Dear friend,

I’ve been burning to tell you this, with the hopes that you will hear your own story in what I say and then you’ll skip off into the sunshine puppy rainbow of love with me.  

On paper, I am successful. I’m a graphic designer for a cool techy startup in Silicon Valley, I live in San Francisco, I regularly hang at NASA with really smart people. I have an iPhone and a pretty great vintage leather jacket, sometimes I play in a band. 

But if you asked me, I’d have a totally different view. I am 30 years old, I have a job that doesn’t have any meaning or impact, I am in 6-figure debt for college and grad school, I have very poor parents, I own nothing, I worry about the future and I have no idea what I am doing with my life.

One day a few weeks ago, I was driving home from my boring job, and I was stressing out over making my grad school loan payments (they are 3 times my rent) and whether I could survive until my next check, and whether I would have time that evening to finish the moonlit freelance work I was doing to pay off the $1500 in taxes I owed…from being a freelancer. Heady shit! And then suddenly, somewhere in the back of my head a voice that seemed not quite like my own said

                                                                                                                                                                                   .

  ”everything is going to be okay” 

—and I physically felt all the stress leave my body, and I had this preternatural knowledge that everything was, in a very fundamental way, going to be okay.  It wasn’t optimism that I’d find the money or that I’d find a job I could keep or that I’d buy my parents a house finally, because optimism is a coping mechanism for the stress that happens when your basic dreams and desires are on the line. This wasn’t optimism—it was peace. And the reason I experienced it (I was to figure this out later) was because at that moment I realized that the only peace I would ever know is the peace I made for myself.

I’ve been a restless spirit for a long time. I’ve had over 40 jobs in my 30 years here.  Even in school, I’ve had 5 majors for only 2 degrees. I do new things and when I figure them out I get bored and look for a new challenge.  Nothing can sustain me.  I mean, I really wanted to be a ballerina as a kid, but then I stopped growing at 5’2” and the Boston Ballet wasn’t having it. It’s really been downhill ever since.

Anyway. If you have student debt, and a job you don’t like that kills you, and bills you can’t pay and a future that’s so fucking fuzzy and distant that it’s a bitter joke you share with your friends, then maybe I can help.  I hear this same litany of misery from close friends and strangers so often that it feels like I must be listening for it. Like when you try not to think of your ex and then it’s all you can think about.

Well I want you to know that you are free, and that another world is possible.

The way I try to explain it is this: imagine that everything you know about the world—how to live and succeed in it, what its values are, what your worth is, how you are to treat others, the “system”, the “man” whatever you call it—all those things are a giant ROCK that everybody lives in. So, to make a change, we don’t need to destroy the rock; we just need to pitch a tent somewhere near it, make an awesome campfire, and maybe those who are stuck inside the rock, looking out for another way of life, will see our light and come over.  From our metaphorical nature-y campfire party, we can watch the system destroy itself.  It doesn’t need us to destroy it.  

(In a more academic way, what I’m trying to say is that capitalist ideology does not posses the language [nor the imagination] to create a world outside of itself.  Everything must reference its value system of productivity or profit, including ‘alternative lifestyles’—just think about that language! It implies “an alternative to X” where X can be any facet of capitalist society, therefore, still in the same framework. Does that makes sense? So what I’m proposing is not an alternative lifestyle per se, but a world that we must actively IMAGINE into existence outside of anything we were exposed to growing up. That’s hard! I believe it was best described as “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Dude. I know. Our models for self-sustaining communities are disappearing rapidly; perhaps even our children will never know anything outside of Western civilization, can you imagine that?)

This idea, it turns out, kind of pisses people off. The ones who have worked so hard, and who are working hard now, the ones who still buy into the system and hope it will work for them. Everybody tries to reason against the message that THEY ARE FREE.  They’ve reasoned with me that it’s irresponsible, that I should change the system from the inside, that I am turning into a hippie (totally true, by the byyyyy) or they’re angry that I took out loans for school but refuse to be enslaved by them (that’s what you call paying back more than you can possibly afford to pay, for 25 years). Yet, the master plan we’ve been indoctrinated into leads many more people to misery and poverty and destruction than to prosperity. (It did so under the guise of communism for my parents, too, in case you’re about to cry liberal epithets.) I think that if we peer quietly behind our individual fear of “failure”, we’ve known all along that things aren’t right. Here’s the thing: YOU DON’T HAVE TO FIX IT. You can’t put a bandaid on a fire hydrant, y’all. All you can do, and all you have to do, is live lightly on the earth, in a community of similar values.  That’s love guys, that’s the answer to capitalism. *dies a thousand treehugging deaths*

And what does this have to do with Summer Commune? I believe that Summer Commune expresses a new kind of consciousness that we can hardly articulate, that we barely dare to imagine. It’s just a small gesture of people trying something new. But it will create a fissure in what people believe is possible. For me, if I can convince even one person that giving this a shot is more important than worrying about bills, and that their life is more than the measure of their productive capacity, then I will know that anything is possible.

Love,

Sofya

An incredible Summer Commune postcard!

I gotta say, I’m weirdly excited about this. I’ve been a bit of a communerd for a while now — it’s the kind of thing I frequently fantasize about, and have even occasionally tried to enact. I love the spirit of intentional communities — of smart, creative people working together on projects big and small. of having people to consult and brainstorm and commiserate with in the middle of the night. (what I’m less keen on is communal sleeping, bathing, meals, and inevitably ensuing drama, but the SummerCommune has done away with all that by pushing members to be responsible for their own housing. brilliant!)

Thanks to The Awl, the word is out: Summer Commune is coming to Moscow, Idaho in June. Because we’re young (late 20s, early 30s), creative, restless, and like coffee—I guess—some have said that throwing a Summer Commune just sounds a lot like hipsters mad that Williamsburg is full.

