Kind of like #followfriday, only more of a plain old celebration of the folks touching one Black girl’s heart this week.
Above, Miss Maxine, who slowly but surely welcomed me into her life after a rough start on Sunday. She’s almost as much of a delight as her owners, Chris and Donna.
Adrienne Maree Brown is just tremendous. Everybody should read her. You should read her. Like, starting now.
Aaron Tanaka is also tremendous. His blog is pretty much brand-new, but already one of my all-time favorites. Eclectic, on-point, funny, educational. Solid.
If you ever get the chance, spend some quality time with Carmen Barsody. Trust me on this one.
Last but not least, word has it that Advance the Struggle is about to publish a piece analyzing March 4th. Get excited!
Slowly making my way through the Faithful Fools’ canon. In a conversation about economics, Carmen recommended Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. Not even 50 pages in, and it’s already transforming the way I see my everyday life.
Basically, Hyde is interested in the material and spiritual benefits of gifts and gift economies, as opposed to capitalism and economies of exchanged commodities.
Given material abundance, scarcity must be a function of boundaries. If there is plenty of air in the world but something blocks its passage to the lungs, the lungs do well to complain of scarcity. The assumptions of market exchange may not necessarily lead to the emergence of boundaries, but they do in practice. When trade is ‘clean’ and leaves people unconnected, when the merchant is free to sell when and where he will, when the market moves mostly for profit and the dominant myth is not ‘to possess is to give’ but ‘the fittest survive,’ then wealth will lose its motion and gather in isolated pools. Under the assumptions of exchange trade, property is plagued by entropy and wealth can become scarce even as it increases. 23
Having lived for more than a year now with no income, depending somewhat on my savings but largely on the generosity of others (including the major generosity of the foundation that paid for my undergrad degree, allowing me to graduate from Harvard debt-free), I’m beginning to see firsthand the ways in which scarcity, that fundamental rule of the economics preached in Cambridge, truly is myth and perspective, not fact. I’m becoming what Khalil Gibran calls, in The Prophet, a “believer in life and the bounty of life”:
There are those who give little of the much which they have–and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
At this very moment, for instance, I’m sitting on a big, lovely, suede couch in a big, lovely, 4th-floor condo in the big, lovely Embarcadero neighborhood, enjoying cranberry juice and Pellegrino, as well as the company of an adorable terrier-greyhound named Maxine. I’ve been invited to help myself to anything and everything in the condo, and to have friends and loved ones over during the week to partake, as well. And more importantly, I’ve been invited into the lives of a wonderful, loving, giving couple: Chris and Donna. How did I get all this?
I got it by giving. I gave of my love, support, and time to Lori, by taking care of Buster — overnight for a few days, and now once a week in the afternoons. There’s no business relationship, she hasn’t hired me or anything, but she’s a true friend and I’m happy to offer what I can. She, in turn, takes me out for breakfast and tea, gives writerly feedback and advice on my blogging efforts, and stocks the freezer with frozen raspberries (my favorite) when I’m sitting Buster through the night. And then, when she heard that her co-worker Chris was looking for someone to care for Maxine while she and Donna vacationed in Hawaii, Lori recommended me. Chris and Donna had Lori and me over for dinner, and the rest is history.
This is just one example, but there are so many blessings in my life right now that trace directly back through gifts. Gifts of donations sustain the Faithful Fools. Dana (generosity — through financial support and volunteer labor) sustains the East Bay Meditation Center. An exchange of kind letters (one of my favorite types of gift) planted seeds for my current relationship. My family (including my eighty-something-year-old Oma) footed the first semester’s bill for my Masters program at Goddard. Unpaid organizers continue investing their blood, sweat, and tears into building power for workers. Everywhere I look, it seems, people are giving.
And what makes gifts “erotic” as property, as opposed to rational exchange commodities, is that they connect life, rather than separating it. Gifts bind us to one another, with a web of invisible umbilical cords. Sure, they can be abused, offered with the intention of obligating someone else, creating a debt. But then they’re not really gifts at all — just exchanges in disguise.
Even this blog, I realize, is a gift in its own way. Offered freely to whomever might find it useful. And for me, that’s what makes it more than a diary, a scrapbook, or journal (none of which I was ever any good at keeping). In the giving there is real contact. And abundance, too. I’ve connected and reconnected with such lovely people through Kloncke, and many of you continue to offer me your own wonderful gifts through comments, emails, letters, conversations, and encouragement. Not to mention the greatest use of the gift: not reciprocation, but taking inspiration to give to someone else. I’m reminded of my friend Ashley, who watched my Stevie Wonder video blog way back in the day and decided to call her grandparents, just to say hello. I’ll always remember that, you know?
