twentytwo ropes

2010-05-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

The house is alive again, slowly creeping out of the dank thing of the prolonged winter.
A good portion of people have moved out of the house recently, and new faces have joined on; ruffling up our feathers. We're kind of molting into summer.
The backyard is looking better right now than it probably ever has- we have new alien pods for compost which is awesome. and new plots of tomato plants. Hopefully we have a nice warm and sunny summer for them this year.
Honestly though, it's hard to take some of this shifting- as much as I am excited for all of it. I love meeting new people and I love new leaves. and I love the cleaning and Tim playing guitar on the porch, and our Domincan bowl (refer to picture below), people in the backyard, windows open.

Here's some pictures that I took the other day.

Annery's yoga. and dominican bowl.

love,
bekah

"Us" and "them"

2010-04-13T15:13:00.001-07:00

When I go about my daily tasks, i.e. chores: ironing, picking up the clothes lying around in my room, cooking, etc. I often think about my mom. I get flashbacks to her daily routines. I think about her urging me to pick out my clothes the night before school or about preparing my lunch the day before instead of waiting to do it half an hour before I walked out of the door the next morning. I think about her ironing on Saturday nights while watching Sabado Gigante or mopping the floors on a sunny Saturday morning instead of running away from chores under the excuse that it's a "nice day outside."
Now, don't get me wrong. I haven't always had these flashbacks and I don't always follow in my mother's footsteps in this way. In fact, I am nowhere near as clean and organized and disciplined as she was during my childhood. But, as I strive to be more organized and disciplined post-college, these memories inspire and motive me.
Going back in this way helps normalize what I'm doing and deters me from sitting down in front of facebook, for instance, or from taking a nap when I know I should be getting ready for the next day. I suppose that for most of us this process is more subconscious. However, for some of us, the households we grew up in do not inspire such actions. For some of us, our childhoods consisted of parents who did not work, suffered from some mental or physical illness and were bed ridden most of the time. Some of our parents did not wake us up for school--we woke ourselves up. Some of our parents did not iron or mop or pick up the clothes on the floor consistently, except for some small bouts of inspired moments when this was the case. And I imagine that for those of us whose parents struggled in this way, inspiration to go about completing daily tasks must come from somewhere else.
I think about these things because of my line of work; because everyday my job reminds me of the lines that are drawn between "us" and "them." My job causes me to think about thinking patterns that shape our behavior or our potential to learn and grow. And often, we are products of the upbringings we had--with the possible exceptions of those outlier children--the Rory Gilmores and the Barak Obama's and the genuises who managed to pull themselves up by the genetic bootstraps they were given. But for most of us, we are direct products of our environments. When we experience this kind of lack, where do we get the tools we were "supposed" to get when we were 5 years old and the foundation for our adult lives was being laid?

reflejos

2010-03-10T04:26:00.000-08:00

I do not blog. It seems like a strange idea; I'm supposed to spill my guts on the internet for anyone to read? Still, I figured after living in the house for nine months I ought to contribute something to the lovely communal cyberspace. Much has happened since the summer when most people were writing that deserves to be immortalized.

Yes, it's been ten months since most people moved in and almost exactly a year since we had our first pasta meet-and-greet at Mat and Nate's old apartment. When Kirk and Dawn first told me about the community house, my mind immediately leapt to an image of twenty dreadlocked, unwashed hippies sleeping in one apartment; they were tucked away in hammocks, sleeping bags, beneath staircases and the really tiny ones peeked out of dresser drawers like baby birds in a nest.

Yes, I thought.

All right, so most people ended up bathing fairly regularly and sleeping in beds. That is, except for Nate, who actually prefers the floor, and Mat, who spent six months alternating between a narrow closet door laid across some cinder blocks and the rooftop, dressed in pelts and furs. He is now volunteering to live in a basement cage if necessary. (Yes, one of the community house wonders is that we have cages in our basement, for some inexplicable reason. We've joked about locking our friend Jake Carey in there with nothing but a typewriter so that his wittiness will be forced to spill out on paper and he will become the writer he was meant to be).

But I digress, as usual. This blogging thing is harder than it looks.

