Hello, reader. How are you doing? Are you an ambitious person? How are you with conflict? Spirit said my ambition is peace and rest, but my destiny is creating conflict.
Whoa, I see a contradiction there. No wonder I feel so much consternation about my life’s work.
It was different to ask the cards about ambition. Ambition is one of those concepts that’s always felt distant from me, sort of like confidence. I don’t want confidence– it seems like a performance. I’d rather show up however I am.
I don’t want ambition– sounds like it’s about making money or fame, at someone else’s expense.
truth
I’m on earth to tell the truth, but not everyone wants to hear it. I want to comfort the traumatized, but I spend a lot of time traumatizing the comfortable, apparently. Yes, I say things I really believe, then panic.
“The truth is ugly,” I told Ming.
“The truth is beautiful,” Ming said.
“Oh, you’re right,” I said.
People who benefit from business as usual try to convince me that the truth is ugly. But I know deep in my heart that the truth is divine.
Yes, I think of the truth and how divine it feels, shining with light. That spark of truth is just like the spark of life.
work
“But a lot of people want to do the bare minimum, come home, and drink a beer,” I added. “The truth is work. It’s so much easier to go with common knowledge or the expected idea.”
Ming listened to me. We have been talking about this for a long time, like our entire relationship: how people are, and how I fit or don’t fit in with regular
values. In some ways, our culture is functional. In other ways, what the fudge.
Recently I mentioned how I was asked to give a small speech at a donor-thanking event at our new community. It felt good to thank the donors and to mention my favorite values of
Disability Justice and the basics that all people deserve. Here’s the speech.
speech
My spouse Ming and I moved here six months ago, in mid-January, during the ice storm. This is our fourth intentional community together. Previously we were living at a cooperative which is in Eugene near the university, and before that we spent four months in 2022 traveling, underhoused, and homeless.
I am grateful to this place for the stability that affordable safe housing provides. Ming and I are both disabled–Ming has narcolepsy, while I have chronic pain, hypermobile joints, schizoaffective disorder, and autism. We’re happy to help form the Disability Justice team here, to help ensure that all Villagers get what we need, including accessibility. All bodies are valid bodies, so we’re happy to help ensure that all bodies are treated respectfully as valid bodies here.
Stable housing means I’m free. I’m free to do my life’s work, including writing and making art. I care for my health and Ming’s health, as we have an address, important for health insurance and healthcare. The stability means I can attend therapy every week, as well as radical mental health, and heal, both by myself and in community.
I’m an outlier introvert, so I love that Ming and I have our own private space here with our own bathroom and kitchen. We cook for Food Not Bombs and enjoy mutual aid. Ming, who is a sleepy extrovert, gets to be among people often.
We’re happy to grow gardens here, Ming put together donated bike carts and joined the Board, and I slowly get to know neighbors who become friends. We care for each other’s plants when we go on vacation. (Ming recently watered a community member’s carnivorous plants.)
Thank you, donors, staff, friends, and community members, for making this joyful stability possible. Every person in the world deserves this stability, so thank you for giving it to us.
