I'm back

Naseem returns to journalism

I’ve decided retirement is not for me. Not now. There’s just too much going on in the world for me to simply rest.

In 2004 I left my job as a broadcast journalist for public radio at the Oregon State Capitol to be a full time mom and part time author. Since then, my son has grown and gone off to the other side of the country and I lost interest in trying to please a book industry and my occasional essays that felt unseen and unheard and therefore of little value but the value any writer gets from pouring heart and soul onto a page so that it can look back at you and say, yes, you still have a heart and soul. And eyes that see. And ears that hear.

Then last month I went back to the capitol building for the dedication of its new press offices, and I thought — why not? Why not come back and start listening to the stories that are all around this building. If there was one thing I learned from my time here from 1995 to 2004 it was that every person who is in the state capitol, or standing on its steps with a sign, or mowing its lawn, has a story. And those stories are what keeps people afloat during hard times, learning from one another, taking time to see who people are and what they are doing with their lives, how they are surviving, or at least trying to survive. Story is the hot current that runs though a community enlivening us with sympathy and, if done well, empathy.

Take the Janitor James Beard. I met him the other day. An older gentleman who yes, knew he had the same name as the famous chef James Beard, and yes he’s been asked plenty of times if he can cook, and yes, his answer is he certainly can. And back when he was working as a logger his dad, also a logger, said if he put down his chain saw and stop working in “the industry” he would cover the costs of his son going to culinary school to become what he really wanted to be — a chef.

“And you know what I told him?” James Beard, now in his sixties or seventies and bent over his waxer like it was walker, asked me.

I shook my head no, but it was pretty clear what he’d told his dad.

“I said no. I looked at him and just said no. I bet you can’t guess how many times I’ve regretted that decision. No one gets out of those forests without carrying some kind of ache.” I nodded. And he told me to come find him if I ever need anything.

And I will. I’ll hunt down James Beard if I need something, because this is where I am now. An office in the state capitol building, I have a monitor that scans the hearing rooms. A pen. Some paper. I plan to get my mics out too. Talk to people. They may be lawmakers. They may be mucky-mucks from the agencies. They may be lobbyists or activists or just ordinary people who come in to tell lawmakers why they need to care.

They may be someone trying to save their family from a medical debt, or a mayor trying to save his town from losing their water, some lobbyist trying to secure a tax break for some data center no one will ever really be employed at, or someone trying to get us to care about some species of animal that may be on the brink of losing its place in this world. It may be people who have nothing, or people who have so much they have no idea what nothing looks like.

I don’t know. I only just got here.

But here is my goal. To tell you what I learn while I’m here in hopes that this can be a place where you can learn about the people that are trying to make this world a little better or, if they’re not, why not…. I’m sure I’ll be telling those stories too.

I hope you will join me.