been inexplicably and inexcusably shuttered for two weeks, and the playgrounds were soaked. Stuck on Main Street, I read the bumper stickers of the Ford 350 in front of me: ≥Sink the Yacht Club≤ had been haphazardly pasted on top of ≥No to Westmoor.≤ At that moment, I switched my New Yearπs Resolution from ≥Just Saying No≤ to Mexican liquors to ≥Just Say Yes≤ to everything else.

I say ≥No≤ far too quickly. Saying ≥No≤ is the simplest act of cowardice. In the privacy of your own home or in the warm, snug embrace of the mob, a ≥No≤ embraces the status quo. We like things the way they are and we donπt want any sort of change.

When I choose ≥No,≤ I choose against imagination or improvement. ≥No≤ doesnπt join the health club, or finish the novel, or go skiing in Idaho. All of those things change the person that I am now. Any of those things could improve me, if I had the imagination or the courage. ≥No≤ is a failure of the imagination. We see the world as Gollum does; full of threats to our ≥precious.≤ ≥No≤ is passive. It resists change until the world overwhelms it. Then, it mourns what is lost. Inevitably, stagnation follows passivity which will become fate. All of those who said ≥Yes≤ will control those who said ≥No.≤

≥Yes≤ is dangerous and heroic. Like Frodo, I risk bringing down the forces of stagnation with each ≥Yes.≤ ≥Yes≤ upsets the status quo and replaces it with a new vision. I say ≥yes≤ I put my trust in others, in myself, and in luck. If Dennis the K were to invite me out to dinner, and I said ≥Yes≤ I would have to accept that my own view of plutocrats might change. My comfortable prejudices might shift. If Father Caron invited me to the hispanic Mass, and I said ≥Yes≤, another set of comfortable prejudices might shift.

≥Yes≤ is optimistic. It embraces change and rocks my stable little world. In the best of circumstances, ≥Yes≤ acts towards a vision of the future. If I want a future where I carry less weight around and can spend a full day skiing Exterminator, I say ≥Yes≤ to the health club. If I want a future where the Police Chief lives on-island, I say ≥Yes≤ to Westmoor. If I want a future away from Room 213, I say ≥Yes≤ to the new job. ≥Yes≤ welcomes what is to come, good and bad. ≥Yes≤ is change and change brings chaos.

Those of us who pay credit card bills know that saying ≥Yes≤ doesnπt really bring stability or happiness. New Manolo Blaniks bring Carrie Bradshaw happiness for an episode, perhaps two. But we never figure out how she is going to pay off the Visa. Similarly, I canπt say ≥Yes≤ to the health club, skiing, and Brownie Supremes. Saying ≥No≤ may not bring happiness, but it sure helps with contentment.

So, an adult will realize that you need to say both words, at the same time. You just have to weigh one over the other. All of us know that when the important decisions come, they are hardly clear-cut or simple. Selling the Looms is not a no-brainer. Ms. Winship will give up her and her familyπs livelihood for however many million. She will take a lot of abuse from segments of our community. Saying ≥yes≤ is a lot more difficult than saying ≥no.≤

The Great Harbor Yacht Club puts us all in another bind. Do we say ≥Yes≤ to the override and the eminent domain? Or do we say ≥No≤ and hope for the best. I would suggest that the only mistake we could make here is to think that the decision is a simple yes/no. If we say ≤Yes≤ to the override, we have to have a profitable and feasible vision for the boatyard. We will need to say ≥No≤ to those visions that are not profitable. If we say ≥No≤ to the override, then we are saying ≥Yes≤ to multi-million dollar yachts. Simplicity is the enemy here. We canπt say just ≥Yes≤ or ≥No≤; we need alternatives and a compelling vision.

So, as a community, we are coming onto one of the most decisive years the island has every faced. As voters, we will be faced with expensive choices about the future. As individuals, we will have to make quality of life decisions when there is less and less of a safety net out here. Money is tight, friends have left, and the bills are going up. Do we embrace change or do we hide from it?

For myself, I am going to say ≥Yes≤ more often. I will say ≥Yes≤ to the health club, to the job, to the assignments, and to the kids. I will try to embrace change, while keeping that counteracting ≥No≤ somewhere in my back pocket, hidden, but ready. Like a wave, change moves on. Either we surf it or we get boiled.

B

P.S. I wrote this long before the Green post, although it is apropos.

P.P.S. It was punctuated correctly. All of my quotation marks disappeared in the translation. Smart quotes be damned.