Scared on Purpose
Building hope and a museum from scratch
Last week, I didn’t have a 🍓 5 Cool Things newsletter in me.
Thursday night and I was just there. Staring at the screen, trying to share the interesting and inspiring videos and articles I’d seen that week.
But I was frozen.
Frozen in fear. 😨
Last Monday, I got a call about a big grant we applied for. When I say big, I mean HUGE! Life-changing. Museum-changing. Like, this could be the grant that could change everything. Give us a space. Give me a salary. Let us show the world (and other funders) what we could do if only given a chance.
🙏 Give us the chance, please.
“So, did anyone talk to you yet?” Oh no. My heart sank.
“This is a great application, but…” I guess that’s it. 😞 Another ‘no’. It’s okay. We have other applications out there. This isn’t the end. Just don’t cry on the call.
“See, the thing is we really need you to have a location before you apply.” Wait, what?
“You should chat with a real estate broker to help you get something - a lease or a letter of intent - and then we can finish reviewing the application.” Words not computing. Brain short-circuiting. 🫠
“Obviously, I’m not the only one deciding, but this is exactly the type of thing we’re looking for.” Focus on your breathing. In 1-2-3, Out 1-2-3. Wait, can he hear me breathing?
“Here’s my email, let me know when you have that space.”
It wasn’t a no.
It was something much more terrifying. A “maybe.”
I told my parents. I told my sister. I told my friends. And every single one of them celebrated. But I just couldn’t.
Why couldn’t I celebrate?
I think it was because I am afraid to hope.
I’m afraid to hope that this could be it: Our Big Break.
I don’t want to fall in love with a space. I don’t want to envision our exhibits and programming in it. I don’t want to feel the potential relief that comes with knowing I’ll have an honest to goodness salary. Or the exhale after so much hustle. Or the satisfaction knowing that I did it - I made a food museum from scratch.
Because I don’t want to be gutted if it falls apart.
Instead, I’ll put myself in a bubble to ward off any hope that might try to creep in. Yeah, that makes sense.
So, when I met with a tenant representative broker last week (that’s the person who is in charge of finding us a good fit and advocating for us on the lease), I went through the motions. And when I recapped the meeting to folks, I separated my retelling from my body.
But nothing grows without hope
Today, I’m sitting in a coffee shop scared out of my gourd to be sharing this with you. I was planning to do something else today (ain’t that always the way?). But I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about how difficult it is to hope.
We’re CONSTANTLY being bombarded with why the world is hopeless. The world is burning; no one cares about you; just keep your head down, do the work, so you can go home and do it again tomorrow.
In my more logical moments, I don’t actually think that’s true — because if it were, do you think there’d be so much time, money, and energy invested in convincing you it was?
I created the Museum of Food and Culture BECAUSE I have hope.
Hope that if people have meaningful opportunities to connect with different folks, they’ll be more empathetic and more empowered to build a better world for everyone. And food is an excellent way to help people have those positive experiences with each other.
I keep coming back to this hope. Even in the moments when my tank is almost empty and I’m looking at admin jobs. When I’m doomscrolling on Instagram thinking about how retirement is a pipe dream for most folks in my generation. When I’m feeling disconnected. Food gives me hope.
In today’s world, hope is more important than ever, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy
Most of the time, hope is scary as all hell. It requires action - ugh! And worse, hope opens us up to disappointment. That’s exactly what I’m struggling with.
Whereas - cynicism and pessimism? Those cranky feelings offer relief. There’s something comforting about the predictability of worst-case scenarios. We can stay safe on the couch, bemoaning the ‘world nowadays’, and how awful everything is. We can focus on ourselves and doing our very best in difficult circumstances.
But to do the hope thing? We need to BE IN community.
We need to set aside the superficial satisfaction of productivity and sense of control we get from self improvement.
We need each other.
And we need to act.
For so long I think I’ve seen the Museum as a passion project. Even though I say it’s a ‘community food museum’, I’ve struggled to make that a reality outside of my dreams.
It’s something we WILL be when we [________ fill in the blank - get funding, grow our audience more, etc.].
Until then, it’s for me to struggle to grow this nonprofit from scratch. But that isn’t really very ‘community’ or ‘museum-y’ of me.
So I’m rethinking things a bit…
✨ What does it mean to be created BY, WITH, and FOR our community?
💭 To be a museum without a physical location?
😅 To talk so much about the importance of community without actually BEING IN community (supporting others, sharing resources, asking for help)?
So today, I am at a coffeeshop to plan our end-of-year giving campaign 😱 and I keep coming back to two ideas: HOPE and FROM SCRATCH.
This whole organization was founded and has continued to grow because of the HOPE we find in food as a tool to bring people together. And it is something we’re building FROM SCRATCH.
Not me. We.
But up until now, I haven’t really let you in.
I haven’t asked you to help bring ingredients, choose the recipe, try your hand at mixing stuff together, or see the mess. 😰
I’ve shared stuff when I’ve felt ready to. I’ve given you slices of bread spread with peanut butter and jelly and asked you to put it together. “Good job, we made a sandwich!”
It’s time to rewrite the recipe
We don’t have any shortcuts here. No millionaire or billionaire backers. No inherited building. No collection.
We just have some passionate people. But that’s how the best things are made.
As we go forward, I want to refocus on the idea of a community food museum built from scratch.
I don’t know exactly what this will look like, but I want to promise you something. And it is scary as all hell, because I have to let go of some control and act courageously. But y’all, I believe more than ever that now is the time for us to DREAM BIG!
I promise to CREATE WITH YOU NOW
Not just when we have a location. That means virtual meetups, real-life gatherings in community centers, and making messy and beautiful connections before we have a ‘program.’ It means sharing the dream and our journey, not just when we have a ‘win,’ letting you shape where we’re going and what we are doing, and giving you the opportunity to help. It means getting radically different about how we are sharing and telling stories.
I might not always be the best at this. I know that the ‘scaries’ will get me sometimes.
But I promise I will keep trying.
Because now is the time for hope. It is the time when we need community and dreams.
As one of my favorite songs says (to paraphrase Muhammad Ali): “If your dreams don’t scare you, they ain’t big enough.”
I don’t have all the answers yet, but we’d love to imagine with you. Lmk, down below what you want to see in a community food museum?