Love this, Garrett. It's so well and lovingly explicated. And I'm also aware, at least in myself, that there's work to do around strengthening our own circles of care now as well. In my case, first, in order to fuel my work in community. But not everyone is wired like me, so I'll just suggest *also*.
The following is something I spontaneously wrote in Notes about it this morning, but I'm rarely on Notes so no one much will see it. But because of the nature of this community, I'll share it here. Sorry that it's long:
"When I was a little girl and got sent to my Grandma Mary’s house in Memphis in the summer I loved it. Except for the part where she talked to everybody, and I mean, everybody— the bus driver, the trash collector, the check-out lady at the grocery store— everywhere we went. She’d say hello and chat a bit about whatever while I hung behind her with anticipatory mortification for when she would inevitably pull me forward and introduce me (to these people she didn’t even know!) as her granddaughter.
If she had long enough, say, in the grocery line, she’d pull a little notebook out of her purse. She’d already managed to file away in her brain whatever little things they would mention about themselves (that their kid was sick or they were behind on rent or whatever poured out of them in the face of her endless empathy). Then she’d write their name and their birthday carefully in her little book and she’d promise to remember.
They never seemed to believe her, but they didn’t know my grandma.
See, my grandma had a daily prayer practice. Every morning she would get up, first thing, and she would settle in and talk to God. Just like she talked to the lady at the grocery store. Out loud, I mean. She’d recite some prayers and then she’d start her list. First, her family (which was not small) and then her friends, and then all the random people she had written in her book. She’d explain to God what was going on with each of them, what they needed, and then she would ask Him, sincerely, to hold them lovingly and tenderly in His hand.
Then, on their birthday, she would send them a birthday card. In the mail! People she barely knew. Because she believed everyone deserves to know, at the very least on their birthday, that someone is thinking of them.
I started pondering Grandma after the election. About the way she instinctually understood what it was to create a community of care. I thought about how I could follow in her footsteps, being the introverted one I am, who also tends towards self-isolation beyond, even, the normal boundaries of introversion, and who has learned over a lifetime to freeze up in the face of any experience that vibrates in my body like trauma.
I also don’t have a conversational relationship with God. I am not going to sit in my special chair in my den, or on my front porch when the weather allows, to talk, out loud, to God every morning. Maybe I should. It would probably be good for me. But that’s not the one I am.
I am, however, a woman who is blessed to love and be loved by a host of people near and far, so I am leaning into that. It’s not a daily prayer practice, as much as a daily love practice. But then, so was Grandma’s, you know?
Every morning now and since the election I send 13 little love notes via text or FB Messenger out to my mom, my brother, my bio and bonus kids, and my dearest friends both near and far. Nothing fancy, just some version of “Good morning. I love you.” I warned them the first time that I was going to start doing this and that response was never required. This was my practice, not theirs’. But, damn, if my brother, who otherwise tends towards sending me inexplicable memes and political clips from YouTube, didn’t beat me to the punch on Sunday. Sent me an “I love you” before I’d even made my coffee. I don’t expect he’ll do that most days and that’s fine. That was never the point.
I am the point, my heart and my sense of isolation from other people. My tendency to freeze in the face of trauma and let despair creep in.
They want my despair and goddamn if I’m going to give them that.
There are other things that will need to be done. Out in the wider world and out in the streets kinds of things. But this thing, this small, daily thing that reminds me of the love in my life, that allows me, like my grandma before me, to let the people I love know I am thinking of them, this thing that resists despair, is the foundation and fuel for all of that.
In the midst of my divorce a dozen years ago I thought repeatedly when my ex would be vengeful and hateful, as if he thought he could break me, “Honey, I have survived much more evil and sadistic men than you. You clearly don’t understand which one I am.”
I *have* survived horrible, horrible things with a heart so full of love and a whole web of people to share it with and none of these petty, vengeful motherfuckers can take that from me. Or from you.
Love your people, friends, every day, in whatever way you can. It is the foundation and fuel for everything else that we’re going to have to do. Grandma Mary taught us that, and she was the smartest."
