Dear Fairfax Community,
As many of you know by now, in line with the current State Executive Orders, our Marin County Public Health Officer has issued a new order effective May 4th, which extends the Shelter In Place until May 31st with some minor modifications for certain sectors.
For some, this modification may ease the immense financial hardship, but for most members of the Fairfax community and our downtown merchants, the stress has intensified. In support of our local businesses we have launched a new website to support our downtown retailers and restaurants called FairfaxOpenForBusinesss.com
Please visit the website to see the many ways you can support our beloved businesses.
There are so many tangible ways to contribute to our Town, but there are some wounds people are nursing which are less visible from the outside.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who’s daughter is a graduating high school senior. I was struck by the depth of her sadness. Her story of her daughter’s life interrupted is currently being shared by hundreds of our students and their families who are reaching milestones, marking important rites of passage. These commencements celebrate the start of a next chapter. Families are brilliantly inventing ways to celebrate their children’s accomplishments, just as we as a community are inventing ways to connect and support each other from a distance, co-authoring our own parallel next chapter. We will write a powerful book of resilience and re-emergence if we all contribute something positive to the evolving story, and recognize that all of us are struggling to some degree with overarching unknowns and the pain of life interrupted. We are all in this together, now more than ever.
I share an excerpt I recently read from a teacher providing wise counsel to her student’s parents:
“ …Right now I just need you to share your calm. Share your strength, and share your laughter with your children. In the years ahead, your children won’t remember most of the lessons they learned through their devices, rather they will remember if they felt safe, if they felt loved, and all the silly moments they spent with you during these historical times”.
This wisdom is applicable to all of us regardless of the role we play in this world at this time, because as we begin to plan for re-opening and as we are establishing new support systems both financial and personal for those who are experiencing extreme loss, we have to remember that each of us makes choices each day that have a profound and lasting effect on our community. This wisdom can be applied right now.
This is a defining time, and the way we work together to boost each other up, and the personal choices we make will determine the path, the pace and the process by which we emerge from this.
The County order requires us to wear facial coverings in all indoor and outdoor public places, with some exceptions for outdoor exercise. The 6’ physical distancing requirements apply even if your face is covered.. Please protect yourselves and do the right thing for your community.
As the State and County walk the tight rope making the difficult determination between re-opening too early and re-opening too late, we can each as individuals choose to go above and beyond to protect one another and Shelter in place. We know it is working.
Fairfax is rising to the occasion. A couple of this week’s very uniquely Fairfax highlights:
— Thank you to the Dominga masked choir for producing the best possible live and safely distanced rendition of ‘Accentuate the positive, illuminate the negative’ by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer.
— Thank you to Rudy Contratti, Fairfax Public Works who mowed the Bolinas Park grass today and described to me that the way he created the cut lines in the grass with energy flowing off of the Redwoods, was like a New York Mandala. He dubbed that Mandala “The hang on to hope”.
Hang on to Hope everyone.
With very best wishes for health and strength,
Renee Goddard