I've been thinking a lot about the concept of home lately. We are beginning the process of home-buying, which is to say that there are some applications floating in the ether, some outstanding to-do's, no house to speak of, not even really an idea of a house. That's fine by me—I'm in no rush.
I've never owned a home before. I've felt home, at times, in a cozy apartment or with a community of friends. I've felt at home in my body or while getting art up on the walls, music blasting, in the first few days after moving into a place I really like.
But the more I think about decolonization, the more I learn about landback campaigns, the more I think about reparations, the more questions I hit against when I think about home ownership. I am living on unceded Powhatan land, land that was stolen and then used to exploit people for capital gain. So many people have lost their autonomy, and often their lives, at the hands of colonizers in this city. What does it mean to buy a home here?
I'll be working this out for a long time, I think, figuring out something like a reparations ratio to go along with my debt to income ratio. Of course, it's not like renting does any good—for now, my money goes to the already wealthy, if very kind, family who owns this apartment.
I have visions, of course—of a lilac tree and a little more counter space, of a porch for gathering and maybe even a shed, a push lawnmower. I'm hoping to join the applicant pool of the Maggie Walker Land Trust, an organization that keeps homes permanently affordable, and that's good for community and good for me. This seems like a first step, if we make it into the pool, to living my values while buying a house.
And if we don't, I'm working with a realtor devoted to first-time homebuyers and anti-displacement campaigns. But doing it the "right way" doesn't answer all my questions about how to feel about ownership, how to hold the complexity of the land, how to keep people from being displaced and support indigenous projects, including landback campaigns, right here in my new home city.
Do you have ideas? If you own a house, how did you reckon with the realities of the place where you live, and the ground underneath your foundation? If you don't, do you want to own a house? Does the whole thing just kind of suck, because capitalism? Should we be doing something different than apportioning pieces of land in this dumb way? What? How can we make it happen?
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"Cooking is what makes us human. Cooking with real quality ingredients is what makes us healthy. Cooking for others is what makes us happy."
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"This was our biggest day yet, Day 13 of Police Enforcement, Day 295 of Direct Action THANK YOU to the 2000+ people who made the journey to camp today. 200 people broke across the police line preventing access to Waterfall Camp, there are now hundreds camped out there."
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We joined the Y a few months ago, and I went to a couple of spin classes this week! I forgot how sore my butt would be, how sweaty I would get, how I always have a tendency to push too hard and then feel like I'm going to die in the middle. I'm so glad to be back.
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As you read this: It's the last weekend before the Virginia primary, so I'm getting ready to make sure everyone in this state has plans to vote!
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