Perhaps it is only natural for one to wade gently into the waters of reflection when they exit a particular place. Seeing as this writer will be vacating the commonwealth at the end of the month for mountains greener and (hopefully) less polluted, the three years spent as a Greenfield resident have been far from monotone.
To begin, let us first ponder on the short-lived tenure of White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia. What went wrong? All of the modern-day requirements were met: young, beautiful, well-spoken …
Ah, there we find the ugly within a sea of refinery. Although she held two of the cards, the beauty of speech was lacking, and thus, Donald Trump must continue his search for a herald with a digestible vocabulary. Did he make an honest mistake, or did he forget what the masses need to get through the sludge of a failing republic?
Lies, from the “little white” to the baby-poo green, are the glue that keeps our society running. Whether it be a professional athlete’s “confusion” when betting on their own game, an elected official’s failed memory on a résumé, or a spouse’s clandestine substance use, we recognize that the importance is not on how true the machinery of America is at any given moment. The mechanism must continue for us to consume. If we stop to ponder on authenticity, wouldn’t that mean we have to look at how much falsehood is at play?
Well, we can’t have that now, can we?
Zero in on little ol’ Greenfield, and clear skies give way to opaque processes. Take the procedure of our City Council for instance. Attend these meetings and we see department heads report on their own departments. Though this may be standard practice, does it not seem to anyone else that this is akin to asking a fourth-grader to write out their own report card? When the head of any given department is placed in a role of self-assessment, are they seriously going to focus on what needs to be improved? I’ve tried my best to attend these meetings regularly, but I must admit in the last one my stomach began to turn. Self-congratulations give way to soft campaigning when councilors utter statements derived from AI and focused on their next campaign. Of course these aren’t “bad” people; they are just stuck within the monopoly which is modern-day American democracy.
Drive south a few blocks, and then you might find an ever-growing conglomerate of shouting, somewhat violent groupings of people in front of City Hall. Though once a local described this intersection to me as where the “four classes of Greenfield converge,” it is now inescapably a locale where the struggling vent their grievances to anyone who may care to listen. Would our local officials alter their approach to governance if their meetings were held there instead of at the well-mannered senior center? Maybe it’s a little hard to tell. Though maybe there’s a reason why our council chooses to deliberate within the John Zon Community Center.
For some, 20th-century America is still the hallmark of getting things right. Think about it: our nation provided for its citizens, “peace” was the mainstay of international dealings, and a “hard-working” person could pull themselves up by the bootstraps and buy a home and provide for their family. Now, the council’s location begins to make much more sense. Why would our elected officials want to look at the “real” situation of Greenfield, when they can live in the land of yesteryear? Well, probably because if they did, the reality of yesteryear’s departure would come crashing down on their fragile psyches and interrupt next year’s budget season.
Upon reflection, I suppose Greenfield was more or less as I expected. Recalling a friend’s comment three years ago that “there’s a lot of crack down in Greenfield,” the reality of this city’s substance use dilemma is perhaps only slightly less upsetting than the available solutions. For mental health and substance use treatment to be effective (unfortunately), there requires an un-muddied channel of information between client and treatment provider. We laud mental health workers, much like we praise elected officials; never quite looking at the system itself.
Those on the outside assume that when a client checks in with their clinician, honesty is the policy. Subsequently, we assume that the clinician is providing feedback and direction that are (hopefully) going to help that individual with whatever is challenging them at the time. I’m sure we’re all being honest.
Ahmad Esfahani lives in Greenfield.