So thanks, y’all, as always. For reading, for commenting, for linking, passing on, and participating in what Hyde might call an erotic connection:
Gift exchange and erotic life are connected…The gift is an emanation of Eros, and therefore to speak of gifts that survive their use is to describe a natural fact: libido is not lost when it is given away. Eros never wastes his lovers. When we give ourselves in the spirit of that god, he does not leave off his attentions; it is only when we fall to calculation that he remains hidden and no body will satisfy. Satisfaction derives not merely from being filled but from being filled with a current that will not cease. With the gift, as in love, our satisfaction sets us at ease because we know that somehow its use at once assures its plenty. 22
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Happy Wednesday!
love,
katie
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Ps: special thanks to Kyle Maurer, one of my first true surprise-blog-reader friends, for your encouragement and warmth, and also for the Hojicha, which has warmed the bellies of many people in Fool’s Court and dwindled down to one last teapot’s worth. :)
Last week, Jill from Feministe pointed out two “additive excitement” tumblr sites (this-thing-i-like + this-other-thing-i-like = photo-of-extra-fabulous-thing-i-really-like):
Naturally, I enlisted Ryan in a quest to combine the two additives, resulting in a cute bearded boy eating a cupcake with a cat.
(Like so. Guess I’m not the first person to think of this.)
And so this morning, we embarked on our mission in the Mission.
Annnnd no luck yet on either front. Cupcakes proved elusive and kitten season is just beginning. A surprising number of shelters were closed on Mondays and the one we went to had a whole application process before you could even hold de kittehs, by which time we had to go save our borrowed car from a parking ticket.
But the morning was lovely, and the quest continues…
Friends, this is Buster Brown, the beagle (mix). He belongs to my dear friend Lori who, in addition to being brilliant and hilarious, is also one of the best schoolteachers I’ve ever had. (Sophomore English at C. K. McClatchy High.)
Now that Lori and I live in the same city again, we get to do fun things like team up in caring for Mister Buster. Who is a special little guy, and needs a Lot of caring.
When Lori adopted him a few months ago, she quickly realized that the boy’s endured some serious trauma, gets spooked pretty easy, and may occasionally lash out in fear. The first time I met him, things seemed to be going just swell, feeding him treats and cuddling on the couch, until I got too close and he suddenly bit me on the lip. (I know, tough to imagine a sweet-looking mug like that biting you in the face.)
And so, in the same vein as Heather the cat, though far friendlier to humans, Buster is one of those animal companions whose affection is not guaranteed. (To anyone but Lori, that is.) We continue loving him anyway, though, because who says love is a perfect give-and-take? Buster may have his challenging quirks, like anxiety around changes in atmospheric pressure, but he also has many precious ones, like the morningtime phenomenon Lori has dubbed “squishy ears.”
As poor Tamagotchi performance long ago established, I’m not a naturally maternal person in the least, and it ain’t easy for me to look after a creature — especially one without language. (No reasoning with BB when he’s feeling too skittish to take a walk; sometimes all you can do is pick him up and kinda scoot him forward toward the stairs. This clashes somewhat with my sensibilities around consent.)
But I will say this: relations with Buster calm down to the extent that I can calm down. When I stop worrying about whether he’s scared, or upset, or Not Being A Model Dog, and just accept the vicissitudes of his moods, doing what I can to offer him a good environment, then we get along just fine. I can relax and enjoy the afternoon walks; he can relax and, you know, do the puppy thing.
And as you can see, he’s reeallly good at doing the puppy thing.
After the happy madness of last week (school deadlines, dog-sitting, asleep by midnight and up by 4 some mornings for work, the Fools’ annual fundraising dinner — which involved, among other delights, facepaint, paella, and what seemed like six hours of assembling empanaditas), I’m ready to welcome the relative calm and spaciousness of April. Off to a great start yesterday, with the second gathering of a super-solid and heartwarming Marxist feminist study group, right up in the Fools’ Court.
Today, I’m re-anchoring myself with a few staples.
Feasting on the veggie soup I made last night in a fit of domesticity following a week of no home cooking.
Maybe a little yoga.
And as a bonus, a lecture at Golden Gate Law School on bloggers’ rights. (Which is especially neat since I got a sweet little reminder/invite from a couple of friends I made when teaming up with the law school’s ACLU club in the buildup organizing for SF March 4th.)
From a Facebook Note I wrote last night. (Friend me if we’re not friends already!)
Dear lovely people,
I hope this note finds you well! I’m writing it at the end of an exhausting day of work — cooking, grocery shopping, driving, hosting, facilitating — when all my body wants to do is sleep, but my mind’s got other plans.
Since reading Selma James’ “Sex, Race, and Class” and another work of hers and Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s (“The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community“), both offered this week through a rad study group here in the Bay, I’ve been considering parallels between the role of nonprofits (like the one I work for, in exchange for room and board) and the un-waged domestic/reproductive/social labor of (mostly) women, as James and Della Costa explain it. Wanted to share my thoughts with y’all– as always, your insights are tremendously appreciated.