We dreamed about the summer a lot this winter. Cold nights were often spent lounging in the 3rd floor kitchen reminiscing:
Remember that time we carried Suzanne on top of that table from the Salem bridge?
Or:
If I squint really hard, I can can almost see us in the backyard, drinking iced coffee and dozing on that huge blanket!
...How about the taste of Dave's sangria, like nothing you've ever had before?

...Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon, and the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields. Eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. Instead I'm... naked in the dark.

Haha. Winter in Beverly is hardly Mount Doom at the end of all things, but needless to say, I think we are collectively thirsting for some life. The first tinges of spring are beginning to wiggle forth from wherever they come, but I dare not hope too much. March is such a tease, and I hate playing games in such important matters. :)

Highlights from the last few months include the installation of balconies at long last, killer Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas parties (Halloween for the neighborhood kids, Thanksgiving and Christmas for friends), a house retreat to Maine, the additions of Chuck, Phoebe, Dan, Sergiy, and Tim, a fundraiser for Haiti following the earthquake, and now a greenhouse being built on our balcony! I apologize for giving the fast-food version of all that's happened, but I'm tired from the crippling challenge of my first blog entry.

Speculating about the future of the house seems impossible at this point, but I do know that it's been beautiful living with such interesting people and I hope it continues. I love all of these dirty hippies wholeheartedly.

1:17am

2010-01-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

That's got to be bad. I'm still awake, and not feeling like sleeping (different than feeling tired. I feel that.)
I am concerned about a few (many/all) things. I am concerned about the world. about myself. about faith. alot. about how dirty my room is right now. about school. about the future. about the pain in my back. about this blog. and this house.

I want things to be right, naturally. But they aren't, naturally. Things are not naturally right, they do not become right. Things do not progress towards perfection, am I right? Maybe not.
Because what is perfection, after all. It is a signifier, a mere word with ascribed meaning- possibly ill-ascribed based upon an unfounded argument that the ideal of 'perfection' stands outside of what is real and attainable and tangible and empirical.

oh god, what did I just write. it's too much.

and, I'm not sure why I'm posting this on the house blog and not my own personal rant blog, afterall. I dunno, I just dunno.

Which brings me to this play I'm working on/a part of. IDK IJDK (os, I Don't Know, I Just Don't Know) at Gordon. Opening next week. feeling so unprepared, but knowing things come together.

...at least in the theatre world. The show must go on.
Why do we not take that mentality to the rest of our works?
How can the show go on amongst the horror of nautre and the world? seriously. what is this show for, afterall?

This all sounds really depressing, sorry.
Just late contemplation by this crazy.

1:23. I should try to sleep. long days are even longer when there is no sleep the night before.
truth.

oi, life. death, life. beauty, destruction, beauty.

Important Life Skill Number 274? Check.

2009-08-30T21:44:00.001-07:00

Today, I rode a bike. By my self. For the first time ever. And mostly didn't fall. Someone should write a song. And do a dance. Tra-la-la!

Many thanks to the weather for being so beautiful and cool, the Beverly Airport for a nearly-empty parking lot, the Bicycle Gang (Nick, Mat, Kirk, Dawn, Sarah, Christy, Bekah) for their encouragement and good company, Nick and Mat for transporting me there and back again monkey-style, Kirk for helping steady the bike so I wouldn't fall and die before my time, and Brad for the generous although unwitting provision of a bike small enough for me. And, of course, my utter gratitude to the entire Beans Community for the tremendous atmosphere and conversations and food and all kinds of other things that they have grown and and sustained thus far and which have enabled me to dance, climb mountains, and stand on my head. Without all of you, this milestone in my life would remain sadly unpassed.

Next stop: Important Life Skill Number 293: Swimming.

[It has been suggested that we are all morphing into one communal personality...scary]

2009-08-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

Bekah says, "Yo" now. And Grimes says, "I want Dunkin'Donas (in a thick Latino accent)" I say, "Yess...Pleassee..." in a very Bekah-esk way, and continue to expand my repertoire of accents and versatile mannerisms the more I live here.

It's what happens when people live together. No matter how different you are, you pick up each other's mannerisms, facial expressions and internalize peices of their personalities--so that when you bump into a friend of a friend's on Cabot St. they say, "that sounded just like Mat Schetne" or "you're starting to talk like Nick Hanlon."

