Things have changed so much since I last wrote. I remember starting writing a few blog posts, but can’t remember what they were about. The word of the month here is change.
A couple weeks ago the landlord told us he was gonna stop by to have a chat with us…my mother had been having a hard time paying the rent due to being disabled and her disability check being $189 dollars a week. So I ran outside and started straightening up our seriously getting out of hand lawn, frantically chopping down all the mini-trees that had begun to grow out of all the roots of all the blastedly shady trees in our yard. Finally I heard my mom pounding on the window to get me to come in. The landlord was already there and he had seen me trying to pretend we take good care of the yard. But really he didn’t care. The truth is that the landlord had a new family and wants to live in his house. So that is it. We move. I never thought it would feel humiliating, but it does somehow. He is the lord of the land, I am a lowly single mom who owns nothing…but I won’t get into that. We have to move.
The truth is that I have been dying to move. Somehow this house represents to me a string on failures. We had tried to create an artistic/political space here, with art and a fair trade shop. A way to circumvent the fragmentation of life that we practice in this culture by working, mothering and living all at the same time. Not many people were interested in coming…or maybe we are just too weird. Fail. I had tried to build family outside of the traditional male-lead nuclear family, but my mother just isn’t built for family/community. I should have known that. Of her three kids, I was the oldest when I moved out of the house at the age of16. Fail.
But as I set out to search for a new place, I realize how odd of a person I am and wonder if I can find a comfortable place for myself. I don’t’ want to live with 20 year olds, I don’t want to live with druggies or alcoholics, but it seems that the majority of the rest of folks around here, especially other folks with kids, live in these incredibly oppressive homes. Where everything sparkles and everything is new. I live with 20-year-old pans and tattered towels, and they in fact comfort me. I live with art and crafts projects spread across my living room floor for days. They keep me feeling human. But they also make me tend to want to not invite folks over. Because when I visit other people, it doesn't seem like anyone is lke that. Is Petaluma just one big suburban hell, rather than the village I suspected? I feel nervous inviting people into my house. They might think I am poor. I am poor, but they might think that poor is bad. They might feel sorry for me.
This all brings to the forefront of my psyche my real fear of this world…the fear of domesticity and all of the consumerism that entails. The fear of the a-political, passionless, beingone of those people who just watch the word collapse and chastise you if you want to talk about it...after all how can you worry about politics and all the people dying over there so we can live over here when you have to not only work, but buy all this new crap from Target and scrub the house everyday? So I don’t know what to do or where to go. Sometimes I want to run away to the city, where more “freaks” reside, where there might be a little less domestification, more aggressiveness, political debates, rock and roll music, passion. But also less space, higher rent, more cars, less nature…sometimes I think I will just disappear into my art and writing.
Ramona loves Petaluma. I like it too, in some ways. We'll stay here for now. I have the childcare subsidy and the jobs, two things that are essential in an economy like this. And Ramona is sad enough as it is to move from her house and her Abuela…
I had been planning to move in the summer, away from my mom…who makes my life less happy. But not now! Not when I have slipped into debt. Not when my mother can’t take care of herself (I am not even sure she wants to take care of herself). But it is now. So the search has begun. And once I secure a place, I will start working on my plan to run away for the summer.
3 comments:
Have you looked into cohousing? There are sites in Cotati, Sebastopol, and Santa Rosa. It sounds like that might be what you're seeking. I don't know anything about costs or eligibility though.
What's your definition of "weird"? I believe everyone have their own quirks. Oftentimes you won't even know these quirks exist until you get to know a person really well. Not everyone's comfortable revealing these parts of themselves to the world. It takes time to learn people's stories, that's all.
we loved your house. or soon-ex-house. so much life and vibrancy and richness in there. i feel grateful we got to swing by before you're outta there. love, a.
What I mean by weird comes from the looks and feedback I get when I speak freely to most people. I like who I am, I just wish I could make a connection with more people, I guess. I used to feel connected, now I feel alone.
And A, it was good to have you over. I like having a home full of life. I wish I knew what is going to happen. I feel so overwhelmed. I have to start a new class and a new job the same month I have to move. So much!
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