Heights First-person

My career in the arts and animation has taken me from Cleveland to China. Although I reside half a world away in Taipei, my upbringing in Cleveland Heights continues to influence my life and inform my work.

Growing up in Cleveland Heights came with many advantages that I once took for granted but increasingly appreciate with time and distance. One of my favorite things is to show my overseas friends satellite views of our family home on Corydon Road, where all you can see are trees. Nothing was more wonderous than simply stepping outside into nature within an urban environment.

A favorite saying of Jane Jacobs, author of the 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, was “eyes on the street,” which is the activity taking place in city streets that keeps the movement and security of the street intact. 

A recent incident on the sidewalk in front of the house next door to mine has shown that my immediate area has eyes on the street. 

One late morning I went out the front door to unhook our dog, Jax, who was in the backyard, and return him indoors via the driveway and front door. Though I had just left the house the same way a couple minutes earlier, this time there was a toddler alone on the sidewalk in front of our east-side neighbor’s house. I halted and held Jax firm on the leash. For a few moments I stood wondering what to do about this little boy on the loose.

I am Bryce Beard, a new intern at FutureHeights, and soon to be a junior at Gilmour Academy.

The internship was made possible through Cleveland-based Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.). On my very first day at the FutureHeights office, Kristine Pagsuyoin, the executive director of FutureHeights and publisher of the Heights Observer, asked me to write about myself and outline in this article what I’ll be working on as a summer intern. 

In my first week, beginning July 17, my first assignment was to write this piece.

I have already learned that writing for a newspaper is completely different from writing for a school project.

On April 30, Halldor Gudmundsson, pastor of Church of the Redeemer (United Methodist Church) on South Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights, invited me, minister of Heights Christian Church (Christian Church/Disciples of Christ) on Coventry Road in Shaker Heights, to share my experience with the congregation I serve, and decisions made in recent years regarding the church's future.

Heights Christian’s moderator (lay leader) Lynda Ackerman, and vice-moderator (and Cleveland Heights resident) Jane Troha, attended as well, and shared their learnings with the congregation during coffee hour.

Members of both congregations discovered the two churches have much in common. 

Maybe like many of you, I went through many emotional stages during this pandemic. It started with disbelief; then, disbelief turned to shock. Shock gave way to cautious optimism last spring and summer and fall, when we understood that we could be outside with others in a socially distanced kind of way. Cold weather and social isolation turned that optimism to a gray kind of emotion and lethargy. News of the vaccine brought equal parts hope and frustration. That’s where this story starts.

The vaccine, our way out of this mess, was an absolute blessing this winter. But the supply was limited, and the process of scheduling an appointment was fractured. With no central appointment system, senior citizens had to use many different websites to find an elusive appointment. For those with limited computer access or skills, it was difficult.

I feel like I’m slipping around on a slick surface that’s covering over reality. On this surface are many familiar things. I wash the dishes, I do laundry, I read, I cook, I pet the dog. These activities are comfortingly mundane. Emptying the dishwasher and setting the table provide an illusion of normalcy. Everything’s okay right now, right in this moment. 

But then, at any given time, I become conscious merely of my hands: When did I wash them last? What if my hands are infecting the plastic bag holding the apples? Do I wash my hands before I open the bag and touch the apple, or do I wash them after I open the bag and touch the apple, but before I actually eat the apple?

Collected here is a sampling of the countless moments, large and small, that I, my friends and our children are missing at this time of social distancing:

"You know what I miss? Thursday night baseball at Forest Hills, with four games in the meadow and four more games in the square, and people I know with kids playing all over the park and my own boys on back-to-back fields so I can watch them both at once. Then afterwards, heading to TavCo where we get an outdoor table right away because it's already after 9 and when we walk out onto the patio, my kids in their dusty uniforms and untied cleats, we see three different tables of friends who get up to hug us and pat the boys on the head (or shake their hands because they look sort of like men) and ask how their games went and then drag their chairs over to our table for another drink while we wait for our dinner. That's what I miss."

—Krissy Dietrich Gallagher, Cleveland Heights