So today I took the biggest step yet toward actually living on the farm--I started shoveling out the grain shed. That sentence pretty much sums up my expectations for the day, however life should always be an adventure.
Part of the roof is gone, and so half of the shed was being rained on. I focused on the other part. Shoveling and sweeping is generally not very complicated, but even so it was easier than I expected. It really was mostly dirt, except for along the back wall, where there was a pile of old, empty feed bags that had been there for many years. I started moving them into the remains of the chicken coop (to prevent them from becoming sodden, disintegrating bags), but then realized that I could just burn them off under the shed's adjoining lean-to. Between the rain and the large dirt area, I figured there was no problem with a little, five-minute fire.
Things I learned today:
1) Smoke usually floats up and disperses, however this is not the case when it is raining.
2) Under this condition, the smoke blows into an open window, and then blows out through the holes in the roof.
3) When seen from the road, this situation looks quite serious.
4) Brandon, a childhood friend who lives down the road, is a volunteer firefighter. So are several other people who live within five miles.
5) A firetruck cannot make it down my driveway when it has been raining.
6) From October 15 through May 15, anyone starting an open-air fire within 500 feet of a forest, grassland, or woodland must by law secure a burning permit from the Division of Forestry.
Although I felt bad that all of these people had to come out in the rain, I was glad to know that people in the area are looking out for their neighbors' safety, and that it takes very little time for firefighters to arrive. On top of that, one of the guys who came to put out my tiny, tiny fire offered to help me install the gate on the driveway. If dad doesn't come around to help me with that soon, I just may take him up on that. The backwoods of Dickson seems like a good place to live today.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
up against the walls when the revolution comes
I woke up at 3:00am parked in the Post Office parking lot. I'd been asleep for 15 minutes, when my phone rang. I met Stefanie and her boyfriend Drew 370 days ago, on the train from LA to Chicago, and this was our first non-facebook communication since that trip. We talked until my phone died; we talked until nearly 4:30.
Right now I'm feeling the wreck that my body experiences when I eat or drink too soon after waking up. In the light of that wreck, all my conversations from last night are crashing together. Stefanie and I (and, earlier, Leslie and I) talked about our experiences over the past few months. Like everyone else I know right now: life is changing like earthquakes. Like everyone else I know right now: we talked about how these changes appear to have huge implications for The Future. Personal experiences finding resonance with community experiences; social experiences full of synchronicities and connections. I am glad to see this happening in my life, and am encouraged to see this is happening to others around me, and excited to hear it happening to Stef on the other side of the country.
She asked me, "Have you ever made an attempt to do something other than the get-a-job, life-as-normal life?" It struck me as odd at first, considering when she met me I was homeless and talking about a farm and Leslie & Charles & Adrienne & Valerie & Scott & I occupying it with hopes and dreams and intentions.
It also struck me as odd that my answer to her question was, "No."
I've had some relatively epic adventures over the past five years, and many (if not most) involved or flirted with being homeless, jobless, and discussing alternatives to that "normal" life. But when she asked me that, I realized that I never took both feet off the "normal" path. I only stepped far enough off to appear to be on the adventure I craved--appear, to myself as well as others.
Right now, I feel like I'm in a place much different from anywhere I've been before. Over these months... hell, over these years, I have tested and discovered my beliefs. I have always wanted to live by those beliefs HARD. And yet, only one foot off the path of security. And now, revolution seems nigh. It feels like time to move forward.
I don't want to be swept forward.
I want to walk forward, boldly. I have allowed my beliefs to represent me for so long; now I want to represent my beliefs.
I am up against my own walls in every direction. Any moving forward requires me to do things I am desperately afraid to do. I have to make myself vulnerable. I am so afraid.
I almost didn't go to Leslie's birthday supper last night, because that is one of my walls. And today will involve that wall and another: discussing intentional communities with her & others also faces my fear of having a role in a community; a role I don't want, a role I have refused to accept, but that Life keeps trying to hand me. Fear of vulnerability leads to my walls, and I feel like those walls would be faults in the foundations that I'm building.
--- -- - -- ---
Boom. This blog was expected to be cohesive, but the fact that I slept fifteen minutes, then almost an hour, then an hour, and then immediately drank coffee and ate.... as I said: a wreck. So, derailed.
Now about rationalizing.
