I’m going to share a story of community. Of helping people they don’t know. I think it’s beyond help. I think it’s love & care because we all have intrinsic value. Because I think we have to be reminded of these things.

I have to be reminded at a time when I know I may not be ok.

I may not have housing or unemployment at some point. The point gets sooner.

I’m a believer in policy not hope or luck. I mean hope & luck do not put in the bank.

I’m an ethical person. There is no meritocracy.

I’m staying back in one of the towns I was first displaced to. A town of 700. On THE DIRT ROAD with two houses. I’m in the apartment above the garage of the other house. The owners aren’t landlords. This place is “for family” — they’ve never rented before & they don’t need the

Family has been here so there may have even been some sacrifice to make this happen. My landlord (the other, other house made it happen).

Local workers have been painting the trim on the main house. Tasha mentioned that they would come back after I was gone to do my place

I said that was ridiculous. These guys have had some jobs cancel; the season is short.

Tasha: Are you sure?
Me: Absolutely. You could stage a circus on the lawn & I would just shrug.

This morning I get this text. This couple has no idea about my financial position. They know my first landlord Joy is kind, I try to be kind, and I want to kidnap one of their two dogs who follows me & Lizzie into the apt, blocks my car

So what I feel here — that I only felt for the periods when my grandmother got me away from my parents & when I cared for her — is that I have value without it having to be earned. How I look, if I’m smart (or not), where I was born and to whom, where I went to school, my work...

it doesn’t matter.

And I don’t think it should.

I’m trying with & beyond the capacity I have to make our shared communities better, to never harm, to always repair harm if I create it (no matter how indirect), and to keep engaging & un/learning from those wiser.