BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro is my home.
I was born at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital in 1973, and I've lived here for the great majority of my nearly 38 years. I attended Brattleboro schools, played for its sports teams, been involved in its arts, and have remained an active member of the community.
In Brattleboro, I've seen unspeakable beauty as well as horrific ugliness. I've experienced every exquisite pleasure and devastating pain. I've fallen in love and have felt heartbreak.
Here I've reached my highest peaks of achievement and fallen to the lowest depths of my being.
I've watched Brattleboro grow from the rural, working-class town that it was in the early '80s to the lively arts community that it has become. Its proximity to major cities has made it destination for those seeking a slower pace, and many from all over have adopted Brattleboro as their home. SIT and World Learning have help to create a fairly visible international community as well.
Brattleboro is often known for being progressive, forward thinking, and accepting (beyond mere tolerance). At any given pub or coffee shop, you're likely to see doctors and lawyers chumming it up with construction workers and bartenders in a free exchange of ideas and opinions. Lines of class, gender, age, and race become obsolete in this setting.
However, there is also within Brattleboro a less publicized, but fairly well-known, culture of poverty, drugs, and violence.
It was there when Brattleboro was still the rural town I knew as a child. Some elements of my upbringing brought me into these dark places, often quietly hidden on small side streets mere blocks from downtown.
I've seen some of the worst behavior and acts that one can do to another human being, and have known many people who have lost their lives to this environment.
This is also Brattleboro. It's part of a greater community. I've seen both sides and at times have had to teeter on the edge between the two.
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I'm writing this piece in response to the shooting at the Brattleboro Food Co-op on Aug. 9, just over one week after a drug-related shooting in nearby Dummerston.
The murder of Michael Martin took place in the hub of (for lack of a better term) gentrified Brattleboro, while the murder of Melissa Barratt took place on a quiet back road outside of town.
Both shootings were “execution-style,” but for vastly different reasons, some of which we'll never know at all. We know that Barratt's murder was in part drug related; the details of Martin's murder are still being uncovered.
My reaction, the community's reaction, all of our reactions to these events vary greatly. While it is often easy for people to accept (not to be confused with condone) a drug-related murder, we have trouble understanding a white-collar or working-class murder.
Make no mistake that the shock was felt equally in their respective communities. Both of these people had friends, family, and community, and the men who performed these heinous acts have robbed us all.
In all of this, I'm reminded of the image of the Yin-Yang in its simplest interpretation: the dark encompassing the light and the light encompassing the dark.
We have seen in the “light” of Brattleboro a dark element that is not often encountered but surely is there. With that in mind, know that within that darkness of poverty and drugs there must be some light.
It's a balance that can't be undone.