No<->Space
Oh Brooklyn Coworking,oh place of many names, what words could I use to describe your edges, your curves, your science, your politics? Do I start with your quiet block of flowering trees, your white-washed exterior? Should I introduce you with your tangles of morning glories? Should I speak of activists, of collective art and theory, of debates long into the night with great minds from Italy and Queens? Do I start with the boys who live in back, the Havemeyer street boys, of warm soup on rainy days, the banjo yoga practicing on afternoons, the sharing of kindnesses. Do I talk of the way this place and the people in it fit me more than any other place has, more than any single lover? Do I talk of patriots and ex-patriots and sweaty lectures with people poured into the floor? Do I talk of dinner parties and dancing and standing silhouettes smoking outside windows? Do I talk of words and Not an Alternative and Zizek and Badiou? Of Germans and Italians and participation and design?
Do I write about how I caught this place at the end of its time, after six years or ten years of activists and organizers gone married, theorists with babies on the way. Makers of art and change long past the angry college days of their youth. Of adults and plywood and cardboard and youthfulness with history, youthfulness with stories. And the falling, falling, without admitting, without using the words.
Hot summers at Coworking, playing frisbee in the rainwater sticking clothes to hot skin, digging up cardboard cutouts of Brooklyn made before the rents were so high. Candle-lit Sunday Suppers of food shared and plates washed together, passing the sake, colors rich against white walls.
Winters at Coworking, pots of tea, frost on windows, hugs and sweaters and the warm glow of lamps on books against the 4 pm dark. Trudging in blizzards to shake snow off boots and sample Zane’s bowl of dates.
Springs at Coworking, watching Jason frown on seed beds, waiting, waiting for the little buds to grow into twenty feet of flowers and vines. Seems impossible. “Taking forever,” he mutters. Giddy, jumping, passing around slices of peaches.
How to describe people with the same glint in their eyes, the same youthful dance, Ange’s twisty-turny kitchen dance, the songs and the music and the bicycles. “I can tell how much you all love each other,” the newest visitor says at the sight of us. The way we linger with our eyes, the lighting up of joy when we see each other- that spark of recognition. The affinity of people all a little odd, making different choices in their lives, seeing each other.
Everything in life is temporary. I learned that lesson years ago. I have learned a thing or to about letting go. But still. The word has been so over-used that we don’t even say it, except to say it with the numbers, raising our voices over the jackhammers sculpting condos out of concrete, the profit that the landlord can get by raising the rent 240% and pushing us out to wander lost without a place that seems more home than home. Leaving me to huddle over my notebook in one last attempt to save it in writing. Oh dear Coworking, if only I knew the words.
Do I write about how I caught this place at the end of its time, after six years or ten years of activists and organizers gone married, theorists with babies on the way. Makers of art and change long past the angry college days of their youth. Of adults and plywood and cardboard and youthfulness with history, youthfulness with stories. And the falling, falling, without admitting, without using the words.
Hot summers at Coworking, playing frisbee in the rainwater sticking clothes to hot skin, digging up cardboard cutouts of Brooklyn made before the rents were so high. Candle-lit Sunday Suppers of food shared and plates washed together, passing the sake, colors rich against white walls.
Winters at Coworking, pots of tea, frost on windows, hugs and sweaters and the warm glow of lamps on books against the 4 pm dark. Trudging in blizzards to shake snow off boots and sample Zane’s bowl of dates.
Springs at Coworking, watching Jason frown on seed beds, waiting, waiting for the little buds to grow into twenty feet of flowers and vines. Seems impossible. “Taking forever,” he mutters. Giddy, jumping, passing around slices of peaches.
How to describe people with the same glint in their eyes, the same youthful dance, Ange’s twisty-turny kitchen dance, the songs and the music and the bicycles. “I can tell how much you all love each other,” the newest visitor says at the sight of us. The way we linger with our eyes, the lighting up of joy when we see each other- that spark of recognition. The affinity of people all a little odd, making different choices in their lives, seeing each other.
Everything in life is temporary. I learned that lesson years ago. I have learned a thing or to about letting go. But still. The word has been so over-used that we don’t even say it, except to say it with the numbers, raising our voices over the jackhammers sculpting condos out of concrete, the profit that the landlord can get by raising the rent 240% and pushing us out to wander lost without a place that seems more home than home. Leaving me to huddle over my notebook in one last attempt to save it in writing. Oh dear Coworking, if only I knew the words.
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