09/05/2025
At last night’s Dane County Board meeting I had the honor of giving the inspiration at the beginning of the meeting. Sharing my remarks below in case you need a little inspiration right now.
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I have had the kind of year that people write books and screenplays about. While I am not sharing any details with any of you, I can say it has been a dark comic’s dream.
Considering what to share as an inspiration at tonight’s meeting has been nothing short of a challenge. The world is heavy right now - with everything. Even thinking about all the heavy things I could list right in this moment feels like an impossible task.
And yet we’re here. About to embark on the public process of what we know will be a very difficult county budget.
As we collectively start this part of the process, I want to share some lyrics that have been a guidepost for me for sometime.
The line is:
“Everything’s different. Nothing’s changed. Only maybe slightly rearranged.”
It’s from the song “Sorry-Grateful” from the brilliant Stephen Sondheim musical “Company.”
The New York Times once called Sondheim the “supreme artist of ambivalence.” And he was.
Barry Schilmeister wrote in an online forum after Sondheim’s death:
“Sondheim himself wasn’t ambivalent — he was clear that everything, certainly everything involving human beings, has more than one dimension. Those dimensions might not ever reconcile, but decisions must be made, nonetheless. One’s life consists of either/or. He understood this at an incredibly insightful and emotional level…Family didn’t equal happiness. Mother didn’t equal love. Desire didn’t equal success. Witches can be right; Giants can be good. …And, he brought that home not just through those piercingly personal lyrics, but through the music, that could belie the words resting on it — happy/sad, exciting/dangerous, sorry/grateful. The humanity of his messaging created a direct line from the actor to the audience — all of us — that so often made us acknowledge, yes, that is true.”
This board. This budget. Our work. Sondheim. Ambivalence. Company. Sorry-Grateful. There’s a direct line here too.
For those who might be a little lost right now, here’s a more practical application of the lyrics I shared.
Everything’s different. A different year. A different county board. A different county exec. Different department heads. Different sources and amounts of funding.
Nothing's changed. Our values haven’t changed. The issues and challenges haven’t changed. The process, the meetings, so many of the conversations and arguments - they haven’t changed.
Only maybe slightly rearranged. This part is our job. Rearranging to reconcile “the differences” with “the nothing's changed” - decisions have to be made.
And we are the perfectly imperfect human beings that have the honor and privilege of doing that work and making those decisions.
Thank you, and if you choose, please join me in the pledge of allegiance.
