genderjumper | Entries tagged with community

It was a resounding success. The food, the company, the sense of community. Some highlights:

Quite possibly the most beautiful moment I've ever shared with my household was watching my nesting partner and Kiddo simultaneously holding court in a room full of adults. Everyone was completely focused on one or the other of them, their similar speech cadences offered a strangely stable syncopation, and I just got to bask in the moment that I made happen. It's hard to convey just how rare and precious this moment was, but the short version is they're both autistic and very selective about opening up in group spaces. It was glorious and I get teary just thinking about it.

We went with an indigenous and regional vibe, since Kiddo is trying to build connections with her indigenous ancestry and we're a fairly decolonial bunch. Bison tacos, fry bread, esquites, and homemade tortilla soup were among the highlights.

Storytelling was also a highlight. I confessed to everyone my intentions of building a stronger sense of community between maskers in this area so they'd all have each other to lean on once we finally GTFO. I got brave and shared a little bit about my time magic.

Returning with my party-superstar vibes (and honestly, these are the most successful events I've ever hosted without major assists, so that's a whole other layer) reminded me of days before COVID, before grad school, mostly even before caregiving, when I could just show up at a party and, at peak, vacillate easily between observant wallflower and center of attention in cycles. But since I didn't need to hold court for more than one story at a time, I didn't try to create or hold onto it, it just flowed, and I think it did for everyone else as well. With all that relaxation (and a bit of weed, though I myself never partake), a strong undercurrent of flirtation also emerged, and it felt like being at a polyamorous party again. I really missed that openness (didn't I journal about it here a couple years ago???), and have been savoring the afterglow a little too much.

I don't know if anyone's really interested. I'm not sure any of us have the capacity to even just have fun without complications these days. But damn, it feels good to be attractive and attracted and I'm going to bask in that a bit too.

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Location: Thrilled two days later
Current Music: Theme from Evangelion

I've absorbed a lot of concepts over the past few years about how significant the actions of belonging are to all kinds of communal activities, from religious worship to concerts to fandoms to family to professional athleticism... In many of these contexts (including religion), the acts of participation become ritual, and those rituals are as important (or sometimes more important) than the actual tenets of faith, understanding of art, or agreement between community members.

As someone who grew up with zero religion, a weak sense of family, and a strong sense of finding my own way, I've rarely had use for ritual. ( Ritual thinkies... )

Which raises questions: can those of us who have spent most of our lives mostly adrift from community ties solidify our ties when we do find them through some kind of ritual. Is it ethical to do so? Is it ethical NOT to? If we pursued this line of inquiry further, would it be more ethical to make up a meaning or borrow one, to turn meaning-making into the meaning, or to eschew meaning altogether, and how would that affect the hold the ritual keeps on participants?

(I guess I need to supply a theoretical foundation here, but the best I can offer is my own personal brand of "life-hacking": recognize the way the brain works and leverage that knowledge in the direction of becoming the person you most want to be.)

Current Mood: magic
Current Location: my desk
Current Music: U2 playing Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" before taking the stage & 100K singing along

A trans family in my extended community are about to GTFO Austin (lucky them!) and held a sendoff party today. One of my dear ones is also very dear to them, but disabled and geographically isolated from both them and me, so I asked if I could pick her up and drive her down. She gladly accepted.

( On the way down )

On the drive home, I recorded audio of a potential essay called, "How to Break a Resilient Heart" (or something similar) that felt a bit cathartic to get out of my head. It was a mournful how-to written from the perspective of the hurtiest relationship end I've ever experienced, which haunts me 8 years on. I also sang through a couple of albums, playing with my pitch and range.

I haven't felt this creative in a long time.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: No longer I-35
Current Music: Esthero: I Don't Wanna Let You Go

I don't bother thinking very hard about the tension between free will and determinism unless I'm depressed and my usual self-regulation efforts aren't working. But it's rare that I start thinking about them without already noticing the depression and self-regulation stall.

This was not the week I thought I was going to have.

