First Night

We met for the first time in November in the Chapel. When I got there lights were just coming on and I walked up the hill to meet Jeanne Turner. We set up tables and arranged chairs and after a few minutes others began to come in. We were a small group at the beginning and we remained so. Although 13 people had registered, there were only six who made it. After our first meeting, we already felt like a unit and no one seemed to want to recruit more people although we discussed this several times. We had only advertised the group to neighborhood participants and decided to keep it that way. I could tell Jean's attachment to the chapel right away. She directed me to photographs on the chapel walls and talked a bit about the old days. Jeanne was definitely the historian. The others who came to the group were Bill Plapp, Carol Cribbet-Bell, Fran Weissenberg, and Penny Spicer. While Penny and Jeanne had the most historical information and their dedication and love of the chapel was evident, the other members were very attached to the place as well. Although each was a relative newcomer to the neighborhood, they seemed to have laid claim to this area in an emotional and spiritual way.

I was looking forward to establishing a connection to this place through writing along with the others, and I guess I chose our first activity as much out of that desire as anything else. We went outside and walked around the chapel, looked at the stars, smelled the cold air, listened to the cars going by on Ft. Lowell, noticed with some irritation the growing skyline of neon up in the foothills, and told stories about the place-old and new. We had to keep walking not to freeze. It was cold and this only added to the atmosphere. Then back into the chapel, and I asked everyone to begin writing about what they sensed--heard, smelled, touched, saw. It was a beginning. I did not need to coax anyone-each writer began and after a good 20 minutes I had to stop people in order to share.

I sat listening to the clear and articulate prose of Jeanne as she recounted the past, the details of weddings and other celebrations, and described some of the early inhabitants. Each writer followed suit, describing and recounting the chapel's past history, its beautiful setting, its place in the neighborhood. Penny Spicer's "sensory details" explored the dimensions of the chapel as "the soul of the neighborhood" and stated that "one can bathe. . in the sense of the chapel-the beauty, the serenity, the history, the feeling of the place."

Someone pointed out that I was the only one who had described the chapel "at night" -- the others seemed to rely upon their own past experiences that included many daytime events and activities.

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