This is so gorgeous and profound and true, Asha, and I'm so thankful you shared it before. I love that more and more people these days are repeating the line "hope is a discipline" but the risk, when it is repeated ad infinitum, that it becomes less moored from the actual act of ritualizing connection that it describes. This comment/note felt like "hope is a discipline" in practice.
I think the content of this is really good and important but I also want to say how much I always appreciate the sincerity and open-heartedness and emotional candour of your writing.
Garrett whew this really hit close to home as someone actively landing on "we take care of us" as my politic. I've done a lot of building of community over the years, and also a lot of voter turn out stuff, but actually those things are converging into this work of "building robust interdependent community that also happens to be politicized."
If I were tasked with a year to do what you're naming, how many of us would be able to better do so much of what we're attempting to do now in terms of weaving community, but with so much of a weight lifted to "find another vocation" because the vocation and the values alignment would just click together with the 100k of financial safety to make the community weaving our vocation. We'd keep working to weave folks together in art making and parenting and mutual care, with very deliberate permission giving to do just that. We'd keep doing the work of finding each other, but more robustly weaving our connections together.
My artist friend Lesley Numbers (Madison!) and I have been working on this Winter Solstice Zine collaboration called Germinating Dreams of Community, and it just feels so prescient given the time we're in. We're just starting to share out about this 1st of 4 seasonal zines we designed prompt us to weave folks together in radical care, with prompts to feed our community building praxis each day, with the question of: what happens when we do this intentional work together in community after a full circle around the sun, aka a full year? Which is so similar to what you name here right--what happens when you set a year limit on these things?
I think it says something really beautiful that the idea of "how do you actually weave communities of radical care" is a question so many of us are taking on right now. Makes me find it easier to practice the discipline of hope for sure.
I think the focus of your plans is to put more emphasis on care and empathy and less on selfishness. This should be part of elementary school curriculum.
I really love how concrete this post is. I too have been avoiding election analysis--it feels like this rush of energy to recontain uncertainty and confusion and move into "doing"--which is a classic avoidance technique. Meanwhile, what I hear when I listen to folks is this deep desire to be, to listen, to reach out in concrete ways, to provide care . . . . which is what this post and the comments are saying too. Forget analysis. How about looking at the sky and finding a feeling?
That idea of a year to build community is so compelling, and it reminds me so much of what people said about what they did during the pandemic. When those who were fortunate enough to be able to stay home said what they actually did with the time, it was exactly what you're describing: they reached out to the people they knew and loved; they spent more time making soup and tending gardens and doing "ordinary" things. Except those "ordinary" things are special bc people are trying so hard to just get through. I'm still so socialized in individualism and shame than when I need something I don't ask how I can give and receive through community. I ask when I'm going to make it happen, how am I going to get up earlier, work harder, spend more money to solve it. I know in my mind that if we had more community we could all work less, buy less, laugh more, create the feedback loop that would make what you said not a year long project but actually a way of living that's sustaining. I know there's entire groups of people who already live community. Knowing in my mind is different than what my body says, what the dominant culture tells me. It's a dream and a discomfort and I plan to push myself deeper into both.
There are a lot of layers of wisdom here, Rebecca. I think we have an understandably weird relationship to our pandemic memories, which I think is a bummer on a lot of levels but one of the largest one is that we don't remember all the ways that our first instinct was outreach-- both locally to our neighbors and to reconnect with important people in our life who were farther afield. There were so many crucial (and successful!) experiments in care doing that time.
This felt nourishing! I am constantly thinking I’m not “plugged in” enough to do anything, and also feeling dissatisfied about being in a “season” of life with no more capacity. But you’re right - I do already know the ppl you describe. I’m lucky to live where they’ll put me to work as soon as I can show up.
This is exactly what I was thinking about as my husband and I walked be beach today. I was thinking how years ago I met with two Native women, one who was in charge of programs for our schools and one who ran a wellness organization in our city, and we met for 30 mins tops and got shit done. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a meeting so productive. Many years later what we built is still going and growing, and we trust each other. I want more of that!
But I also don’t know where to put my eyes right now- what the focus should be and with whom.
Love this! It reminded me of this example of reviving the voting precinct model for some of our organizing.
