297 Collective's blog

On communal living, small things, and great hopes

We are quite different from each other. We have different lifestyles and uncompromising schedules. For me, life together never really felt together. Why is this so hard? I used to look forward to our hearty discussions of identity and purpose, but now I look forward to washing dishes together. I question whether I would live communally after my lease is up.

In tandem, I found ties to the neighborhood in the smallest of chores. One of the few times I walked Presta, I was waved over to a porch to chat about dogs. As a friendly gesture, this future neighbor invited me to smoke with him at the end of our canine conversation. More recently, a couple kids on our street saw my bike and asked to ride it.
“But you’re in second grade, and you can’t stand over the bike”
“Please?”
“You’ll hurt yourself”
“I don’t think she knows how to turn!”
“Ok, you can ride... if you promise to stop using that foul language”
“Promise. Hold the bike so I can get on. And give me a push”

I raced an elementary schooler and won, but only because he crashed. He had deflated tubes and brakes that barely functioned.

I raced another boy three times.
“Your bike is faaast. Where’d you get it?”
“I built it. My roommates like to build bikes too.”

Here, my lifestyle is questioned.
“You go to college?”
“Yea, UT”

I hold onto the idea that community is where we learn to forgive and be forgiven.

We are still learning a lot about each other.

*Stephen

Halloween Block Party

Tonight the Halloween block party went down. There was a grill with tons and tons of meat, a Spiderman moonwalk, cotton candy handspun by a neighbor. Conversation was caught with a handful or two of the hundred or so trick-or-treating neighbors who came by. People of many ages, colors and backgrounds were playing, eating and talking together.

I met a man named Joe who has been living in the neighborhood since he was born 43 years ago. His friend from birth, Otto, might look to the outsider's eye like the local beer-drinking corner-sitting dude, but he is a constant source of daily news for the neighbors and has a big heart for people around him. Neighbors are always looking out for each other, watching what goes on in each other's yards while the house is empty, confronting strangers who have no business around neighbors' houses and calling the cops if necessary. Nobody cares if your dog runs unleashed around the neighborhood. If it runs into your yard you feed it. If it runs into someone else's you can trust that they'll feed it. Joe told me there was a little pig years ago who survived for quite a while off the generosity of random neighbors on Prock.

Joe also remembers some friends from years past who were shot dead while breaking and entering houses in East Austin. Others are in prison. There is an understanding that everyone shares about invasion of home: "If you choose to live that way on the East Side, you will be terminated quickly."

The strength and sheer duration of some of these relationships blows my mind. I cannot, cannot for the life of me, imagine the bonds between a friend who used to pump another friend on his bike 30 years ago and that friend now. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be the one once pumped, once standing on the pegs of the bike pedaled by his friend down the street, now seeing that once-pedaling friend with deep folds in his forehead and a set of crutches to support his now useless right leg. And to still be friends, to still ask, "Yo, Otto, what's the shakedown?" and have Otto reply in his odd dance and a word or two about what he saw in the neighborhood this morning. Or to sit down once more as a 43-year-old man with a life-long friend to a game of yellowing dominoes as old and dusty and familiar as the porch underneath, which you learned to crawl on.

I have met a woman who is the embodiment of unconditional love. Her name is Zoe. When we met several months ago I wouldn't have imagined the things we've shared with each other, the relationship we've developed or the times we've spent laughing and crying with each other. I would have never dreamed of being in her life like this, or her being in mine. Or her god-granddaughter's being in mine.

I cannot fathom the welcoming I've received in this neighborhood as one of the first white people ever to move here.

It's amazing how lights, meat, fire, jumping, candy, balloons and an open gate bring people together.

I pretty much couldn't be happier with how tonight went.

• Evan

Neighborhood Shennanigans

I should probably preface this entry with a warning that after fiddling with my thoughts about the neighborhood project I decided to keep it honest, despite the fact that it might not be the most PC language in the world.

Well okay.

Somewhere between the move-in in August and beating up roaches did it finally hit me.  What the crap am I DOING here?  I’m only 5.89 miles physically out of my comfort zone, but in this little yellow house, I feel as comfortable as a fat kid in a middle school locker room.  I am not accustomed to waking up at 3 in the morning to Presta freaking out in the front yard because men were drunk, smashing beer bottles in the driveway.  Nor am I particularly fond of a neighbor knocking on my door at all hours asking for money to buy “diapers” or “cat food”.  Especially when he is holding something alike a small machete in his hands and looking particularly surly.  It gives a whole new meaning to “love thy neighbor”.  Not to mention riding home one night to find six cop cars and a helicopter shining a searchlight down your street.  Well, it’s all part of the neighborhood.  

