2003-07-17 - 1:56 p.m.
Morgan (my summer housemate) and I are shareholders for a community supported agriculture project, called Helsing Junction Farm, in Washington. Every week we pick up a box of vegetabes, flowers and fruit from a garage near our house. With our vegetables we also get a letter describing what's been going on at the farm and listing recipies for that week's produce. I love reading about the farm- it is like calling my parents. I can picture my Mom sitting on our porch, looking out over her gardens, the barn and the hayfields. She'll tell me things like "My sun flowers are 5 feet high!" or "The dog dug a hole in the garden yesterday, chasing some varmit, so deep I could only see his tail sticking out!" She tells me about the pesto she made, or how she runs out to get the lettuce right before she tosses the salad so it will be just that fresh. It tells me a lot about how I learned to do things, why I like things a certain way.
I've been thinking a lot about community and productivity. I suppose I've been in a space where I question why I do the things I do, not in a negative way, but in a way where I remind myself that I make certain choices for a reason. For example, why do I ride a bike? Not just because I can't afford a car right now- I remind myself it's a conscious decision, it's more than being just a nice way to get around in the summer (though it is that too)- that it is a political choice, but a choice that doesn't just stop there, with my individual actions. This leads into reminding myself not to take the community I find myself in in Portland (or in New York, for that matter) for granted- to remember it was build up over time, with the conscious work of a lot of kids (and adults too) who wanted to live differently, who wanted to make certain consciously political choices about their lives.
I suppose I got thinking about this in a meeting with Moe, author of Xtra Tuff zine, commercial fisherwoman and artist and activist extraordinaire, when she described what the punk or diy community was the woman we were meeting with about one of our workshops at the zine symposium. It reminded me that this is a conscious community and as much as I bitch and whine and feel grouchy about "punks" I align myself with this subculture in many ways. So it raised for me the question of what direction will I go with my life? Because to me it doesn't feel like enough to live in a collective house, to bike everywhere, and to live as cheaply as possible- this I hope to do, yes, but I need to figure out what "living in resistance" means for me. Of course, my entire life is a process of trying out different answers to that question, but what I mean is, being accountable to privilege also plays into it a lot for me. Because to me it's not about playing down the class privlege I have, but perhaps using my liberal arts degree and the skills I learned in college towards organizing, towards something more community oriented and less self serving. I suppose I have a fear that I will suddenly turn out to be totaly self serving. I feel that tendency, especially when I feel overwhelmed, to think "take care of me, and that's enough".
And sure, at a certain point, it is. I don't want to be anyone's caretaker, mom, etc., but it's also about being an active member of a community. About sharing what I have, about appreciating other people. Basically, I can't write enough on this question, because the future is open wide, and I don't have (and don't want) and answer to it, but sometimes it seems so staggering, that I turn the quesiton over and over in my mind. Of course, insecurity and fear nag me there too, "what if I can't live up to any of my hopes?"
I've also been thinking about the ways in which I force myself to be "productive". How I wanted to make so much art, so much new writing, read so many books this summer. But now I am realizing that I just need the time to think, to be, and to work at my own pace. Because what's the point of always having something new if I isolate myself from everyone while I making it?
