Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: My Heart is Heavy

[Ken Winter (ken]

Dear very white, meditating, semi-buddhist, power wheelchair riding shiksa
w/ a sprained ankle ~

Yes, your caring (and mine) matters, in a very limited but also somehow
infinite way.  One way it matters a bit more (and makes a bit more
difference) is when we share our heavy hearts (and the love in them) with
one another by communicating like this.

~ Ken (very white, meditating, octogenarian goy w/ a so-far-unsprained
ankle)
~ Sunward Cohousing, Ann Arbor MI

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 11:33 AM Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> wrote:

> My dear best cohousers near and far …
>
> Acknowledgement:   This list is created to help cohousers in the living
> in, building of, and maintenance of cohousing communities. I promise
> there’s a tie in.
>
> Let me also acknowledge that I am writing this under pressure this morning
> to get to medical appointments, submit my bills to close out our TVC
> budget, get these empty boxes out of the way so I don’t keep rolling over
> them (power wheelchair rider), put the milk back in the refrigerator before
> I leave and feed the dog.  Oh. I don’t have a dog...
>
> Since Oct. 7th,  from where I sit now I have looked at a world coming
> apart.
>
> Yet, I live in this warm comfortable space called cohousing where people
> try to meet standards of human interactions even when we fail miserably.
> We fall on our faces a lot.
>
> From this space, it is unfathomable to me that there is so much hate in
> the world that leads to despicable acts of violence.  Students being
> harassed on campus?  A six year old boy stabbed to death?  Cemeteries
> burned?  What is happening to my world out there?  Operative words:  “out
> there."
>
> Cliff Note version of what I understand:  when we marginalize people,
> dehumanize people, racialize people, ______fill in the blank, when people
> are separated from each other, we open flood gates through which pour
> ancient and contemporaneous rivers of fear, fear, fear … leading to RAGE.
> Absolutely RAGE.  We see it in Road Rage and we see it now in this cesspool
> of outrageous acts throughout the world.People separated from each other by
> eons of distrust, etc.
>
> Cohousing communities are antidotes to this separation.
>
> And yet ...
>
> Here’s the tie in … I hope.
>
> And yet ...
>
> Where are our cohousing voices?  Not the standard political voices.  No.
> The cohousing politics of living face to face everyday w/ differences far
> and wide. I realized this morning I haven’t reached out to my own community
> much less the 185 built communities and 200+ incubating their hearts out.
>
> I haven’t seen anything on this list although I may certainly have missed
> conversations posted here.
>
> I haven’t said anything to my own community members or posted anything to
> our own list.
>
> How are our Muslim, Arab, Jews and all other members of the panoply of
> cohousing thinking about their safety in the world right now?  Have I
> asked?  Just ‘cause I feel safe … how do others in my very own community
> feel?  Have I reached our to them to let them know I stand with you?
>
> Comparatively, I have lived in a safe community for 23 years.  I live a
> life I love and live powerfully.  I’m so excited and about cohousing I’m
> evangelical about it. Beware those of you standing in grocery lines w/ me …
>
> And yet, (here’s that “yet” again) I wonder … is cohousing part of the
> problem by creating cozy places to live?  I don’t really need to go beyond
> our "front gate” to live out my life.
>
> Or does my cohousing life give me the foundation to believe we can change
> the world?  Because, you know  … we can.
>
> Am I living in a fantasy that the caring of a very white, meditating,
> semi-buddhist, power wheelchair riding shiksa w/ a sprained ankle mean
> anything given the turmoil around us?  Believe me … I wonder … I do wonder.
>
> So I ask you now, all of you:  how are you doing today?
>
>
> Best —
>
> Ann Zabaldo
> Takoma Village Cohousing
> Washington, DC
> Ex. Dir. & Mbr. Board of Directors
> Mid Atlantic Cohousing
> Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
> Falls Church, VA
> 202.546.4654
> zabaldo [at] earthlink.net
>
> People can be divided into two groups: those who think they are right.
>
>
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