I’ll admit it.  I’m scared silly half the time and angry enough to break someone’s face the other half of the time.  Being alone in a house with a dog freaking out in the wee hours of the morning makes me think the boogie man is going to crash through my window at any moment.

At the same time, during my walks up and down the street I’ve had a chance to interact with some of our neighbors in a more positive light.  There’s Lupe and little Matt, who goes to Govalle Elementary, who also plan on coming to the Halloween Party we are throwing tomorrow evening, as well as, Rufus who has kindly offered to mow the lawn and has kept watch over the neighborhood.    There’s another family right on the corner of Springdale whose dog loves to play with Presta and has kept her in their yard on one occasion when she escaped.  Presta has made several friends in the time she has come here, particularly a dark brown pit mix named Baby.  Baby comes over often to romp in the yard with Presta and it is amusing to watch them play.  We also have been getting involved in some of the neighbors on Gid’s street.  This past weekend, in hopes to help with the strain of feeding several mouths, Vox donated a HEB gift card to his neighbor Zoe who recently lost her father.  Previous to this, I managed to brush off my baking skills and whip up some of Hannah’s chocolate chip pumpkin bread for her.  Unfortunately she was not home when Evan and I tried to deliver the baked goods.  I hope as time passes I get to know my neighbors better and I think the Halloween party will be a catalyst in building these relationships.

We're here. Now What.

It seems like we’ve lost the steam we had coming into this Neighborhood and we’re going a million miles an hour in a million directions.  As fall approaches, I can feel the chaos of the move start to settle down.  We had a lot of grand ideas coming into this place and now I realize more than ever the amount of time it is going to take to build the dreams we envisioned in my little kitchen on South Congress in what feels like a million years ago.  Time… and a crap load of work.  
Since we have been trying to get involved with the schools around here I am finally getting a taste of what it is like being on the “outside” of the public education system that is AISD and trying to come in to “help”.  It’s a wonder the volunteers stick around after being given the run around before actually being involved with the students.  Sometimes I wonder about all the hoops and red tape organized organizations (ha) must have.  It made me feel a bit more proud of the little after school tutoring sessions I had at Mendez with the support of so many Vox people.  There was a need, there was help and there was not very much paperwork/hassle between getting the tutors to the students.  

A few weeks ago, Kev, Karen, and I went to Ortega to visit the campus and speak with the counselor about mentoring possibilities. I was particularly interested in the Seedling Project where mentors had the opportunity to interact with students who had incarcerated parents.  But because the program was outside of Ortega, there was a lengthier process in before reaching actual students.  Not much later Kev and Steven had the opportunity to return to Ortega and are currently setting up a computer lab in a spare room in the school.  I wish I had known about their visit that time because I would have been able to attend, but I suppose we are still working out communication kinks.  Nonetheless I am excited about the prospect of having a physical location within Ortega to reach out to the students.

During my visit at Ortega, I was particularly impressed with the campus and the focus of the school.  It even made me miss my classroom a bit and I cannot wait until I meet my mentee.  Hopefully I will be able to reach him/her better than I did with 30 students per class, 5 classes a day.

Spiderman Moonwalk

Tomorrow is the big Halloween Party for the neighborhood and I look forward to updating with the events of the evening.  With Spiderman Moonwalk, cookie decorating, BBQ, candy, and face paint I suspect pictures will abound.

Until then, I hope that the weekly Tuesday lunches and Thursday night meetings with the boys house continue to grow our community and inspire us to reach out to those around us.  I hope we push each other and grow together as we continue on this journey that started with a book and conversation over food.

+Marsha 

Plans made in early October

Our community feels a sore lack of connection with each other which translates into our level of connection with our neighborhood. We feel that we can't provide strong community to our neighbors without having it among ourselves first. Two plans came out of our need to connect both with each other and with the neighborhood:
   
    Halloween Party
    Point person: Marsha

On Halloween we'll rent a moonwalk and bring over the grill for a party at Prock to which the whole neighborhood is invited. Each Tuesday until Halloween Marsha, along with Evan and Adam, will get together in the early afternoon to plan for the event. We'll use signs, word of mouth and the boyish charm of the Tsang brothers to spread invitations. We hope to connect more with people during this event by sharing food, play and time with our neighbors.

    Computer Course
    Point person: Steve

In early January, after Christmas but before school, we'll open up Brookswood as a little computer lab for kids in the neighborhood. We'll get PCs by donation and set them up for basic use, find or make a curriculum, then post signs and spread word and see who shows up. When students graduate our little software course then they'll get to take their computer home.

