revjim.net

living

shared living: searching for community

May 4th, 2010
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

image by 27147

As we live a life of ease
Every one of us has all we need,
Sky of blue, and sea green,
In our yellow submarine!

I’m amazed at how many of my friends are interested in living together. It makes me believe that maybe the culture I’m looking for here in Dallas isn’t lost after all. I’ve seen an outpouring of ideas and offers from lots of people over the past week or so and it’s really helped me flesh this out a bit.

One of the most interesting offers was to share a home with a family in Austin. The family is already very dear to my heart and like-minded in terms of family and responsibility. And I long ago decided that Austin was an ideal city for me if I was going to stay in Texas. This seemed like a perfect situation.

But, the more I consider it the more I realize how much risk and difficulty there is involved with it. I’d have to take C away from her Mom. It’s only a few hours away and she’d still be able to see her almost as often as she’d like. But, it adds some complication. Factor in that I’d need to drop everything, move, look for a job, rent out my house, and leave everything I know and love here in DFW, it was just too much to do all at once. I still think this is ideal, and if I haven’t found what I’m looking for in Dallas within a few years, I’ll start looking out that way again. But for now, I think I have to let that go.

Another amazing offer I received was to share a home with a family in North Richland Hills. This place is beautiful! There’s lots of room! I’ve been friends (though not incredibly close friends) with half of the parental unit for over 10 years. I met the rest of the family and we all got along wonderfully. I’m still having conversations with them and working some bits out in my head.

But, as I see it now, there are a few limiting factors. Despite being a huge home, there are only 4 bedrooms. 3 of them are occupied by this family, so C and I would share a room. We do that now, so that’s okay. But as she gets older I’d prefer she share with another child. There’s nothing to say she couldn’t share with one of the other kids though. So that’s a wait-and-see kind of thing. The other limiting factor is that this house very much belongs to this family. I had envisioned a “our home” mentality and perhaps this would blossom into that as time progressed, but that isn’t the feel I got right away. So, another wait-and-see. The biggest limiting factor, though, is that, because after I move in all the rooms would be taken, it will be, at most, a two family home. Again, the family there said that there might be opportunity for more but wants to do it on a wait-and-see basis. So there’s a whole lot of wait-and-see.

I’m okay with wait-and-see. But I’d like to limit the disruptions to my daughter’s life as much as possible. With a move, a change in schooling/daycare, a whole new city, and the need to untie us from our current house, that’s a LOT to go with for so much wait-and-see. I’m still talking with them, and we’re going to have lots of sleep overs in the future, both to see where this goes and also because I’m excited to have met a friendly, open, like-minded family with an open-door policy so similar to my own.

So that leaves me with three options for now. I intend to pursue all three until one pans out.

I am going to keep looking for an existing home that I could share with another family. Ideally, there’d be room for at least three families but I’m flexible there for the right situation. Proximity to Irving, Denton, or Dallas is ideal, though not required. If you know of anyone that lives in a home with a room or two that they would spare and are interested in an intentional community of this nature, please let me know or send them my way.

I am going to think of ways to make my current home more suited to multi-family living and seek out families to share it with. I got an offer from a friend who would be willing to share my home. However, with her and her daughter here, that exhausts all of the “conventional” sleeping space my home has to offer (and that’s with our daughters sharing a room). The rooms in my house are large, however. So I’m looking for creative ways to split them into smaller spaces suitable for children as well adults who would consider even more open-minded living arrangements (like large rooms being shared by adults, etc). If you’re creative and budget-minded and would like to help me think of ways to split up this space let me know. If you would be open to “interesting” living arrangements with a very small financial obligation, contact me.

