A couple weeks ago now, we recorded our first podcast episode, which went…surprisingly smoothly. In hindsight, that probably should have made us suspicious.
Everything worked. The conversation flowed. The sound was clean. We wrapped it up, looked at each other, and thought, “Well…that wasn’t so bad!” And then, about a week later, we took a stab at recording a second episode.
Let’s just say…it’s taken a while to work on the editing on that one.
There were pauses that felt too long. Sentences that went nowhere. Moments where one of us would start a thought, lose it halfway through, and then try to backtrack in a way that made perfect sense in our heads and absolutely none out loud. At one point, I was told by our Senior Junior Intern that adjusting how my shirt was draped had made me look significantly frumpier. Which I did not know was a risk factor going into this.
All of which is to say: doing something is very different from thinking about doing something. Especially doing something more than once and hoping for replicable results. Especially doing something in front of a camera.
There’s something about being recorded that quietly invites performance. You become uncomfortably aware of your voice. Your phrasing. How something might land. You can feel the pull to sound clearer, smarter, more put-together than you actually are in the middle of a thought.
And that’s been…interesting.
Because the whole point of what we’ve been exploring is to not feel compelled to perform. To be present and allow a conversation to unfold without rushing it toward a conclusion or polishing it into something more acceptable.
So, we’re learning. How to be normal on camera, and how to trim away lots and lots of unusable footage. We’ll keep getting more chances to practice, and we may even become experts on camera angles and shirt adjustments.
Thankfully, it’s now spring, which means we also get to dive back into something we actually feel competent at: our physical, non-camera-intensive projects.
We’re picking back up on the remediation work at 403 W 2nd St in Oil City, which means dust, debris, and decisions. There’s still the slow, steady process of figuring out what stays and what has to go, but it’s tangible. Not glamorous. Not fast. But you can stand in a room, look around, and see exactly what’s been done and what still needs attention.
Similarly, we’ve started building a blight map of our region. Which, in practice, looks a lot like driving. And walking. And noticing. And then many, many hours on a computer.
It’s slow work. Repetitive. Occasionally frustrating. But also…clarifying.
Because, just like with podcast footage, once we start really looking…without rushing past, without assuming…we begin to see things more clearly. Not just what’s there, but what’s possible. Where effort might matter most.
Where a little attention, a little adjustment, could tip something back in the right direction.
