Page 38 - Hoodview News January 2024

HOODVIEW NEWS COVER STORY
FULLY EQUIPPED: The upstairs of the SDF Collective features high-end computers and loaded with Adobe software, as well as open-source software. (Photo courtesy Amee Curtis)
matter. Your outlook on things is your choice. How you interact with the world is your choice. I choose every day to remember the fact that the world is not a punching bag that I need to take my anger out on. I feel it’s my personal responsi- bility. You know, oftentimes when you’re sore, you find yourself cranky or irritable or short tempered. It took me a long time to figure out how to not be those things to the world.”
Amee also gives credit to her parents and her upbring- ing. She says, “I would say that the way that I handle the world is a composite of so many experiences. It would be the experience of watch- ing my mom care for foster care kids. My mom special- ized in drug and alcohol affected newborns. So we would get newborns imme- diately out of the hospital that were detoxing. And to see the kind of pain that they went through, it enlightens you as to the fact that your pain is not the only pain. I grew up in a family where kindness begets kindness. I’ve grown up in a world where, yeah, the choices that I’ve made, I’ve made because I know the pain that I live with every single day. I acknowledge that there are different kinds of pain in the world. I know that my pain
Amee Curtis
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ism, and being able to be that relief that they need. I’ve literally had people cry when the projects were [completed]. They were just so relieved, because they felt it was never going to happen. That’s going to be the thing that will forever be my high point. I mean, I wake up every day excited to get to work. I love being the relief for somebody else.”
Amee’s positive attitude is difficult for some to understand because of her disease and constant pain. Amee’s response to this is,
“There’s a lot of choices with all things that happen to us. And of course, I look at arthritis and it’s something that I didn’t have a choice on, right? Once you kind of swallow that, that real- ization, your life becomes measurably different. Then [the question] becomes how you handle it. Those are the choices that I’m talking about.”
Avoiding standard drugs
For her own treatment, she has chosen to avoid taking standard drugs, which often come with significant side effects. Instead she moni- tors and maintains her health
through exercise and diet. She continues to share her positive perspective, “Another choice is the out- look that everybody seems to notice. Everybody always says, ‘Amee, I can’t believe that you’re so positive about all of this.’ And the reality is, that’s a choice. Nobody would fault me if I wanted to sit on a couch and baby my arm, which by the way, right now is on fire [at the time of the interview]. But I only have one life. So I get to be the one that chooses how to spend it. Now, whether my arm is hurting, whether I was born without a leg, whatever the case may be, it doesn’t
OUT FRONT: Amee stands in the plaza of the SDF Collective on NW 3rd and Main Street in Gresham. (Photo Emily Lewis)
is not the premier. I know that I don’t need to share that with anybody.”
She highlights something her younger brother did as being a big influence on her. Amee says, “My outlook, my ability to be joyful — I think it just truly comes from a place of my gratitude. I remember when I was very young, still in high school. I remember being so sore, that holding my backpack hurt. So my younger brother, who was two years younger than
me, he would actually wake up really early to carry my bag all the way down the hill to the bus stop. The bus would arrive, he’d actually get up on the bus to put my bag at whatever seat I chose, then get off the bus, go home, and then begin his day. I remember even then think- ing, ‘I didn’t ask this of him.’ And if somebody can show that level of kindness, how dare I ever let the excuse
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38 HOODVIEWNEWS
January, 2024
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