Finally, I’m looking to buy a home more suitable to what I want. Something large-ish with emphasis on the number of rooms not the size of them. Ideally in the Denton, Coppell, or Dallas (Oak Cliff, likely) areas. If you know of a home like this, or would be interested in helping to find one and share it, please let me know.

this is the point: to live

Aug 11th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet
in the middle

in the middle

1) As a friend pointed out today, life is a journey, not a destination. The potholes along the way are unimportant, and where we end up when we finally stop matters the least of all. What does matter is how we get there, and what we learn along the way. There’s a quotation supposedly in Playboy magazine from Stanley Kubrick that is fitting:

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism — and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong — and lucky — he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

2) I’m managing to recapture some faith in myself. Not only my ability to “do it” but my ability to do it “alone” if necessary.

jumbled above

jumbled above

3) I’m also regaining faith in my own intuition. For a while it was as though I had intuition vertigo. I could manage to work it out, but it was always too late and only with great effort. It became such a chore that I stopped relying on it at all. Slowly, I’m finding focus and stability there and I’m relearning how to trust that sense. 4) I no longer feel so driven to produce something notable. It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I don’t have the desire to do so. Not at all. But there was a time where I thought that life was pointless if I didn’t do something memorable. I realize now that life is still pointless even if I do — except that it isn’t. When focused on a destination, it is pointless. When focused on the journey life’s point becomes clear — THE POINT IS TO LIVE! 5) The more I reach out to people, the more alone I feel. And when I stop reaching, yet remain open to contact, the more that I find that life reaches out to me. I just need to be ready to grab it.

and now on to the next

Jul 30th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

I’m not one to celebrate a success before it’s time. However, there are some goals that never really finish (like, “quit smoking”, for example). Eventually we have to give ourselves some credit and move on to the next thing. So that’s what I’m doing.

There will be hard days and there will be easy days and most will land somewhere in between. But, I believe I’ve found a happy, healthy, rich method with which to give Celeste the attention and guidance she deserves while still caring for myself and getting the things done that society has made a requirement. It seems as though the very bad days are behind us and that I’ve gotten to a spot where I can quickly adjust based on her mood, my mood, any physical illness, and account for whatever behaviors she’s seen while away from me that may be out-of-line with what I think works best for her and myself.

So hooray for that. Celebrations will be held indefinitely.

And now on to the next.

Texas Coast, Day IV

Jul 15th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

Sunrise on Aransas Pass

sunrise over aransas pass

Sunrise on Aransas Pass

I woke up before the sun and headed down toward Port Aransas to find a good spot to catch the sunrise. I guess I didn’t look very closely at the map before I plotted my course, because I didn’t realize there was a ferry between where I was and Port Aransas. Opting not to spend the time and money on the ferry, I found a decent spot on the pass just before the ferry and set up.

Later that day as we were well on our way to Galveston I would realize that, having avoided that ferry trip meant that I didn’t see Port Aransas at all. Looks like I’ll have to come back. Which is okay by me.

The Big Tree

Just North of Rockport, Texas lives an oak tree estimated to be over 1,000 years old. It’s quite beautiful and absolutely amazing to look at and consider all of the winters and summers and storms the tree has seen. The parks system has built metal crutches to hold up some of its limbs, planted grass below it’s spanning branches, built a chain link fence around it, and posted bad poems on large signs near by to commemorate it. Clearly, they are trying to protect the tree and help it to live another 1,000 years. But in reality they are only isolating it and shutting it off from the environment it’s known for 1,000 years.

Sometimes we don’t realize that by trying to prevent change in something, we end up changing it the most. That which lives, let it live.

Galveston

salt water reeds

salt water grass

I didn’t realize Galveston is as large as it is, so that was my first surprise. My second surprise was how unpopulated it was. Of course, it was the middle of a week, on a very hot day, and the region is still recovering from a bad hurricane. So, that makes sense.

None the less, I had a good time photographing the old buildings, eating good food on the bay, and walking along the seawall.

Bolivar

The Bolivar Peninsula, or what little of it I’ve seen so far, is quaint. It reminds me a bit of Manitoulin Island in that it seems to have it’s own vibe and it’s own way of life separate from the communities that surround it. Last night, well after midnight, I stood on the beach and felt the wind blow through my hair and listened to the waves crash into the shore. In that moment, I feel infinite. I felt not like Daniel, not like Human, not like Earthling, but like one single organ in the larger being that is Universe.