"Local volunteer precinct captain systems have the potential to deliver the kind of permanent and political relationships with our neighbors that build the community and connection we want and permit us to have recurring political conversations over time about a variety of issues."
You seem like you're on the same wavelength as Mia Mingus and the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. They do these "pod mapping" workshops, and the process keeps expanding to apply to all kinds of community building and mutual aid. I found it very helpful. I'll see if I can find a link to the workshop book.
The main difference between the pod mapping approach and your concept is, rather than focus on bringing together identified Helpers, each person focuses on building their "pod" first. Who is in your innermost circle of trust? That is, whom do you trust to reliably be there for you in an emergency? Who is in the next ring out?
It focuses on strengthening existing relationships first, bringing people closer and fostering commitment to one another.
Then building a network comes after that. So if in my second circle there's Jane and Mary, and I have a strong mutual commitment with both of them, but they don't know each other, I could potentially foster commitment or trust between them.
Like, I might ask Jane and Mary if it's ok for me to reach out to Jane on Mary's behalf, because I trust Jane to do XYZ well that I cannot do, and I know Mary needs XYZ sometimes. And as by this point Mary and Jane both trust my judgement, I might successfully forge that connection between them.
They might only be in each other's 3rd or outermost rings of trust, but that's ok. Now they both have an additional trustworthy person in their pod.
I think this approach and yours are not mutually exclusive. It's good that there are different community builders taking different approaches to the work.
Love this, Garrett. It's so well and lovingly explicated. And I'm also aware, at least in myself, that there's work to do around strengthening our own circles of care now as well. In my case, first, in order to fuel my work in community. But not everyone is wired like me, so I'll just suggest *also*.
The following is something I spontaneously wrote in Notes about it this morning, but I'm rarely on Notes so no one much will see it. But because of the nature of this community, I'll share it here. Sorry that it's long:
"When I was a little girl and got sent to my Grandma Mary’s house in Memphis in the summer I loved it. Except for the part where she talked to everybody, and I mean, everybody— the bus driver, the trash collector, the check-out lady at the grocery store— everywhere we went. She’d say hello and chat a bit about whatever while I hung behind her with anticipatory mortification for when she would inevitably pull me forward and introduce me (to these people she didn’t even know!) as her granddaughter.
If she had long enough, say, in the grocery line, she’d pull a little notebook out of her purse. She’d already managed to file away in her brain whatever little things they would mention about themselves (that their kid was sick or they were behind on rent or whatever poured out of them in the face of her endless empathy). Then she’d write their name and their birthday carefully in her little book and she’d promise to remember.
They never seemed to believe her, but they didn’t know my grandma.
See, my grandma had a daily prayer practice. Every morning she would get up, first thing, and she would settle in and talk to God. Just like she talked to the lady at the grocery store. Out loud, I mean. She’d recite some prayers and then she’d start her list. First, her family (which was not small) and then her friends, and then all the random people she had written in her book. She’d explain to God what was going on with each of them, what they needed, and then she would ask Him, sincerely, to hold them lovingly and tenderly in His hand.
Then, on their birthday, she would send them a birthday card. In the mail! People she barely knew. Because she believed everyone deserves to know, at the very least on their birthday, that someone is thinking of them.
I started pondering Grandma after the election. About the way she instinctually understood what it was to create a community of care. I thought about how I could follow in her footsteps, being the introverted one I am, who also tends towards self-isolation beyond, even, the normal boundaries of introversion, and who has learned over a lifetime to freeze up in the face of any experience that vibrates in my body like trauma.
I also don’t have a conversational relationship with God. I am not going to sit in my special chair in my den, or on my front porch when the weather allows, to talk, out loud, to God every morning. Maybe I should. It would probably be good for me. But that’s not the one I am.
I am, however, a woman who is blessed to love and be loved by a host of people near and far, so I am leaning into that. It’s not a daily prayer practice, as much as a daily love practice. But then, so was Grandma’s, you know?
