Well, I’ll be damned.
Just when I thought it was all doom and gloom, there are little slivers of hope like fragile shards of broken light penetrating my world. Don’t worry, it’s mostly still doom and gloom, maybe just doo and gloo, though.
Michael and I watched a PBS series called A Brief History of the Future, and found it to be surprisingly hopeful. Like, yes, there are smart, passionate, committed people out in the world, finding ways to contribute to the well-being of the people around them, through science, service, useful inventions, smart community planning, how-to-think education vs. what-to-think education, music, art, and determination.
Interestingly, the common thread that seemed to run through nearly all of the segments on this series, was community. When people were asked to talk about their vision for the most hopeful future, there was always some kind of vision for community, from cities to floating villages to communal structures with living garden walls.
My friend The Soul Chiropractor (Dr. Tanya English) and I were talking just this morning about how many healers are practicing from their homes, and it struck me as being like the completion of a circle – historically, “Witches,” healers, midwives, whatever you called them, worked out of their houses (but made lots of housecalls) back when towns and villages were small enough that a single Witch could take care of a single place. That’s another piece of the puzzle – healers integrated into the residential life of the community. Every neighborhood should have one.
I have trouble asking for help – but oh how I love to collaborate on things.
Community makes us stronger. Two or more heads are frequently better than one, especially if carefully curated. Not just any head will do, oh no. But a few of the right heads, the gentle, loving, tender, smart, funny, creative ones, become the best possible kind of hive mind. Michael and I are having a wedding party in a few weeks and neither of us could wrap our heads around where to even start, so I invited some friends to collaborate and holy voila, Batman, we have a vision and a plan.
Community is also hard. Covid didn’t do us any favors. Isolation is like entropy – it seems to win a lot. Like I stopped wearing structured, woven pants and wear only loose stretchy pants now. The softer the better. I can’t do more than three things in a single day or I just about have a meltdown. Having three people over to my house takes as much energy as attending a sold-out rock show did four years ago. I never go anywhere that I don’t absolutely have to go. God help me if I have to go to a big box type store for anything. Even at our tiny natural food coop, I tend to zoom around with blinders on and get out of there as fast as humanly possible. Which seems sad and odd and unnecessary. I’d love to be a lady of leisure, but nope, I’m a zoomer. Got things to do, gotta get on, gotta get home, comfy chair can’t sit in itself all day … I’ve got books to read, dammit.
And I know I am far, far from alone with that. I think it was a multiple trauma event, with Covid, killer wasps, volcanos, derechos, bloviating orange maniacs trying to kill us with bleach and horse paste before perpetrating an insurrection … you probably remember. 2020 put us through a wringer, and 2021 wasn’t all that much better. 2022 was frustrating as half the population was grinding their teeth saying, “Why are they dragging their damned feet? Lock this maniac away ffs!” and the other half was running over peaceful protestors with their pickup trucks. 2023 was a blur for me, so I can’t really help you much there, but wasn’t that the year that the hand-picked bunch of conservative yahoos on the No Longer So Supreme Court decided women didn’t need bodily autonomy? And now we’re seeing the insecure bloviating mafia-don-wannabe all over the news again, and we’re holding our breath, praying for some Justice, not able to face the nightmare of that utter POS inhabiting the White House for another devastating four years.
Is it any wonder that we tend to crawl into our blanket forts at the end of the day for a good old catatonic stuporing?
But … what if we remembered that we can reach out, we can ask for help, we can collaborate and co-create? Isolation isn’t healthy. Babies fail to thrive if they aren’t given affection and positive attention. So do the elderly. So do … all of us. I’m tryin’, I really am, to be part of my community again, and some days it’s almost more than I can do. The overwhelm is real, y’all. But I’m watching the mental deterioration of people I love who are not trying to be either in the world or of it, and it’s painful. I don’t want to be that. I struggle with conversational words – words come out my fingers okay but not out of my mouth. I don’t want my mental sharpness to be blunted by not using my brain to people with people. It’s scary and the struggle is all too real. Michael and I converse thusly: “Did you find the … thing?” “Oh, yeah, it was … down in the … place.” We know what we’re talking about, but it doesn’t really help us communicate with anybody else.
Community – use it or lose it? Yeah, lots of us are losing it, no question. Maybe together we can find … the thing … in the place.
We all need somebody. Find them and hang on. ’cause there are monsters — and they were the same skin you do. So yea, find community. And if you cannot find it, create it.
Working on it, my friend. It’s daunting, as I am a genetic introvert on both sides of the tree and my natural state is Hermit. But I am trying. I have the Family Folk Machine, which helps. Thanks for being a regular presence in my world.
My Qigong teacher frequently says, “Move toward life”. I can sense when I’m doing that. It’s all energy. A community with life energy is very give and take. Moving toward that life energy with every step when one is with community or by our lonesome.
Thanls, Alma for your musings and insights. I welcome them into the day.
Ooh, I like that! It’s so very clear – yes, move toward life. I often say, “If you follow the Path of Joy, you will always end up exactly where you need to be.” Beautiful! Thank you, dear friend!