Finding Yourself

You have been robbed. Your wealth plundered and sent far away, your children scattered, your body left to rot. You feel weak, empty and lonely. But you are awake. You realize that all these things - the pain, the trauma, the poor decisions and the abusers - they have made you lose yourself. It's time to find yourself. But where? [[In what you think?]] [[In what you do?]] [[In what you are?]]

Can you find yourself in your earliest memories? You white people make a great parade about religion, you say you have a book of laws and rules which was given you by the Great Spirit, but is this true? Was it written by his own hand and given to you? No, says he, it was written by your own people. They do it to deceive you. Their whole wishes center here (pointing to his pocket) - White Jacket (recorded in translation by John Milton Holly, in conference with Moses Cleaveland over settlement of the Western Reserve, 1796)1 John O'Mic, the first man executed in the new town of Cleveland, for murder in 1812, was a Chippewa, and asked for whisky so he could die courageously.2 You are more than your memories. Who are you? [[Hopes]] [[Fears]] [[Ideas]]

You smell the metallic smoke of a factory at work. You hear the rattle of trains on rails. Within 60 years of Cleveland's founding, industry, especially the making of iron and its products, began to dominate the economy of the city and its vicinity. The development of shipping on the Great Lakes, the completion of the OHIO & ERIE CANAL in 1832, the later construction of RAILROADS, and the more recent construction of major HIGHWAYS and airports have allowed Cleveland to receive a large flow of raw materials and to ship out finished products. 16 What's more important? [[movement]] [[creation]]

What are you? You feel... vague. Hollow. Divided. You should examine deeper. You are not one person. You have many parts, many people. Thousands of individuals, drawing some of their identity from you and creating your identity in turn. There is an inscription along the top of a building near you. A MONUMENT CONCEIVED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE IDEALS OF CLEVELAND, BUILDED BY HER CITIZENS AND DEDICATED TO SOCIAL PROGRESS, IN- DUSTRIAL ACHIEVEMENTS AND CIVIC INTEREST 4 You are a city. But who are you? [[Examine your possessions]] [[Examine your people]]

Maybe the question isn't who you are, but who you used to want to be. You had ambitions, once. A Public Mall, planned in 1903, with seven public buildings around it in Beaux-Arts Neoclassical marble, probably constitutes the earliest and most complete civic-center plan for a major city outside of Washington, DC.5 Your square isn't Monument Square or Old Dead Guy square, it's PUBLIC square. In 1917, Karamu House provided the first interracial stage company in the state. 6 You remember. You want to do more. What inspires you? Ambitions to [[help others]] Plans for artistic [[creation]] A yearning for [[movement]]

Rallying to the cry of "Two Bridges or None," west siders resorted to various forms of retaliation, including an ineffectual powder explosion. On 31 Oct. 1836 a mob of Ohio City residents armed with guns, crowbars, axes, and other weapons set off to finish the destruction, only to be met by Cleveland mayor JOHN W. WILLEY and a group of armed Cleveland militiamen. Three men were seriously wounded in the ensuing riot before the county sheriff arrived to end the violence and make several arrests. A court injunction prevented any further interference with the bridge, and the courts resolved the issue by ruling that there should be more than one bridge crossing. - Encyclopedia of Cleveland History "Columbus Street Bridge" / "The Bridge War"3 Ohio City feared a route that bypassed them would make Cleveland outgrow them. They were right. Maybe what defines who you are is what you fear. Take it deeper. It's not just a specific conflict. What do you fear more? [[Stagnation]] [[Violence]]

Science. Philosophy. Culture. Art. You have ideas. Which ideas define YOU? Ideas to [[help others]]. Ideas to express yourself through [[creation]] of art. Ideas for [[movement]] to explore the world.

You want to GO. You're sure that before those bad relationships stiffled you, you were a mover. Rails and rivers, waterways and highways. Your heart is a train station, your most recognizable feature, The Terminal Tower, the tallest building outside of New York City from its completion in 1930 until 1964. 8 You see now you are at the confluence of so many different paths. This crux, this river flowing into this lake, these railways - they are a part of you. Who are you? [[Examine your physical form]] or Focus on the act of [[creation]]

You want to make things. You are sure that, before you lost yourself, you made things. A futuristic "City Center" with the tallest tower the United States had seen outside of New York City. 8 The largest theatre district outside of New York City.9 The first enclosed shopping center, an archetectural marvel, draped in deco and nuevo, merging two entry levels. 10 An extraordinary museum, stocked with the largest collection of parade armor outside of Euope by well-meaning industrialists who thought the steel workers would like them. 11 Long after the "Bridge War" 3 Hope Memorial Bridge carries massive, publicly-funded statues that employed craftsman during the depression. The guardians of traffic carry vehicles, and a metaphor for man helping man. [[Examine your physical form]] [[Examine your possessions]] [[keep moving]]

You are a city. You are the collected physical evidence of the ambitions and dreams and daily lives of millions of individuals. They made and found homes, grew and bought food, made messes and cleaned them up. Even in your most decayed sections, you are beautiful. [[You have found yourself.]]

