Category — on community

I’ve been doing a lot of yoga lately. There’s a studio called Yoga District right down First Street just a few blocks from my house. It’s simple, spacious, unpretentious, affordable. There’s a place to leave your mat and the same folks come around again and again so that you get to know faces. People ride their bikes and walk to class. “Interns” from the community help clean the place and sign people in, in exchange for free classes. The whole ethos of the place manifests most clearly in the studio’s outreach arm, YogaActivist.org, which helps bring yoga into communities that might not otherwise experience it.

I love this place. It’s kept me grounded over the past few months, and I’m going to be sad to leave it.

I’ve heretofore been a little skeptical of yoga. Classes I’d taken in San Francisco left me feeling self conscious, like I didn’t fit in among the lululemons and raw foodists. A friend took me to a bikram class in Orange County where a wiry black haired Chinese goddess barked at a room of slick, dripping, bendy people as they twisted and pressed and squeezed every last toxin from deep inside out their pores. It was an experience, but not of calm.

The classes I’ve come to love at this place are athletic. I move and bend and sweat. It’s not easy, but it feels really really good, and by the end, my body feels at once relaxed and also tighter, my mind is open and I’m ready to take life in stride.

Just yesterday I did a headstand on my own for the first time since I was a kid. I’d tried a few times against the wall, or with a spot from a kind instructor, but yesterday I felt courageous and powerful so I nestled the crown of my head between my palms, walked my feet up towards my face till I was on my tippy tip toes, and then gave a slight -push- and bent my knees and then I was up.

Judge not… but sometimes I’m curious when I twist around in some funny pose and see the full room behind me. I’m curious whether people’s posture in yoga belies something deeper about them. The ones that get me most are slouchers, people who turn languidly and poke their arms in the air halfheartedly at the beginning of each sun salute. I wonder if these people would make good coworkers.

Or the overachievers (who, me?) who lunge much deeper than is necessary and push and strive and breathe too loud and glance at their neighbors (I try hard to resist). But the people I want to be friends with (and strive to be more like) are the people who are strong, but calm. Straight, but contained. They sometimes shake, they sometimes fall, but always with grace.

Roomie Chris just got home. I went up to throw a load of delicates into the washer and heard a bunch of shouting from the front of the house:

“GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!”

Twas a policeman, gun drawn, arresting a shirtless man with long dreads. Chris was watching out the peephole and saw another man run away down the street.

I was chatting with a friend this weekend about where she’s going to move when she starts a new job in a few months. “You should move to my neighborhood!” I said. “But don’t you feel unsafe at night?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Honestly, not really. But maybe I have a false sense of security.

The only time I’ve felt personally threatened was once when I was riding on the sidewalk because the line of cars was pressed up against the curb so close that there was no where to go and a man lunged toward me apparently trying to knock me off. There was the horrible time that our friend Mike got jumped on the end of the block and then there are stories from Tim about gun shots in the back alley.

Apparently, the corner a block away is some kind of special intersection for a local gang and you don’t really want to hang ’round there. Then this weekend, we found out from Bates St. historian and clean-up orchestrator, Ms. Regans, that tagging on the garage doors of vacant lots ends up becoming a sign that advertises, “deal drugs here.”

It’s fascinating to try to understand what a difference it can make to clean a street, paint over graffiti, have people outside.

I love my neighborhood. It’s one of the very best parts about living in DC and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else (even Mt. Pleasant, which seems like a sylvan paradise, and also is the place — I’ve been informed — where all the “cool foodies” hang out…)

Around here, people are relaxed. They smile and look at me and say hello. They hang out on the street in the evenings and talk. There are lots of families. Sometimes I jump double-dutch with two little girls a few doors down (not very successfully) and their amazingly beautiful mother. The kids from the nearby KIPP academy stare at me when I ride back from work, and they wave back when I wave even though I’m 100% sure they think my helmet is totally uncool.

When I first arrived, I felt uncomfortable. I stood out. The way I looked and the way I dressed. I felt exposed. Now, I feel like my neighbors have my back.

A few weekends ago, I took a posse down to Florida market including coworkers from NSAC, visiting intern Kara from the Michael Fields Ag Institute (holla!), and friend Sara. We explored and laughed and made friends with taxidermed ruminants and then some folks followed me back home to cook up some traditional Cambodian fare.