--- -- - -- ---
In the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, two characters (Richard, Dirk) are walking near a canal, talking. Suddenly, Richard disrobes, jumps into the canal, and nearly drowns. Once Dirk brings him out, Richard explains: he suddenly remembered that he'd missed his morning swim, and decided to take it at that moment. Dirk then plays a recording of Richard under hypnosis. "When I say x, you will take off your clothes, jump into the canal, and find that you cannot swim."
This is a shameful summation of the event that very elegantly describes how I rationalize things. An example from my own life: Whenever I drink to excess, I spend the next day experiencing intense panic attacks. It is a chemical reaction, however I feel something and so I create a story to explain the feeling. I tell myself stories about how everything I'd done the night before was a terrible thing.
Ugh... my brain is working less. My stomach is cramping. This topic will be returned to.
Right now I'm feeling the wreck that my body experiences when I eat or drink too soon after waking up. In the light of that wreck, all my conversations from last night are crashing together. Stefanie and I (and, earlier, Leslie and I) talked about our experiences over the past few months. Like everyone else I know right now: life is changing like earthquakes. Like everyone else I know right now: we talked about how these changes appear to have huge implications for The Future. Personal experiences finding resonance with community experiences; social experiences full of synchronicities and connections. I am glad to see this happening in my life, and am encouraged to see this is happening to others around me, and excited to hear it happening to Stef on the other side of the country.
She asked me, "Have you ever made an attempt to do something other than the get-a-job, life-as-normal life?" It struck me as odd at first, considering when she met me I was homeless and talking about a farm and Leslie & Charles & Adrienne & Valerie & Scott & I occupying it with hopes and dreams and intentions.
It also struck me as odd that my answer to her question was, "No."
I've had some relatively epic adventures over the past five years, and many (if not most) involved or flirted with being homeless, jobless, and discussing alternatives to that "normal" life. But when she asked me that, I realized that I never took both feet off the "normal" path. I only stepped far enough off to appear to be on the adventure I craved--appear, to myself as well as others.
Right now, I feel like I'm in a place much different from anywhere I've been before. Over these months... hell, over these years, I have tested and discovered my beliefs. I have always wanted to live by those beliefs HARD. And yet, only one foot off the path of security. And now, revolution seems nigh. It feels like time to move forward.
I don't want to be swept forward.
I want to walk forward, boldly. I have allowed my beliefs to represent me for so long; now I want to represent my beliefs.
I am up against my own walls in every direction. Any moving forward requires me to do things I am desperately afraid to do. I have to make myself vulnerable. I am so afraid.
I almost didn't go to Leslie's birthday supper last night, because that is one of my walls. And today will involve that wall and another: discussing intentional communities with her & others also faces my fear of having a role in a community; a role I don't want, a role I have refused to accept, but that Life keeps trying to hand me. Fear of vulnerability leads to my walls, and I feel like those walls would be faults in the foundations that I'm building.
--- -- - -- ---
Boom. This blog was expected to be cohesive, but the fact that I slept fifteen minutes, then almost an hour, then an hour, and then immediately drank coffee and ate.... as I said: a wreck. So, derailed.
Now about rationalizing.
--- -- - -- ---
In the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, two characters (Richard, Dirk) are walking near a canal, talking. Suddenly, Richard disrobes, jumps into the canal, and nearly drowns. Once Dirk brings him out, Richard explains: he suddenly remembered that he'd missed his morning swim, and decided to take it at that moment. Dirk then plays a recording of Richard under hypnosis. "When I say x, you will take off your clothes, jump into the canal, and find that you cannot swim."
This is a shameful summation of the event that very elegantly describes how I rationalize things. An example from my own life: Whenever I drink to excess, I spend the next day experiencing intense panic attacks. It is a chemical reaction, however I feel something and so I create a story to explain the feeling. I tell myself stories about how everything I'd done the night before was a terrible thing.
Ugh... my brain is working less. My stomach is cramping. This topic will be returned to.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
An Interesting Night
For Occupy, this weekend is kind of a big deal. Occupy Nashville is hosting the first state-wide rally, attracting protesters from all over the state of Tennessee. Several people from Clarksville even went the extra mile (well, sixty miles) by walking to Nashville, chanting and carrying a banner.
I'd crawled into my sleeping bag, resolved to skip the planned midnight march in favor of what warmth and comfort I could muster. (If you know me, you know that I'm kicking myself now that I've recognized this. Meditative awareness fail.) But when the Clarksville bunch showed up, after a day of anticipation (and after, on their side of the story, thirty hours of walking), the camp got loud. Chanting, cheering... Revelry. A desire to recognize these heroes compelled me to get dressed and re-enter the cold.
