Interview with Marty Dunn

Interview by Karin Forno with Marty Dunn, 2/12/21

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be at St. Mary’s?

I’m a cradle Episcopalian and I came from Calvary in Santa Cruz, which was established in 1864, a little bit older than St. Mary's and very similar in architecture and feel to St. Mary's. I went to look at St. Mary’s before I moved here in May of 2018. Then I went to a couple of services at St. Mary's before I made the commitment and I just knew that that would be my church.

I'm a third generation Santa Cruzan from a small family. I have two sons who are a lot older than I'm willing to admit, and five grandchildren. I’m a retired teacher, both elementary and high school. Now I do a little freelance editing, proofreading, and copywriting--I love words!

Since moving here, I’ve become a volunteer with the Friends of the Library and Sustainable Pacific Grove. I plan on more community involvement once we get past this lockdown.

I'm a swimmer, and I did a laundry white wash the other day just so I could smell the chlorine! The pool at the sports center has been closed for eleven months now, and I really miss not only the swimming but the great people there. I'm walking a lot. I fostered two dogs and have adopted the second one. She’s a light in my life, especially now. Also, I've been gardening a lot and making some photo notecards.

What did you do before you developed your editing business?

I was a fourth-grade bilingual teacher and I was a high school Spanish teacher in Santa Cruz City Schools.

So how has the pandemic affected you?

I feel that I am, not only by my own definition, but by my children’s and my friends’ definitions, an over-the-top extrovert. Being rather cloistered is a challenge. Zoom doesn't replace in-person, but it helps a bit to ease the loneliness.

I think we all feel cheated of time and there's always that kind of niggling worry out there.

Are we going to get sick and if we get sick are we going to die? And so I think some of us, if not all of us, have probably some degree of PTSD just from the anxiety with all of this.

I'm blessed in not having to line up for food somewhere or need special services. I'm very aware of my blessings. I think that's one of the few good things from the pandemic. It’s exacerbated that feeling of gratitude that I've had, especially since I moved here.

I haven't been attending Zoom church because it doesn't work for me. I don't like how it feels. Certainly, though, as has been my lifelong pattern, I pray every day, just my own prayers, mainly for people who have needs and for those for whom I have great affection or love.

Has there been a pattern to your feelings or experiences during the pandemic?

I get angry with myself that I haven't accomplished more, but mostly, fortunately, I'm in a patient mode where I just know that at some point this too shall pass. Just trying to keep a balance. 2020 has been the year from hell. Politically it's been extraordinarily upsetting, then things came to a head in the fires.

It's been hard to take in all the bad news. And yet again, I get back to this great sense of gratitude. I'm in a lovely place. I'm so happy I moved here. I came knowing nobody. Though it’s not many miles from Santa Cruz; it's not the distance. It's the connections. I had no connections here. So it's been wonderful for me that it has evolved the way it has.

I think this pandemic has changed me, changed all of us. I think we'll be able to rebuild our bonds if they have, in fact, weakened at all or been strained due to distance.

I hope the values have evolved. I find that I'm not interested in shopping. I've never been a real shopper anyway. I'm less of a consumer now than I was ever. I notice that.

Do you have any ideas about how St. Mary's might change in the future as a result of the pandemic?

And could you share your thoughts about how society might change more permanently as a result of the pandemic?

I'm not sure that I could speak to St. Mary's specifically since I've been AWOL, but I will tell you that I do miss being in the building, being with people. I miss being on my knees and singing. (Maybe people near me don't miss my singing!)

About society, I've been a rabid environmentalist since I was 10, a conservationist. I think it's been good that people have realized that we don't need to drive as much. But the other side of that coin is that I think we backslid a lot with our waste, with not being able to, for a while there, bring our own bags back to the market to take away foods that we buy. Some of it is still going out in plastic. I was part of the group that tried to get the Single-Use Plastics Ordinance enacted in PG.

 I'm extraordinarily concerned about the waste of paper masks and everything in the streets. I think climate change is the most overriding issue facing our world and has been for a long time. I have a spiritual side to that, too.

Since I was about 11, I always had this feeling that God gave us the world, and it was up to us what we do with it. I think we're doing a lot of bad things to it. If we really put some thought into it, though, we can hope for making positive changes in our lives. ‘Need’ is different from ‘want’, and we probably don't need all that we think we need.

Being more mindful in our choices and more generous in how we treat the world are vital to our planet’s health—and our own.

I've wondered what other people think about this: I feel like the pandemic has brought out our need for connection with each other on a more personal, corporeal, basis.

With the Zoom meetings it's a bit of a double edge. We've been kind of forced more into

it and there may be some advantages to it [for example] in terms of people not physically commuting. But there's the flipside of it. Which is, what if it should make us more dependent on technological connection than ever before?

Or are we going to say we're tired of that, we want in-person?

I think it's anybody's guess. I want to believe that we're going to say we're tired of that.

I would like to talk about what habits or practices are very important to you.

Being outside. Gardening is so soulful. Bulbs, for example, are a marvel: they are buried for months, and then, all of a sudden, they start to poke up into the sun and –voila!-- you have daffodils, which I think are the happiest flowers.

There’s comfort in nature's rhythms, that they stay the same. I remember during the last seal pupping season, sitting down at the cove here, thinking these seals have no idea of all the changes that are going on in our lives. They're continuing to do what they normally do.

I read a LOT and I watch movies. I love British TV, I cook, and I am mostly doing little whatevers... I'm busy by my nature. I've never vacationed well because I like to keep busy.

I think one of the things that's really been missing for me and maybe for a lot of people is a sense of purpose. Things that we've normally done to support our neighbor or community we can't do, or perhaps not in the way we may wish to do. There's a lack of fulfillment.

How have you dealt with the uncertainty in particular?

I do reach out to people and I developed quite a mailing list, mainly political stuff, but also some really great jokes or just commentary. And it helped me to send those out to people. Then I would hear back from people and I felt more connection. It was that we were all in the same choir. That has been comforting.

What would you most like to do that you're not doing now?

I have a ninety-three-year-old sister-in-law with whom I'm very close, and she's not doing well. I'm not sure she's going to last that long, but I want to see her, and of course, to be able to see my children.

What about the pandemic or this whole time has surprised you the most in a good way or bad way?

I think I have a couple of things that have surprised me.

One has been how long it's gone on, but the other has been how quickly science has provided hope. I think it's been just a miracle and I'm in awe of that.

Of course, we’ve had a couple of jolts.

At first we thought we're just going to go on for a few weeks.  It kept coming at us in dribs and drabs. Each time it became a little more out of our ability to comprehend how widespread this was and how much this was going to affect our lives.

For example, you get excited, you might read there's going to be a concert. But, oh, it's ‘virtual.’ Virtual—ugh!  Virtual sort of implies not real.

What's been the most difficult thing about the pandemic for you? Do you think the isolation?

That kind of covers it. It’s being cut off.

I'm 71 now and feeling, “How much longer am I going to be able to do this, that or the other and to feel healthy and fit enough to do this, that and the other?”

That then creates a lot of anxiety, because I do have friends, wishes, dreams and plans for little things, as well as some bigger things. Plans, though, are really hard to imagine right now.