To begin, I’m defining ‘neighbors’ not simply as those who live near to my house but as ‘people in my vicinity.’ And by vicinity I mean anywhere, really.
In everyday life: In December, our friend/convention coworker gave us a dozen incredible homemade carmelized chocolate chip scones because we helped her & her husband fund their High-Strung Coffee1 cart. Last week, my husband’s tech-world coworker who also runs a farm brought us a dozen fresh eggs; our new next door neighbors2 delivered a gift of delicious egg custard tarts and a mooncake to celebrate Lunar New Year. This past weekend a friend offered us a credenza for free as long as we could pick it up, so two other friends came to help us move the marvelous [million-pound] piece of furniture.
Moral: Especially in these turmoil-ridden times, look to the folks around you for support, and offer them extra love back.
In poetry: A little call-back to Nikki Giovanni plus call-outs to soul singers, connecting them with the everyday people we need to notice and bring together, to make our comrades. I love these lines, grinning yet heartfelt: I want to eat the rich, to cancel the rents,/to know my neighbors/and to know my neighbors/are safe.
But mostly this, right now: …move like water, to move/from unity to struggle to unity,/
to have no perfect world we haven’t fought for.
Let’s please be like water.
I want by Jordan Jace I want to write poems for construction workers and dreamers For revolutionaries For deadbeats and those on the low I never want to ask please fix us all I want for us to want to patch every heart and pave every road and destroy every system that has ever left us broken. I want to sing like frank ocean, like wonder like sonder, like mereba, like the sea I want to recite the line Took the wretched out the earth Called it baby fanon, I want to call someone baby. I want to stop smoking because I want to live, I can only love my comrades if I live, and I want to clean my room, I want to clean my room every week and make my bed and put peppermint in my hair to stop needing my inhalers and to inhale solidarity, and to eat the rich, I want to eat the rich, to cancel the rents, to know my neighbors and to know my neighbors are safe. I want to move like water, to move from unity to struggle to unity, to have no perfect world we haven’t fought for.
Going to keep on trying
'Til I reach my highest ground
Their home-roasted brew is delicious and available by mail - treat yourself!
Also, a few weeks ago, they helped me recapture my goofy one-eyed cat Fred when he escaped his carrier after a vet appointment and hid under their car for 15 stubborn minutes. I definitely owe them more banana bread.
That's the best type of neighbor! Thanks for the coffee recommendation and the beautiful poem.
And I once had a cat get loose from the cat carrier outside our vet's office. It was terrifying, so your neighbor's help was indeed a blessing!
Amazing to have so many lovely neighbors, no matter where they live! <3