We made Ban Chao (savory turmeric crepes) and papaya salad (recipe below) and vegetarian fresh rolls (aka goi cuon) with the quick kind of peanut sauce.

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 2

Every weekend I spend in DC, I fall in love a little bit more. It’s a small town full of brilliant, motivated, passionate people who all seem to be connected to one another in a complicated, but pretty tiny social network. It’s a transitional town where people come and go and folks seem open to experience. Plus, it’s below the Mason-Dixon line, which (I’ve been told) means that folks are just naturally more friendly.

Sure, there are those who might be a little too into the ‘game’ — collecting connections like baseball cards (or Magic cards for the fantasy inclined), racking up favors, perfecting tactics, but I’ve been fortunate to mostly a crowd of interesting and genuine people.

To those who bemoan the black and grey suits, the wonkiness, the who-do-you-work-for-who-do-you-knowiness of the district, I say: come to Bates House to hang out and your soul will be revived. Next party’s Saturday April 17th — hope you can make it.

One weekend in February, we threw a little brunch party. Around 25 friends and neighbors came to snack on cinnamon rolls and frittata and drink delicious coffee. The first guest arrived a little before 11, and the last one headed out the door around 6. Seven hours of community and conversation: not bad for a lazy Sunday.

The drink station set-up. Strong coffee, Bailey’s, tea and mango puree. Yum.

Marcie making French toast and Chris on BACON, BACON, BACON.

Happy Chris and the first guests, partaking of food (plus the back wheel of my bicycle making a cameo appearance in the left corner)

Greg, the ex-architect and documentary film maker chatting with neighbor Lara, public health advocate and server at a legendary local bar.

Friends in the happy food corner, where most of Bates eating action happens.

Bates love.

The die-hards, sticking it out till the end. Can you spot the two ethnomusicologists in this picture? The activist who works directly with victims of human trafficking? DC, you are ridiculous.

I heard just this morning that I’ve been accepted into the Community Development Graduate Group at UC Davis. I’m thrilled because the more I meet folks here in DC and the more I hear about exciting projects going on all over the country, the more I crave action — the hands-on work on the ground that I’ll be able to do in that program.

When I visited Davis back in September, I had a wonderful time meeting with professors and students; now I’ve some other folks from food and ag organizations in the nearby area — Community Alliance for Family Farmers, Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association, and California FarmLink and it seems like there would be a lot of potential for interesting projects with each of them.

Other things that make Davis awesome:

• I’d get to work with Professor Ryan Galt who recently got a grant to work on an project studying production and consumption in CSAs in the region.
• The Agricultural Sustainability Institute. While they don’t specifically have a program for working with grad students yet, it seems like there’s an opportunity to get involved in helping to define role(s) for graduate student involvement.
• The new undergraduate major in sustainable agriculture, which I might be able to participate in as a TA.
• The Center for Regional Change and particularly the community and regional mapping laboratory…

Which brings me to the post title… while stumbling around the Davis website, I came upon this moving, beautifully executed project by Tracy Perkins, a graduate of the Community Development Program. It’s called “25 Stories from the Central Valley” and it’s a multimedia project about the effects of agricultural pollution on local communities. The main event is a series of 25 photographs and captions that make up an online “exhibit” taking you through the human suffering that results from environmental abuses in the Central Valley. You have to visit the site to get the full effect, but I found this caption particularly moving:

“Josefina Miranda shows her daughter how she protects herself when she works in the fields. When Miranda was four months pregnant with an earlier child, she and her co-workers were put to work in a field still wet with pesticides. By the time they left, her clothes were so soaked that she could wring the pesticides out of them.  She miscarried the next day.”

So much to learn and do in California, and then it’s so close to my heart’s home in San Francisco and not too far from my parents.

I only worry about getting involved in a food system that may have a less than glorious future given the already frightening, and increasingly dire problem of water scarcity. Perhaps there’s hope, but on the other hand, maybe I should try Michigan!

Tuesdays are harvest days and it’s only fitting that in the evenings, there’s a standing celebration down at Jackson Beach.

Heavy rain was in the prediction, but both times, the rain gods were thwarted by the rarely seen, but heartily worshiped sun.

This week, I rode out the 5 or so miles to Jackson Beach with the intention of riding back before dark, but what with volleyball, hummus, a bonfire, and the famous “Chili Willy” playing his charango, I couldn’t tear myself away.

Showing off our mad volleyball skills

Not being able to tear myself away

View

in a larger map