His words sound radical at first.

“Let Wall Street fall and replace it with something solid, something real.”

And yet, as I listen to Bainbridge Island resident David Korten, a Harvard-educated, former professor of economics at Stanford, read from his new book, “Agenda for a New Economy: from Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth,” I realize that he is right.

He is merely expressing what we have been thinking.

When the guy in the dreadlocks and the round pointed hat in front of me calls out, “Yeah, man,” to various statements, I want to jump up and add my, “I’m with you there, man.”

The economy may be tanking in ways that worry and concern, and yet an exhilaration and jubilation comes over me.

Regardless of the market, I have come to realize that my investments are solid.

I see them when I glance out the window and watch the chickadees attack the two suet cakes that I put out every week.

The birds are all nesting, the lady at the bird store tells me. They need the fat to carry out their work.

My investment will result in healthy baby chickadees and juncos.

As I finish categorizing, inventorying and storing my children’s things (in a way that borders on the obsessive), I realize that all those years worth of work, some at jobs I hated along with bosses I hated even more, went toward my children’s education.

All the Scouting outings, the Little League events, the workshops at local colleges when they were merely wee babies, the museum and zoo visits, the cases of Legos and Knex, the 35 boxes of books all organized by type — history, art, math — including the “I love Math” and “How Things Work” series represent my investment in them.

As I listen to the kids relate their latest big thing, it’s reaffirmed — my investments are solid.

As I glance at the trees I planted with the kids, I realize that it was worth it to wrap up that mortgage early.

The banks, however unstable, however punitive or manipulative in their practices, hold no title to my little piece of property.

The people who said, “Let it go, you don’t need it. People can’t own land anyway,” were wrong.

As I check out the new buds on my trees, I can see — my investments are solid.

Not one of them can be leveraged. There is no taking money out of any of them — chickadees, kids or land — to go off on a spending spree.

That much is true. And yet it is exhilarating to know that my investments are strong, because they are real.

And even more exhilarating is the fact that I am not alone in thinking these thoughts, that this is an exciting time to be alive and others agree.

Woody Tasch, speaking the same week at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle on his new book, “Slow Money: Investing in Food, Farms and Fertility,” says as much.

Coming from a venture capital investment background, he talks of a shift to “nurture investing.”

“Fast money,” he says, “is not connected to anything real. Unlimited growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. We have just been led to believe it’s good.”

With this change in the market, he says, we can start putting our money into what’s real and what’s right there in front of us.

Like Korten, Tasch is involved with BALLE, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

Essentially, they operate like our downtown Port Orchard merchants’ association, wherein the businesses work to encourage, strengthen and support each other.

When Korten gets hit with a question about socialism, he responds by saying that he supports private ownership.

He supports the concept of small businesses and believes, like Tasch, that small businesses will rule the day and that creativity and innovation will prevail.

They believe that we will move to a more nurturing, community-oriented business model.

Speaking of community, I have felt honored to be given this column. I have thoroughly enjoyed showcasing amazing and extraordinary people over the years.

It has opened my heart and my eyes. I never walk into a store or a meeting room without coming across someone I know and admire.

Sometimes I even get hugs. Over the years, the hugs and words of encouragement have meant so much.

After years of cross-country moves, this column helped me find the love and support of community again. I thank you for that.

For a variety of reasons, the frequency of these columns will drop off. I regret that reality.

But I don’t regret for a moment the investment in you, your family or this community. Know that if given the chance I will continue to write a column or two, so don’t hesitate to send your ideas to mcolborn@live.com.

Also know that this liberation from a weekly column gives me room to pursue several dreams — the completion of several books, including my opus, “Where wonder takes you…,” the deconstruction of my house, two different food related projects that you have heard of over the years and the creation of Sustainable Port Orchard, a gathering of people excited about where we can take our future.

I’ll meet you there.

Mary Colborn is a Port Orchard resident.