Screwing up is part of the program: on building community

Slowly but surely, building community, little by little

"Just to be clear

I don’t want to get out 

without a broken heart.

I intend to leave this life 

so shattered 

there better be a thousand separate heavens 

for all of my separate parts" 

--Andrea Gibson, Royal Heart 

I once heard someone describe St. Louis as a “sticky place.” People never intend to live here long, he said, but somehow or other they get stuck.

In many ways, Spokane reminds me of St. Louis, and as I’ve been making decisions about where I want to live at this moment in time, I’ve taken into consideration the idea that Spokane, too, may be a sticky place.

This frightens me. I never want to be stuck. I’ve thought about leaving just to opt out of staying. Choosing to leave seems easier to me, right now. My spirit is restless and I don’t want to get stuck. But then I’ve moved enough to know the loneliness I would feel upon leaving is greater than the loneliness I feel now in staying.

For the past two years, I have lived in what we called intentional community. When I volunteered at the Catholic Worker house in St. Louis, one of the community members talked about the St. Louis heat and the house’s lack of air conditioning. Community living was hard, she said, but we’ve all decided to stay in love anyway. This is my image of what community living should be. Human beings. Drinking from mason jars. Sweating in the summer heat. Sharing stories. Screwing up. Choosing to stay in love anyway. This is not how my years in intentional community played out, to say the least.

At the end of July, I finished my two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, which signified a transition in both my work and living situations. Every day I feel as though I am flailing. Friends are graciously taking me into their homes. I am working part-time as a hostess at a restaurant. I am no longer in school or AmeriCorps, where community is built into my days.

When I was a freshman in high school, I asked a boy to the Turnabout dance and he turned me down. The night of the dance, I stayed home. I cried and cried, and my dad made me a chocolate milkshake, like he sometimes did when I was sad. This weekend, in moments of loneliness, I’ve longed to be sitting on the orange couch with my dad and mom, chocolate milkshake in hand. I imagine that sitting there, I would no longer feel this loneliness. But I would.

Just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.

I don’t want to stay home the night of the dance, just because a boy turned me down.

And so, here I am, fighting to keep my heart open, even if that means it’s more likely to be broken. Dancing, even when I feel like I was turned down.

When I left Portland, a co-worker gave me a pair of socks that read: SCREWING UP IS PART OF THE PROGRAM.

I’ve always been terrified of screwing up. What I need is a community in which screwing up is part of the program.

This morning, my friend Kim and I sat across from each other, drinking coffee and brunching. Earlier I’d shared my thoughts of going home to Chicago, said that right now, as my life has changed so much in the past two months, I don’t know where I belong.

That’s part of why it’s hard for me to stay in Spokane, said Kim. But I think there is also something to slowly but surely building your own community, little by little.

Community is remembering that my voice is loud and carries and knowing that I am loved as myself when I still choose to keep my throat chakra open. Community is having the grace to screw up. Community is when a friend orders me leggings that she thinks I would like, just because. Community is little kids running to me, each hugging one of my knees. Community is sending job leads. Community is sitting on the couch, drinking tea, biking on the Centennial Trail and knowing where I am going. It’s knowing the owner. It’s writing letters to friends in faraway places.

I will still feel like I’m flailing most days. But I deserve a community where screwing up is part of the program, and the only way I will build that is in staying. I don’t want to leave because I am afraid of getting stuck. I am here, and I am all here, if only for this moment in time. And just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.