I am moving out of Gabriel House in a little under 2 weeks. I wish I could stay, but to take care of me I have to go. I leave with mixed feelings about living in community. I’ve had mixed feelings about everything the past few months, it’s very stressful. I love everyone I live with, so I am sad to go, but I am excited for new opportunities. To be honest I am also excited for what I hope will be more quietness, I am now embracing the fact that I am an extremely peaceful living type person and that that is ok.
I have been running errands for a woman I met at CCTP while she takes care of her parents. I don’t like running errands but it’s semi flexible and the pay is alright. I also start working at Buzzy’s tomorrow. We will see how that goes. I didn’t really plan on having 3 jobs. I hope I don’t wear myself down too much. With the budget cut and not having any kindergarten children in the program next school year, the NRC won’t be able to use me as a teacher. Especially since I am going back to school and my schedule will not work with theirs. I love it at the NRC though. Everything they stand for is everything I am passionate about; Community, children, being sustainable, gardening, education, affordable opportunities for folks with lower income and on some level spirituality as well. It is a wonderful place. Even if I can’t work here I will definitely still dedicate some of my time to this place.
Some strange things have been going on on my block recently. Friday two police cars pulled up to me as I was getting in my car and asked if I live here. The cop that asked was very sarcastic and rude. The two of them had a good laugh about my living here. It makes me so angry that cops work of stereo types and that a young white female can’t live in this neighborhood without being suspected a drug dealer/buyer or a prostitute. My neighbor has a dog in his back yard that has been outside all week and I think it has a weighted collar on which means it’s being trained to be a fighting dog. So I want to call animal control but I don’t know how strenuous the consequences to that are. He is an older man, and I would rather not send him to jail. They can fine him, and take the dog away. I think that is just, but no jail. I am probably worrying too much. Then last night around 12:15am some woman started banging on the door so hard the house was shaking and she was yelling “hello!” Lonnie wasn’t waking up which is crazy to me that he didn’t hear it but he heard me knocking on his door. So he got up to check it out and by the time he got downstairs she was gone. I ended up calling the police just to have them drive around the block and by the house to make sure nothing crazy was going on. I don’t know if they did or not but it made me feel better. Even though I was so pissed at the cops earlier this weekend. Hopefully I will sleep better at the new place. Hopefully there will be no mistreated dogs and gunfire.
All I want is a peaceful existence. I am pretty sure I will never truly have that since my heart is so compelled to want to end poverty and fight racism. I am working on letting go a bit, for my own peace of mind, because I know I can be thankful also that I am just an instrument in this world, that if I die the world goes on. I heard someone say once “God doesn’t need me to do a damn thing” and this may be strange but remembering that helps me breath a little bit easier and not feel the weight of the world so much. It doesn’t mean I am not going to try to make life a little better for people, it just means I can know that life goes on and things always work out the way they are supposed to no matter how painful that is sometimes. Life is truly good.