It's what happens when you mock one another so much that you adopt that very thing that used to amuse you about him, about her--so that what used to be David mocking me has now turned into his own urban twang: "Gurlchild, please." "Oh no you didn't."

Chillin' Out Maxin' All Cool

2009-07-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

Fourth of July!

2009-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hello from the Beverly Hurricane.

2009-06-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

it is real windy out there, ladies. watch out, Marylin Monroe.

I kind of want to watch a movie. Maybe I will, after I get a load of towels in the wash and set some bread for the rising..
I've been wanting to watch Rushmore. Darjeeling is probably on my top favorite 5 movies, so I'm interested in seeing more from Wes Anderson. (Royal Tenenbaums was pretty good as well)

So, I'm the only one home at the moment, if you don't include the ghost. The other day I cam home to an *empty?* house with my madre, wanting to introduce her to everyone... and we heard someone on the first floor (the sink was turning on an off, along with other telltale people sounds), but I decided to show her the second and third floor first and then to go down to see who else was home. On the third floor, I could SWEAR someone was in the bathroom: the sink went on. I called out "hello?" like a complete cliche, and no answer. We went down to the first floor: no one was there. Completely empty house.

Then Brad showed up, so he met my mom.

I shall see if I can become acquainted with this ghost further today, seeing as though I'm the only one here.

little creeped out.

Food, hookah, and merriment all around

2009-06-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

On an eve not too long ago, a group of young people who all happen to live together decided to take advantage of the warm weather and the warm company. The evening progressed with a great amount of merriment, food, and irish-cream-flavored smoke. This is an account of that evening.

(I apologize for the blurry pictures. Night photography just happens to be a skill that I haven't yet mastered. However, I feel it gives them a special quality.)

FIRST FIRST first things FIRST

2009-06-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

After you write or say a word a lot of times, it starts to seem foreign. and spelled wrong.

but here it is: the BLOG for THE COMMUNITY HOUSE of Beverly.

Any of you locals (...Gordon) who are reading this will know of this phenomenon: thus been referenced to as "the community house" in passing conversation. I stopped having to ask: "you know Mat Schetne?" and almost everyone knew what I was referencing part-way through: "the commun--" "oh, mat schetne?"

and good thoughts of Nate Tiller and Nick Hanlon as well, who I also mention in these conversations. You three had a wonderful idea that is coming to fruition.

So, here it is. This little thing will be supplementary to our words of mouth, but I hope to reach a broader audience eventually with this.
I have no immediate purpose in mind for this blog other than updates of what is happening in the house and surrounding neighborhood on Ropes Street in Beverly MA, and networking with other communities in the nation.
We are all new to this kind of living, but I think I speak for all of us when I say we are avidly hopeful for this new type of lifestyle. It is the molding of 'self' into a situation of 'other'. It is a fascinating concept, one not really heard of in the states much- though the more I have been exploring this lifestyle, I have discovered it to be a movement from my generation. I rather like it extremely much.

Our initial purpose for this living situation is for these reasons (other may add more of their own understanding- or if I missed some)
To:
1) Challenge our individualistic mentality engrained by this society.
2) Encourage each other in our interests and talents and passions.
3) Foster sincere authenticity in relationship and living.

those are some basic ideas on a larger scale. I have my own reasons for desiring this, but I can get into that at another time, as others will as well.

------------------------------------------------

Now that the pleasantries are taken care of...
I can only say that: at this point, if I was to recall all the beautiful, hilarious, wonderful wonderful WONDERFUL things that have taken place in the past week (yes, only a week and one day now! seems much longer? bizarre feeling of time in the house), it would take way to long.

Not that I wouldn't want to relive and recount all of the past week, I just don't have the time or the finger-typing strength. And, maybe you don't care to know after all.

But here's to good cheer: I am excited to reveal my hope (very hopeful) that there be new posts in this blog once a week (that's the plan Stan. and don't be coy, Roy) with points of view of all members of this community. To let you in on what's in our head: personal and collective challenges, joys, questions, answers. If you have questions as to WHY we are doing this, etc. etc.

I am utterly PSYCHED to see what we look like in a little bit. Check back, yo.

cheers,
Bekah