Day 15, March 31, 2020

Day 15, March 31, 2020

The other day I signed up on the Western Massachusetts Mutual Aid Network as a Neighborhood Pod  volunteer. The idea is that various neighborhoods can identify at least one person they can turn to if they need help with errands, picking up prescriptions, groceries, or something like that. On the site you can request help, volunteer, or give a monetary contributions for people in need. It seems like a great model of a Community Economy that is grassroots organized, non-profit, and has helping people at its core.

I feed the chickens, and the chickens feed me.

Debbie used to live, in what I called, an intentional community-lite. Laurel Park in Northampton originally was a Methodist summer camp, and many of the houses that are still there are dormitories and cottages from that original incarnation. Almost all of the houses are small, not quite tiny houses, but quite small, and very cute. The residents own their homes, but communally own the land, which functions like a condo cooperative. Plus, there are some common buildings and shared open areas. One of my first dates with Debbie was a community waffle breakfast where we joined some of the other residents to make waffles for all the older residents and families with children. It was a beautiful thing, and the kind of community I would love to live in some day. Alas, they did not allow amplified music after 8 pm, so unfortunately it was ill suited for me.

I think I've always been torn between wanting to live in a community, where I yearned for scenes from Alice's Restaurant, or to be part of a movement like the Dark Room Collective, or The Factory, or to live in a place like the Sirius Community, or Lupinwood. And then, I also have a deeply held affinity for independence, an ideal of living almost off the grid. When I was a kid I read My Side of the Mountain (I think that was the book), about a boy who runs away from home and practices survival skills and lives inside a hollow tree. I loved imagining that I had that capacity within myself, and I think even into adulthood, whenever I went camping, I channelled a little bit of that character. 

So between those two extremes, I live in a small dead end neighborhood with neighbors I can see walking their dogs, teaching their kids how to ride a bicycle, or raking their lawns, but I also have an acre and a half of woods behind me leading up to my own little stretch of river. I work in a community college, and play in several bands, and I find my desire for community there, but I also like to hole up at home (maybe not quite as much as we are doing now) with a good book, a guitar, and of course, Franklin.

I was talking with Tom Geha, who teaches theater at GCC and he talked about how desperately happy his students were to see one another, how it was really hard to end the Zoom meeting because they just wanted to keep talking and maintain a sense of connection, or community. Before this event, I never really thought too much about the presence or absence of synchronous meetings for online classes. It seemed more about convenience (asynchronous), or a dogged adherence to past practices (synchronous). But I was wrong. I think we are discovering that even the tenuous links to one another in a video conference call is helpful and can ease that sense of loss and separation. I certainly feel it when I talk with my parents, or my children, and even at the first All College virtual meeting, where I scrolled through several pages of attendees and it felt beautiful to see everyone's faces, a little window into their homes, and sometimes their children or their pets. It was beautiful, and these days I have to be careful around beautiful things because they tend to make my eyes well up in appreciation.

I hope you are all safe, healthy, and beautiful,

Leo

From Our Friends:

From a Dear Friend and Mentor:

A Chronicle of Higher Ed article on "Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure." My favorite line, "Day 4: just pours the ice cream into the pasta."

Today's Online Teaching Tips:

Zoom's Work from Home Tips

A lot of us are using Zoom these days. Here are some basic and slightly advanced (Touch up my appearance setting!) tips from the company.