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Aug. 22nd, 2013 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikSo there I was, at my bank, with my foot (and shoe) up on the chest high counter, explaining how my bike cleats work. This totally happens to everyone, right? I joke about doing shoe and tell, but that used to mean I was wearing five fingers (these days I wear Merrell Gloves, mostly, when I'm out and about, and just train in my VFFs.)
Then it was more bike and tell on the way home. (With another cyclist, who was interested in the transition process getting going on a recumbent. So we biked along and chatted a bit.) And random people I'm not sure I recognized calling my name and waving. (I think she was a nurse from the breast center. I didn't get a very good look at her as I went by.)
And this is one of the things I really do like about Cleveland. There's a lot of community, and a lot of random social interactions. Sometimes more than I'm up for, or more than I have time for, but I do love it, still. In this context, I feel like I'm a lot quieter, at least by comparison, than back in Seattle. Of course, maybe I am quieter.
***
Last weekend was the first big work part for Spirit Park.
For the last several decades an abandoned house had become more and more decrepit. The surviving family members - the youngest is apparently in their eighties - refused to sell, so it just sat there. A year or so ago it was finally condemned and demolished. Somehow arrangements were made with the city to turn it into a park. My friend L is spearheading the whole thing. (And we might yet do the wood burning brick oven as a neighborhood fixture.)
After morning stuff and the farmers' market and training and lunch, I headed over, and got in about half an hour after the scheduled start... to find about 30 (and that wasn't everyone) and almost all the work done. Well! Wasn't expecting that.
I am just so floored and delighted by the community buy in. Good turn out from the zendo crowd, but we weren't even a quarter of the people there. It reminded more than anything of the building of the cohousing community where my mother resides. (I was very involved in that whole process. And then... well, lots of things happened, most of them involving my mother being icky and controlling. When she changed the design of the room I was going to be living in without asking me, and then told me I had to pretend to be straight and monogamous to the community - at the time I was dating one man and two women - I was just done. Ugh. But I did love the community.)
Now that we have this designated community space, I'm trying to think of a good way of managing near term event announcements - I used to buy a flat of strawberries from time to time, and make strawberry shortcake for all comers. So, um, not quite that (I miss whipped cream) but something like that? We have such great neighbors.
(We live in the part of Cleveland Heights where putting in a composting toilet increases your property value. No, really. I have neighbors who leave bowls of mushrooms on my porch, not even to mention bringing Budai statues back from the Philipines for the zendo. Though for some reason I started associated him with the Bastard from Bujold's Chalion books.)
***
And I'm still trying to figure out how to spend more time in wild spaces. I mean, they aren't going to be very wild unless I acquire a car or more use of a car, but the time at Chapin Mill really made it clear to me how much I'd been missing that.
I mean, sheesh, I'm a biologist already. I should at least head down to the gorge more often.
Then it was more bike and tell on the way home. (With another cyclist, who was interested in the transition process getting going on a recumbent. So we biked along and chatted a bit.) And random people I'm not sure I recognized calling my name and waving. (I think she was a nurse from the breast center. I didn't get a very good look at her as I went by.)
And this is one of the things I really do like about Cleveland. There's a lot of community, and a lot of random social interactions. Sometimes more than I'm up for, or more than I have time for, but I do love it, still. In this context, I feel like I'm a lot quieter, at least by comparison, than back in Seattle. Of course, maybe I am quieter.
***
Last weekend was the first big work part for Spirit Park.
For the last several decades an abandoned house had become more and more decrepit. The surviving family members - the youngest is apparently in their eighties - refused to sell, so it just sat there. A year or so ago it was finally condemned and demolished. Somehow arrangements were made with the city to turn it into a park. My friend L is spearheading the whole thing. (And we might yet do the wood burning brick oven as a neighborhood fixture.)
After morning stuff and the farmers' market and training and lunch, I headed over, and got in about half an hour after the scheduled start... to find about 30 (and that wasn't everyone) and almost all the work done. Well! Wasn't expecting that.
I am just so floored and delighted by the community buy in. Good turn out from the zendo crowd, but we weren't even a quarter of the people there. It reminded more than anything of the building of the cohousing community where my mother resides. (I was very involved in that whole process. And then... well, lots of things happened, most of them involving my mother being icky and controlling. When she changed the design of the room I was going to be living in without asking me, and then told me I had to pretend to be straight and monogamous to the community - at the time I was dating one man and two women - I was just done. Ugh. But I did love the community.)
Now that we have this designated community space, I'm trying to think of a good way of managing near term event announcements - I used to buy a flat of strawberries from time to time, and make strawberry shortcake for all comers. So, um, not quite that (I miss whipped cream) but something like that? We have such great neighbors.
(We live in the part of Cleveland Heights where putting in a composting toilet increases your property value. No, really. I have neighbors who leave bowls of mushrooms on my porch, not even to mention bringing Budai statues back from the Philipines for the zendo. Though for some reason I started associated him with the Bastard from Bujold's Chalion books.)
***
And I'm still trying to figure out how to spend more time in wild spaces. I mean, they aren't going to be very wild unless I acquire a car or more use of a car, but the time at Chapin Mill really made it clear to me how much I'd been missing that.
I mean, sheesh, I'm a biologist already. I should at least head down to the gorge more often.