Every morning now and since the election I send 13 little love notes via text or FB Messenger out to my mom, my brother, my bio and bonus kids, and my dearest friends both near and far. Nothing fancy, just some version of “Good morning. I love you.” I warned them the first time that I was going to start doing this and that response was never required. This was my practice, not theirs’. But, damn, if my brother, who otherwise tends towards sending me inexplicable memes and political clips from YouTube, didn’t beat me to the punch on Sunday. Sent me an “I love you” before I’d even made my coffee. I don’t expect he’ll do that most days and that’s fine. That was never the point.
I am the point, my heart and my sense of isolation from other people. My tendency to freeze in the face of trauma and let despair creep in.
They want my despair and goddamn if I’m going to give them that.
There are other things that will need to be done. Out in the wider world and out in the streets kinds of things. But this thing, this small, daily thing that reminds me of the love in my life, that allows me, like my grandma before me, to let the people I love know I am thinking of them, this thing that resists despair, is the foundation and fuel for all of that.
In the midst of my divorce a dozen years ago I thought repeatedly when my ex would be vengeful and hateful, as if he thought he could break me, “Honey, I have survived much more evil and sadistic men than you. You clearly don’t understand which one I am.”
I *have* survived horrible, horrible things with a heart so full of love and a whole web of people to share it with and none of these petty, vengeful motherfuckers can take that from me. Or from you.
Love your people, friends, every day, in whatever way you can. It is the foundation and fuel for everything else that we’re going to have to do. Grandma Mary taught us that, and she was the smartest."
This is so gorgeous and profound and true, Asha, and I'm so thankful you shared it before. I love that more and more people these days are repeating the line "hope is a discipline" but the risk, when it is repeated ad infinitum, that it becomes less moored from the actual act of ritualizing connection that it describes. This comment/note felt like "hope is a discipline" in practice.
Thank you for sharing about your grandma Asha-- I loved reading this.
I think the content of this is really good and important but I also want to say how much I always appreciate the sincerity and open-heartedness and emotional candour of your writing.
There's a lot I don't have to offer, but I do have a big open heart. Grateful for you, Lee.
Garrett whew this really hit close to home as someone actively landing on "we take care of us" as my politic. I've done a lot of building of community over the years, and also a lot of voter turn out stuff, but actually those things are converging into this work of "building robust interdependent community that also happens to be politicized."
If I were tasked with a year to do what you're naming, how many of us would be able to better do so much of what we're attempting to do now in terms of weaving community, but with so much of a weight lifted to "find another vocation" because the vocation and the values alignment would just click together with the 100k of financial safety to make the community weaving our vocation. We'd keep working to weave folks together in art making and parenting and mutual care, with very deliberate permission giving to do just that. We'd keep doing the work of finding each other, but more robustly weaving our connections together.
My artist friend Lesley Numbers (Madison!) and I have been working on this Winter Solstice Zine collaboration called Germinating Dreams of Community, and it just feels so prescient given the time we're in. We're just starting to share out about this 1st of 4 seasonal zines we designed prompt us to weave folks together in radical care, with prompts to feed our community building praxis each day, with the question of: what happens when we do this intentional work together in community after a full circle around the sun, aka a full year? Which is so similar to what you name here right--what happens when you set a year limit on these things?
I think it says something really beautiful that the idea of "how do you actually weave communities of radical care" is a question so many of us are taking on right now. Makes me find it easier to practice the discipline of hope for sure.
What a lovely, timely project Sara (and Lesley). I've just pre-ordered mine and can't wait to spend some time with it.
This is really beautiful, Sara. I'd love to have/buy a copy of that zine when it's finished.
Thank you Rebecca. It's actually just up for pre-order now at folkweaver.com for anyone interested in a slight daily nudge toward finding each other
I think the focus of your plans is to put more emphasis on care and empathy and less on selfishness. This should be part of elementary school curriculum.
I think that's a lovely summary.
Thank you!
Are you familiar with the Rippel Foundation? Their concept of “stewards” is very similar to what you’re talking about.
Thanks for the recommendation! Sounds like a program worth expanding!
I really love how concrete this post is. I too have been avoiding election analysis--it feels like this rush of energy to recontain uncertainty and confusion and move into "doing"--which is a classic avoidance technique. Meanwhile, what I hear when I listen to folks is this deep desire to be, to listen, to reach out in concrete ways, to provide care . . . . which is what this post and the comments are saying too. Forget analysis. How about looking at the sky and finding a feeling?