They were on the ground: sitting, laying, smoking and exhausted. They were served coffee and pizza, and we helped set up their tents.
And then it was midnight. We gathered at the top of the stairs, where Will-from-Legal addressed the crowd. "When marching, you will not be arrested if you stay on the sidewalks. Walking in the street is illegal... You have been advised. Do what you want." Upon hearing that, I expected to see a handful of us stepping out into the street from time to time. Our Clarksville friends came to the front of the crowd, and the march began. Almost everyone walked right into the street; we on the sidewalk were the handful.
Deaderick, at midnight, is not a bust street. I was amused by our group's "daring" display of civil disobedience, as we inconvenienced a single driver. And then we turned right onto 2nd Avenue. The front line linked arms, and chanted "This is what democracy looks like!" as they walked into oncoming traffic on the one-way street. I happened to be walking near Will-from-Legal and heard him say to himself, "Really? Oh my god." Not what you'd normally like to hear fro your legal adviser. Is this what our democracy looks like?
To many people, yes. It is.
Of course, many people support the status quo. That's what makes it the status quo. The perception that we in Occupy are reckless, crazy people is not only due to misunderstanding or lack of information It is also a recognition that we are rocking the boat--a boat that a large percentage feel does not need to be rocked. The idea that people would disagree with us and speak out was not surprising to me, but being in the center of it was nearly overwhelming, Not all response was negative. I'd say 35-40% of the people around us seemed supportive, but it was the other 60-65% that impressed me in the moment. In the street, the cars changed lanes or stopped to avoid contact with Occupy; on the sidewalks, however, people were drawn to us. My natural inclination to be invisible was bruised and beaten. "What is your problem with America?" "What does your sign sa--oh, it's just a bunch of Democrats."* Yelling. Insults. Mocking. At the plaza, people often drive by shouting, "Get a job!" The march gave us an opportunity. When somebody shouted at John, from Knoxville, to take a shower,** John fell back to talk, and as I walked on I heard the start of his conversation: "I did. We all shower. They're really good people..." And at one point several guys we passed started chanting, "USA! USA!" to counter our own chants. We took up theirs: "USA! USA!" They shut up.
Unlike Deaderick St, Broadway is the heart of Nashville tourist-driven nightlife, and the street was plenty busy. After a couple of blocks, a police car had stopped and the officer approached the group announcing, "If you get move to the sidewalk, you will not be arrested." Those at the front of the group turned to mic-check the announcement, but before they'd finished the sentence, two people were arrested. I felt like everything should have seemed like it was in slow motion, or else that everything should have "happened so quickly." The lack of time distortion disoriented me. I'm a fan or trespassing and other boundary-crossings, but at that moment the fact that some of us were not standing on the sidewalk seemed like the scariest thing in the world. The Complacent Citizen training I'd endured for most of my life kicked in, and I just could not understand why my friends were still in the street. Of course, they didn't move, Court--civil disobedience doesn't stop when the cops show up. But after five arrests, we were all on the sidewalk. Several of our group had their cameras and phones out, recording the scene and chanting, "The world is watching! The world is watching!"
I was so confused. Were they trying to chastise the police? The chanting of "Bullshit! Bullshit!" a moment later seemed to suggest that they were. The world was watching... what? Watching the police do their jobs? They probably didn't have to shove people so hard against their cars, but there was nothing near what I would consider excessive force. We've seen the videos and heard the reports from around the country... were we just feeling left out? Were we fantasizing a chaotic scene? On one hand, I felt the reaction was irrational, but on the other hand, so was it all. Awhile the police were slamming Matt and Jen and Jeremiah and the others against the cars (and I am, by the way, making an effort to not e sensational--I do mean slamming) and handcuffing them, other people were walking out into the street yelling and swearing and flipping us off, without looking first (and, therefore causing a much greater risk than we had), but nobody outside of Occupy Tennessee got so much as a casual glance.