I got turned down for a job I really, really wanted. I trust that it's going to lead me to better things (or potentially I reapply later), but a lot of my cognitive load had been going to daydreaming about relocating and now it's not really sure where to go.
A trans woman died in my community. I had only met her once or twice: long enough to get a massive crush, not long enough to learn her last name. But I went to the grief circle tonight and offered what support I could to her grieving parents and others.
The friend I trust to be untrustworthy may be about to lose one parent to illness and another to the grief. I really wish people would call on a care coach or family diplomat during such difficult times. This particular friend just stormed off and probably got high.
Speaking of mental illness, when I started gray-rocking my fam-o about three years ago, I never would have imagined they would just stop participating. I have literally no idea what's happening over there right now, because they each started dealing with heavy shit and they simply do not know how to communicate out of anything other than idleness or overwhelm.
My ostensible dating partner and friend of 30+ years abruptly reconnected with an ex last week and derailed our plans to share physical space (which is a big deal because their family doesn't mask consistently so I have to build a lot of faith and request 5 days of relative isolation). I can't help worrying that some of this was sparked by their recent realization that I was going to move away sooner or later, but they are not strong at self-advocacy nor even certain kinds of self-awareness and I horrible at navigating the unspoken.
My planned road trip to visit hyper-cautious loved ones in central Texas did not happen because 2/3 of us got nasty spring colds (I allow for the fact it could have been COVID, but I have zero evidence and a lifetime of experience with allergies turning into sinus infections and it felt like the latter; that said, these things just plain heal more slowly than they did before my two cases of COVID).
Signs currently point to a new hypomania as I come out of sick-space: the excitement of the big change being redirected into staying calm combined with having been rather idle the past two weeks, so that's why I'm still up at 7am (I did have a 3-hour nap earlier, which is usually navigable for me) documenting some of the goings on instead of sleeping.
Have had a strong urge to write the past few days thanks to a writing group I'm co-leading, but I'm wavering between too much and too little to say.
My therapist wants to terminate after over ten years together because she has nothing left to teach me, I'm figuring it all out on my own. I agree it's time, but that doesn't mean I'm enthusiastic about it.

I should probably read the Tao or something contemplative, then try again to sleep.

Current Mood: restless
Current Location: not my bed
Current Music: A friend sent me Kpop, but it all just sounds like 90s knockoffs

Without going into the long version, suffice it to say I have a problematic relationship with leadership. As someone who is tall, male-ish, articulate, and white, I have often found myself elevated (dare I say privileged) in ways that did not necessarily match my skill set or even my emotional fitness for the moment. (It gets even more complicated when I step into such a role because I am qualified, but distrusting of my would-be followers because I haven't yet demonstrated why I'm a good fit.)

I posit that leadership (and by this I'm not sure if I mean all leadership or just leadership as I internalized it across my first 40ish years on this planet) is a parasocial relationship: people make assumptions about your knowledge, skills, and integrity, and then they may take it personally when you inevitably fail to live up to their expectations. They will sit quietly when you take a public stand, they will follow your tribulations without offering a comforting word, and they will pile up on you if the winds of popularity ever shift away from you.

( As such, I have triggers around leadership... )

Anyway, a new direction recently emerged for me to consider:

A lover read my tarot and told me I needed to stop getting hung up on it and instead seek out a matriarchal leadership. And I love this idea but I have no idea how to operationalize it. (One of womanism's foundational documents puts forth the idea of a "luxocracy" -- leadership by light -- but I recall it as aspirational rather than practicable and found nothing useful.) I suppose all I have to go on so far is the handful of true leaders and heroes I've ever known and how they were always driven by their love and support of others -- reciprocated or not -- and a vague sense that matriarchal leadership is less likely to be recorded or celebrated in a holiday (which resonates nicely with the Tao Te Ching).

No idea where this inquiry will lead (or even begin), but figure I'll share it here in case ideas emerge...

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: about to get on a call
Current Music: my favorite film, Fast Color, is a womanist tale

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Gender Jumper

Entries tagged with community

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Wanted: Ledership, Matriarchal. Inquire Within.

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December 2025

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