You have land. You have a river, and a shoreline. You have bridges over the river. You have rails and buildings and streets. Monuments. Windows. Buses. Bike racks. The largest publicly-owned market in the country. 15 You have a city. What use is all this stuff? [[Protect your possessions]] [[Cast aside your possessions]]

You are a city. Neglect and vacancy pull your structures down, an added, verdent gravity. This is how cities die. Houses turning into fields, roads falling to ruin as they no longer are travelled. This is how you almost died, the death they were driving you to. No! You have to fight back. Do you do it through [[movement]] or through [[creation]] of new things?

A disagreement over a glass of water lead to an entire neighborhood under seige and under fire. 12 November 23, 2014, a twelve-year-old child playing with a toy gun is gunned down by police. 13 You are a city divided by fear. You don't want to be this. You don't want to be a car riddled with bullets because it backfired in front of a police station. You die a little every time the red line train completely empties at Tower City and re-fills, sorting white to West and black to East. Do you reject your violent past and look to your [[Hopes]] ? Do you search for [[Ideas]] to move forward? Or does this helplessness lead you to [[Stagnation]] ?

July 20th, 1966, the national guard occupied the Hough neighborhood. The mayor of Cleveland closed all bars and taverns. 12 What you have is what you are and what you will always be and though what you have is dwindling and dying, has been neglected as you were taken from yourself, you cannot escape your [[Fears]]

It's hard. There are beautiful things here, but no, you cast them asside. Brass railings twined with vine. Ancient statuettes gazing at the stars. One at a time. Then all at once. These things are not you, they are just things. Let them slip away. Feel weightless. [[Examine your physical form]] or Is your identity now [[In what you think?]]

This is is. You are not an individual. You are a city. You contain individuals and they define you. They are you. Helping others is helping yourself. Your art museum - fourth wealthiest in the nation - is free to all "For the benefit of all people, forever." 11 The first free, public secondary school west of the Alleghenies, Central High, saw John D. Rockefeller and Langston Hughes earn their degrees. 7 And now, today, there are neighborhoods coming together, gardening together, making art together, feeding and housing each other. Building your identity in acts of kindness toward each other. [[You have found yourself.]] Or would you rather [[keep moving]] ?

You have strength in your diversity. You have a million interconnecting parts. You have beauty and hope and joy and you are a powerful city I am proud to call home. Thank you. -fin- <hr /> If you wish, check out the [[Endnotes]]

Is finding yourself really that important? Maybe losing your sense of identity is a gift, a break from the shackles that held you stagnant. Free, you move on. You ship, you transport, you flow. Ideas and people and goods pass through you and carry you to the world at large. You MOVE. That is who you are. -fin-

George Peak (or Peek) arrived in Cleveland in 1809 with his wife, two sons, and half a bushel of silver dollars, likely ill-gotten. The city's first African-American permanent settler endeared himself by inventing a new form of grain mill. Garrett A. Morgan invented a gas mask, pattented it in 1914, and then used it to save workers trapped by an explosion in a gas-filled mine below Lake Erie in 1916. He was the first black man to own a motor car in the city and also patented the traffic light. Leonard Case anonymously gave one million dollars to found a school to teach pure science which opened in 1881. In 1907, the first Americans to win the Nobel Prize in Physics were Albert Abraham Michaelson from Case School of Applied Science, and his co-author Edward W. Morely of Western Reserve University. Does all this move you to [[creation]] or Would you rather [[Examine your possessions]] now to see traces of the current people?

This story relies heavily on the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, an online document located at: https://case.edu/ech/ 1. https://case.edu/ech/articles/r/red-jackets-speech/ 2. https://case.edu/ech/articles/o/omic-john/ 3. https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/columbus-street-bridge/ 4. The inscription on the Cleveland Public Auditorium building, personally observed. 5. https://case.edu/ech/articles/m/mall/ 6. https://case.edu/ech/articles/k/karamu-house/ 7. https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/central-high-school/ 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Tower 9. https://case.edu/ech/articles/p/playhouse-square/ 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Arcade 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Museum_of_Art 12. https://case.edu/ech/articles/h/hough-riots/ 13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Tamir_Rice 14. https://case.edu/ech/articles/a/associated-charities/ 15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Market 16. https://case.edu/ech/articles/i/industry/

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