Once the police had gone, we reconvened at the next corner. Someone was shouting, "Do not let the police intimidate you!" Good advice for that moment. "They are evil!" Wait, what? The police have to accept that we are going to walk down the busiest street in town en masse... Was it so hard to accept in turn that they were going to arrest us? Other Occupations have been given good cause to distrust the police, but in Nashville more than anywhere else the police have been on our side. (They're unionized. They get it.) In fact, as we continued to march toward the night court, where we were told our friends would be taken, somebody on the sidewalk fell to the ground, unable to walk. Gathered around him in concern, several of us were in the street, and an officer drove up, blocking traffic to protect us.
A guy named Scott hadn't marched with us, but he came down from the plaza once he heard about the arrests. He and I got to talking, and fell back to the end of the crowd. We passed a car of young women who rolled their windows down and were yelling at us. I'd had enough of it. I ignored them. And then I heard a car door, and footsteps running toward me. A pretty (and very drunk) girl in a tight pink top, wanted her picture taken with a protester with a sign. So that was me. She handed her iPhone over to Scott as I tried to wrap my head around one of the strangest moments of my life. I had witnessed people getting arrested for something I had been a part of. I had been marching with people from all over the state, in support of an idea too big to articulate fully. I was cold, I didn't know what to think, what to feel, and now I was a prop for this bimbo's photo op. I'm glad that moment of my life will live on anonymously in a stranger's facebook photo album.
After that weird moment, Scott and I were well behind the rest. A police car drove past, away from the courthouse, and we saw one of our people in the back seat. The car drove on a couple of blocks, and then pulled over. We approached the car and the officer rolled down his window and told us to move back and wait; she would e released soon. We obliged. I recognized the girl as one of our visitors from Johnson City, and so when I saw the other members of OJC, I ran over to tell them where she was. The five of us waited, and eventually the girl was released. She told us that the officer had been taking her to the courthouse when he was ordered, over the radio, to give her a citation and release her. She said his response was, "You've got the be fucking kidding me." We walked her back to the camp, and from there Lance, Butch and I set off to meet up with everyone at the courthouse. By the time we got there, the rest of the people had been given citations and released, and we continued the march.
*For the record, my supposedly left-wing sign says, "Something better is what I'm after, and no less."
**For the record, John was well-dressed and clean-cut. How strange that we, as people, can see what we expect to see, rather than what is actually there.
I'd crawled into my sleeping bag, resolved to skip the planned midnight march in favor of what warmth and comfort I could muster. (If you know me, you know that I'm kicking myself now that I've recognized this. Meditative awareness fail.) But when the Clarksville bunch showed up, after a day of anticipation (and after, on their side of the story, thirty hours of walking), the camp got loud. Chanting, cheering... Revelry. A desire to recognize these heroes compelled me to get dressed and re-enter the cold.
They were on the ground: sitting, laying, smoking and exhausted. They were served coffee and pizza, and we helped set up their tents.
And then it was midnight. We gathered at the top of the stairs, where Will-from-Legal addressed the crowd. "When marching, you will not be arrested if you stay on the sidewalks. Walking in the street is illegal... You have been advised. Do what you want." Upon hearing that, I expected to see a handful of us stepping out into the street from time to time. Our Clarksville friends came to the front of the crowd, and the march began. Almost everyone walked right into the street; we on the sidewalk were the handful.
Deaderick, at midnight, is not a bust street. I was amused by our group's "daring" display of civil disobedience, as we inconvenienced a single driver. And then we turned right onto 2nd Avenue. The front line linked arms, and chanted "This is what democracy looks like!" as they walked into oncoming traffic on the one-way street. I happened to be walking near Will-from-Legal and heard him say to himself, "Really? Oh my god." Not what you'd normally like to hear fro your legal adviser. Is this what our democracy looks like?
To many people, yes. It is.
Of course, many people support the status quo. That's what makes it the status quo. The perception that we in Occupy are reckless, crazy people is not only due to misunderstanding or lack of information It is also a recognition that we are rocking the boat--a boat that a large percentage feel does not need to be rocked. The idea that people would disagree with us and speak out was not surprising to me, but being in the center of it was nearly overwhelming, Not all response was negative. I'd say 35-40% of the people around us seemed supportive, but it was the other 60-65% that impressed me in the moment. In the street, the cars changed lanes or stopped to avoid contact with Occupy; on the sidewalks, however, people were drawn to us. My natural inclination to be invisible was bruised and beaten. "What is your problem with America?" "What does your sign sa--oh, it's just a bunch of Democrats."* Yelling. Insults. Mocking. At the plaza, people often drive by shouting, "Get a job!" The march gave us an opportunity. When somebody shouted at John, from Knoxville, to take a shower,** John fell back to talk, and as I walked on I heard the start of his conversation: "I did. We all shower. They're really good people..." And at one point several guys we passed started chanting, "USA! USA!" to counter our own chants. We took up theirs: "USA! USA!" They shut up.