Because of hipsters (I have to sigh in exasperation before I can even type that word)—or the commonly held perception of hipsters—gentrification is commonly understood as something purely sinister and predatory, rather than something unfortunate & complex that often happens in urban areas where “starving artist” types and the working poor or otherwise marginalized find themselves co-mingling inadvertently. Sometimes uncomfortably.

I should know. I am a gentrifier.

At the end of the first summer after college, I wanted to move from the 2 bedroom 5th floor walk up I shared with 4 dancers beside the Metro-North in Harlem, and managed to upgrade to a 2 bedroom in Brooklyn where only 3 people lived (me, a painter, and a student at Fordham). 

We lived in a beautiful pre-war limestone not far from Prospect Park and the Botanical Garden, in the only neighborhood we could afford to live in and still feel safe at night. It was a predominantly black neighborhood notorious for the architecture and the violence at the annual West Indian Parade (before which our landlady advised us to “Get out of town”). The only nearby grocery story was a Western Beef. Beside the train there was a Chinese take out place and a laundromat; no coffee shops or bars or feminist book stores, yet.

We didn’t know it then, but we were early adopters. My two roommates belonged to the only white faces I ever saw on the block. As in Harlem, I blended in—full disclosure: I am black—but I felt an unexpected and nagging guilt for having brought them there. (I hadn’t, really; it was totally a group decision. But still.) When we all moved out a year later—I went to Mexico, one roommate moved to Connecticut for grad school, and the other, to Flatbush—at least two of the homes on our block appeared to have been sold or rented to white gentrifiers. For the next occupants of our former apartment, our shrewd landlady had raised the rent about 60%.

When, a year later, I left Mexico for Los Angeles with Josh, we wanted to pretend we still lived in New York; we wanted to live in Los Feliz, or Echo Park, places where we could use public transportation (yes, LA has that) or walk to get to our favorite bars, restaurants, and venues.

But he was basically a professional blogger and I was a writer—like, the kind that hopes her short stories will be published without payment—and I had just spent my life’s savings gathering material in Latin America. We moved into a non-descript 1 bedroom apartment on a block equally settled by Armenians and Central Americans.

In our building we became among the first of what would be, by the time we moved out, a steady stream of young, mostly white, middle class, young professionals—creative types, student types, tech types, the usual. Even the building manager was actually an illustrator. They were drawn to the area for the same reason we were. It was cheaper than Silverlake—where struggling musicians like Elliot Smith paved the way for future legions of cheese shops, record stores, and vegan patisseries—but still within walking distance of Sunset Junction.

We watched eviction notices go up on the doors of apartments around us; we watched brown families load their belongings into the backs of vans; we watched as newly vacated apartments were hastily remodeled; we watched as a small, bean shaped pool was put in.

And we knew what we were: gentrifiers.

But we also knew that if we moved somewhere else, we wouldn’t change that. We were disadvantaged by our career choices, not systemically, but we were still too broke to move to the neighborhoods where the damage had been done. Where the poor had already been squeezed out by rising prices, so were we.

 *

For the past year and a half, I’ve been in grad school. I live in graduate housing (aka dorms for grown ups) and haven’t had to grapple with this dilemma for some time. Josh and I spent last summer in Berlin because, even with the crap exchange rate, it’s cheaper than SoCal; artists can live pretty much anywhere there. For this reason, among others, Berlin offered us a kind of life that I had never been able to realize in New York or Los Angeles.

We only had to work part time (we had internet jobs) to be able to afford our pick of cool, fun neighborhoods. We could go out at night and still have time for our own creative projects during the day. And we wished that we could have that back in the USA. While we  were still in Germany I was already anticipating spending summer 2012 in America, somewhere quiet and affordable, where I could finish my first book without worrying about visas. 

 I told Josh this; he said, “Let’s bring our friends.” His idea was to make cool/fun happen wherever we went. A few months later, Summer Commune was born.

Now more than 100 people have expressed interest in the project, and the number of people who will be joining us in Moscow over the course of the summer is still growing. Communers will find temporary rentals to live in via Craigslist, like we did.

The assortment of people who have already signed up say they’re planning to spend their time in Moscow making music, writing poems, throwing art shows, teaching play writing, developing start ups, tending gardens, networking, and making new projects on the spot.  Much like when we gentrified, now we’ll get to drink cheap beer together instead of spending more than half of our paychecks on rent. But because our stay is temporary, it’s not gentrification.

While Summer Commune lasts, we’ll be a micro-community within the community that exists. “We won’t leave a lasting physical footprint this summer, though we do hope our ideas will linger.” “Our goal is to integrate with good will into the community that exists, not to impose ourselves upon it.”

 And if some Communers do decide that Moscow suits them longer term, they probably wouldn’t transform the real estate landscape in a measurable way. It’s not cheap to live in Idaho because white people haven’t “discovered” it yet. In fact, Summer Commune might actually make mostly-white Moscow temporarily more diverse.

 Summer Commune, at its core, is about collaborative community. But it’s also about the spirit of travel—about seeing new places, meeting new people, gaining new perspectives. Yes, we know we could make friends and have potlucks at home, because we already have. Now we’re looking for something new; something unexpected; something different, yet familiar. This summer, it’s Moscow. Next summer, who knows.

- Nicole

Summer Commune coverage in The Awl, y’all! 

yr an adult: “What’s the deal with this ‘Summer Commune’ thing? A Q&A with writer, Joshua Heller” by Henry Goldman • April 27, 2012 

Well aint this a fancy new website: summercommune.com? 

(mad props to Sofya for putting this together)

Have ideas or questions? Join our first google hangout sesh TONIGHT, 6:30PM PST! Add gplus.to/heller & join the discussion to find out about Committees & how you can help.