Arundhati Roy names a process by which NGO’s, in ministering to the needs created by gaps in both private and public capitalist enterprise, chill the potential for social resistance. “Non-profits’ real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right.” Folks who work for non-profits often acknowledge that their efforts amount to a Band-Aid approach: covering up the problem, but failing to reach its root causes. But Roy seems to reject the Band-Aid analogy. A metaphor she’d choose might be more like: taking painkillers to ‘heal’ a broken leg. The immediate pain might be numbed, but by continuing to walk on the leg, you’re only worsening the injury.
Similarly, Della Costa and James argue that both trade unions and nuclear families trap us in this painkiller predicament:
Like the trade union [or non-profit, in this case], the family protects the worker, but also ensures that he and she will never be anything but workers. And that is why the struggle of the woman of the working class against the family is crucial.
Unlike trade unions, though, which address the conditions of masculinized wage labor, non-profits often seem to institutionalize the work traditionally associated with feminized labor performed within the family. Need a hot meal? A soup kitchen will serve you one. Sick? A clinic will treat you. Want to come home to a lovely garden? No need to rely on Grandma or the wife: your local eco-NGO will build a permaculture paradise for the whole neighborhood.
There are exceptions, of course, like hotel worker unions which may parallel feminized family housework, or media non-profits that are basically mainstream corporations with an opportunistic tax status. But overall, I’m struck by the resemblance. Is the non-profit an incorporated version of James’ and Della Costa’s working-class woman? Complete with moral imperatives to ‘nurture,’ or in this case, ‘serve the community,’ all the while scraping by on allowances wheedled from donor husbands and grantmaker sugar daddies?
I know a lot of us are thinking and living similar questions right now, and I just wanted to share my own musings. Thank you for all the inspiration and strength you give me! I love all of you and miss those I don’t get to see.
hugs and more hugs,
katie
And let’s not forget that NGO work doesn’t replace the “second shift” of unpaid housework! After coming home from the non-profit you still gotta wash dishes. (In my case, throughout the day at the non-profit. And we wash lots of people’s dishes.)
Friends, there’s so much goodness in my life that I don’t get to communicate here, and wish that I could. Every day, so many small moments, big questions. But this particular goodness, I’m very happy to be able to share.
The gist: a week or so ago, Abby, one of the Faithful Fools, got bedbugs. Not a fun enterprise. And though, to her enduring credit, she handled it like a champ, it’s still an enormous challenge for anyone to face — both logistically and emotionally.
So at a time like this, what do Fools do? Band together to completely clean out her entire studio apartment, carpeted with what looked like five years of cat hair. (From a very cute kitty, I might add.) Host her and said kitty while the place got fumigated. And then, tonight, throw a laundry party at her local coin-op, Amybelle’s Wash N Dry. How’s that for (unpaid) co-worker camaraderie?
Driving with my parents and pooch through Amador County yesterday, surrounded by snowy mountain horizons and idyllic “Gold Country” scenes, I breathed the deep sigh of the escaped innercitydweller. At the same time, I found myself thinking of the difficulties of rural living.
Dusting all the “quaint” knickknacks on display in your one-street-town storefront. Chopping firewood with a bad back. The lack of “cultura,” as a new mexicana friend describes her life at the University of Wyoming — which, in its more insidious aspects, may relate to the faint queasiness in my gut whenever we had to stop the car and ask a sinewy old white man for directions. (They were all perfectly sweet, incidentally.) Absent indigenous people; invisible immigrant laborers.
Not knocking the Sutter Creek set, of course — simply checking my own tendency to romanticize the gorgeous, sweet-breezed setting. And rather than spoiling the enjoyment, my negative observations ballasted and strengthened my experience. Free from craving and projection of fantasies, the day felt even more poignant, more precious, more vivid. A truly beautiful afternoon.
Heather is a feral cat that the Fools took in some years back, and who lives with us — slinking among the stuffed animal menagerie — in the Fools’ Court. For years, I’m told, she wouldn’t even let herself be seen. Now, she’s slowly growing bolder: eating, roaming, and claw-feasting on stuffed armchairs in full view, when there’s only a few of us around. But she’s still supremely elusive — a fact only emphasized by her absurdly gorgeous and adorable looks.
Last week, over the course of a lazy, reading-and-tea -type afternoon, I intermittently tried to take her portrait. I think some part of me hoped it would bring us closer together. Let’s just say she had her own agenda.
The Dhamma teaches that the highest form of love, real love, is when we just give, without expecting anything in return. Easier said than done, to put it mildly — especially when it comes to intelligent pets, which are often marketed in our culture as maximally efficient Affection Reciprocators. When we love ‘our’ animals, we expect them to love us back.
But despite all my coaxing and sweet-talk, pledging catnip and cuddlefests, ultimately my desire for Heather to transform into a Happy HouseCat (avid purrer, visitor of laps) had less to do with improving her life, and more to do with improving mine. Seeing this dysfunction clearly, I (to borrow a phrase from my uncle CC) had to laugh. Sometimes we get way ahead of ourselves, you know?
Kloncke 