Unlike Deaderick St, Broadway is the heart of Nashville tourist-driven nightlife, and the street was plenty busy. After a couple of blocks, a police car had stopped and the officer approached the group announcing, "If you get move to the sidewalk, you will not be arrested." Those at the front of the group turned to mic-check the announcement, but before they'd finished the sentence, two people were arrested. I felt like everything should have seemed like it was in slow motion, or else that everything should have "happened so quickly." The lack of time distortion disoriented me. I'm a fan or trespassing and other boundary-crossings, but at that moment the fact that some of us were not standing on the sidewalk seemed like the scariest thing in the world. The Complacent Citizen training I'd endured for most of my life kicked in, and I just could not understand why my friends were still in the street. Of course, they didn't move, Court--civil disobedience doesn't stop when the cops show up. But after five arrests, we were all on the sidewalk. Several of our group had their cameras and phones out, recording the scene and chanting, "The world is watching! The world is watching!"
I was so confused. Were they trying to chastise the police? The chanting of "Bullshit! Bullshit!" a moment later seemed to suggest that they were. The world was watching... what? Watching the police do their jobs? They probably didn't have to shove people so hard against their cars, but there was nothing near what I would consider excessive force. We've seen the videos and heard the reports from around the country... were we just feeling left out? Were we fantasizing a chaotic scene? On one hand, I felt the reaction was irrational, but on the other hand, so was it all. Awhile the police were slamming Matt and Jen and Jeremiah and the others against the cars (and I am, by the way, making an effort to not e sensational--I do mean slamming) and handcuffing them, other people were walking out into the street yelling and swearing and flipping us off, without looking first (and, therefore causing a much greater risk than we had), but nobody outside of Occupy Tennessee got so much as a casual glance.
Once the police had gone, we reconvened at the next corner. Someone was shouting, "Do not let the police intimidate you!" Good advice for that moment. "They are evil!" Wait, what? The police have to accept that we are going to walk down the busiest street in town en masse... Was it so hard to accept in turn that they were going to arrest us? Other Occupations have been given good cause to distrust the police, but in Nashville more than anywhere else the police have been on our side. (They're unionized. They get it.) In fact, as we continued to march toward the night court, where we were told our friends would be taken, somebody on the sidewalk fell to the ground, unable to walk. Gathered around him in concern, several of us were in the street, and an officer drove up, blocking traffic to protect us.
A guy named Scott hadn't marched with us, but he came down from the plaza once he heard about the arrests. He and I got to talking, and fell back to the end of the crowd. We passed a car of young women who rolled their windows down and were yelling at us. I'd had enough of it. I ignored them. And then I heard a car door, and footsteps running toward me. A pretty (and very drunk) girl in a tight pink top, wanted her picture taken with a protester with a sign. So that was me. She handed her iPhone over to Scott as I tried to wrap my head around one of the strangest moments of my life. I had witnessed people getting arrested for something I had been a part of. I had been marching with people from all over the state, in support of an idea too big to articulate fully. I was cold, I didn't know what to think, what to feel, and now I was a prop for this bimbo's photo op. I'm glad that moment of my life will live on anonymously in a stranger's facebook photo album.
After that weird moment, Scott and I were well behind the rest. A police car drove past, away from the courthouse, and we saw one of our people in the back seat. The car drove on a couple of blocks, and then pulled over. We approached the car and the officer rolled down his window and told us to move back and wait; she would e released soon. We obliged. I recognized the girl as one of our visitors from Johnson City, and so when I saw the other members of OJC, I ran over to tell them where she was. The five of us waited, and eventually the girl was released. She told us that the officer had been taking her to the courthouse when he was ordered, over the radio, to give her a citation and release her. She said his response was, "You've got the be fucking kidding me." We walked her back to the camp, and from there Lance, Butch and I set off to meet up with everyone at the courthouse. By the time we got there, the rest of the people had been given citations and released, and we continued the march.
*For the record, my supposedly left-wing sign says, "Something better is what I'm after, and no less."
**For the record, John was well-dressed and clean-cut. How strange that we, as people, can see what we expect to see, rather than what is actually there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)