That idea of a year to build community is so compelling, and it reminds me so much of what people said about what they did during the pandemic. When those who were fortunate enough to be able to stay home said what they actually did with the time, it was exactly what you're describing: they reached out to the people they knew and loved; they spent more time making soup and tending gardens and doing "ordinary" things. Except those "ordinary" things are special bc people are trying so hard to just get through. I'm still so socialized in individualism and shame than when I need something I don't ask how I can give and receive through community. I ask when I'm going to make it happen, how am I going to get up earlier, work harder, spend more money to solve it. I know in my mind that if we had more community we could all work less, buy less, laugh more, create the feedback loop that would make what you said not a year long project but actually a way of living that's sustaining. I know there's entire groups of people who already live community. Knowing in my mind is different than what my body says, what the dominant culture tells me. It's a dream and a discomfort and I plan to push myself deeper into both.
There are a lot of layers of wisdom here, Rebecca. I think we have an understandably weird relationship to our pandemic memories, which I think is a bummer on a lot of levels but one of the largest one is that we don't remember all the ways that our first instinct was outreach-- both locally to our neighbors and to reconnect with important people in our life who were farther afield. There were so many crucial (and successful!) experiments in care doing that time.
Love this connection to union organizing - maybe my homework for this week will be putting together a list!
If you do I'd love to see it!
This felt nourishing! I am constantly thinking I’m not “plugged in” enough to do anything, and also feeling dissatisfied about being in a “season” of life with no more capacity. But you’re right - I do already know the ppl you describe. I’m lucky to live where they’ll put me to work as soon as I can show up.
That's such a lovely realization (that actually there are already helpers and holders-together-of-community around you)
Was there more to your comment after “helpers and holders -“? Comments seem to get cut off across many stacks rn.
Thanks for writing this! It really helps me to crystallize a lot of the thoughts running through my head recently.
So glad it was helpful!
This is exactly what I was thinking about as my husband and I walked be beach today. I was thinking how years ago I met with two Native women, one who was in charge of programs for our schools and one who ran a wellness organization in our city, and we met for 30 mins tops and got shit done. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a meeting so productive. Many years later what we built is still going and growing, and we trust each other. I want more of that!
But I also don’t know where to put my eyes right now- what the focus should be and with whom.
Sometimes it takes a while for our ability to focus to come back!
Love this! It reminded me of this example of reviving the voting precinct model for some of our organizing.
"Local volunteer precinct captain systems have the potential to deliver the kind of permanent and political relationships with our neighbors that build the community and connection we want and permit us to have recurring political conversations over time about a variety of issues."
https://forgeorganizing.org/article/how-build-new-world-locally
A great idea! Thanks for sharing, Rebekah.
What a wonderfully generative and generous piece, Garrett! Thank you for this!
Thank you, Elizabeth!
Loved this piece Garrett, thank you!
Appreciate you, Laurel
You seem like you're on the same wavelength as Mia Mingus and the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. They do these "pod mapping" workshops, and the process keeps expanding to apply to all kinds of community building and mutual aid. I found it very helpful. I'll see if I can find a link to the workshop book.
The main difference between the pod mapping approach and your concept is, rather than focus on bringing together identified Helpers, each person focuses on building their "pod" first. Who is in your innermost circle of trust? That is, whom do you trust to reliably be there for you in an emergency? Who is in the next ring out?
It focuses on strengthening existing relationships first, bringing people closer and fostering commitment to one another.
Then building a network comes after that. So if in my second circle there's Jane and Mary, and I have a strong mutual commitment with both of them, but they don't know each other, I could potentially foster commitment or trust between them.
Like, I might ask Jane and Mary if it's ok for me to reach out to Jane on Mary's behalf, because I trust Jane to do XYZ well that I cannot do, and I know Mary needs XYZ sometimes. And as by this point Mary and Jane both trust my judgement, I might successfully forge that connection between them.
They might only be in each other's 3rd or outermost rings of trust, but that's ok. Now they both have an additional trustworthy person in their pod.
I think this approach and yours are not mutually exclusive. It's good that there are different community builders taking different approaches to the work.