First month in the neighborhood

We Brookswood boys aren't the only new neighbors on the block. Two women in their late 20s or early 30s moved in across the street from California the same day we did. We want to get to know them better by mowing their lawn, offering them a gas stove we ended up not using and cooking a meal or two with them. We've toured their house, and one hot day we walked across the cul-de-sac with popsicles to share. They were out running errands so instead we shared the popsicles with the Californians' next-door neighbors and their tiny little granddaughter who enjoyed her cherry frozen fruit bar a lot.

This family was packing their things to move to another part of Austin, near Mendez Middle School, because they want to raise their granddaughter in a safer environment. The overabundant crack crimes on Brookswood have pushed them beyond their limits. During one of the break-ins only the wife was home. She locked herself in the bathroom and, too scared to call the cops, listened as the addicted thieves gutted the rooms around her. We too have had a glimpse of the neighborhood's crack plague. Twice our house was broken into while the contractors were out to lunch, and earlier this summer my car was broken into one night. Some of our neighbors show the anxiety and twitchiness symptomatic of addiction when they knock on the front door after dark asking for odd and very specific amounts of money. The day we met this kind and friendly family was the day they moved away.

The husband used to ride, build and distribute road bicycles across Austin. Had he stayed in the neighborhood I would have had a great time hanging out with him as one of the ways I want to serve and connect with the community is through offering bikes for free or very cheap to the neighbors. I've begun work on a classic Univega fixed gear for Jan and will use her bike, as well as my own and others belonging to the 297 community, as a model to show people around the neighborhood what we could build for them. The ultimate goal is group rides where people from both East and West Austin and of different ethnicities and backgrounds all bomb the hills of our city together, and maybe end up ravenous for a meal at a home or restaurant after it's done. There's a lot of teamwork and trust that goes into riding bikes with someone else. I think friendships can be built this way, especially if everybody's hungry and there's a meal to be had somewhere down the line.

A good example of this is the birthday party the 297 community just threw for Jan and Marsha. Kev demonstrated true skills at the stovetop, Stephen hit the sweet spot with volcano fudge cake and Gid said my guacamole was pretty darn good. The cost of preparing lots of food for our friends and neighbors is well worth the benefit of deepening community. One of the birthday gifts to the girls at Prock was a pair of pots holding basil and rosemary, and with these we will begin our community garden. We don't have too much knowledge beyond growing tomatoes when it comes to large gardening projects, but it will be fun to figure it out and satisfying to see the fruits and vegetables on the vines and then on our plates and the plates of our neighbors.

Another food-related plan in the works is a barbecue open to the entire neighborhood. We'll pick a date and extend invitations to our neighbors as it approaches. On the day of the barbecue we'll intentionally buy much more meat and vegetables than we could eat ourselves. We'll hope to see our invited neighbors there and also ask random people walking by if they want to come up onto the lawn, grab some food and hang out for a bit. We have a similar idea for a Halloween block party.

Some of the neighbors we'll be inviting to the barbecue are the Californian girls, the family next door who sell delicious tacos in the mornings, the woman and her family who invited me into their home for chicken and wine during the summer, the lawn-mowing son and kind mother next-door to Prock, the Nation of Islam community worker who lives near Jim's house and the families of the group of kids who play baseball with snapped-off two-by-fours after school on Brookswood. These kids have been a joy to get to know. One afternoon Jan pulled up with a car full of tres leches birthday cake. We passed it out to the kids and then chatted with them and their parents. One mother, after talking with me through her translating son about the drug-inspired "muchas problemas" and the beauty of the neighborhood, returned my casual "Nice meeting you" with a "God bless you."

For having been here a month or so I'm happy with the progress we've been able to make in becoming a small part of the community here. Tomorrow is our first training session with Austin Partners In Education through which we'll mentor children at Ortega Elementary School. It's our hope that God will use those relationships to build friendships with entire families.

There is a ton of other stories to tell already which I haven't mentioned. Each day has the potential, if we seize it, of creating or deepening some relationship with a neighbor on our street. There's a lot to be said for crossing the street and saying hello.

-- Evan

Who is Your Neighbor?

As we attempt to live the church in the East Austin community, we will constantly wrestle with the question, "who is our neighbor?"  The sermon given this past Sunday (09.09) at Vox Veniae challenges us to wrestle with Christ's story told in response to that very question.  You can download the sermon here.

Neighborhood News

297 made the news.  You can find the full article here.

Statesman

Information for potential Project 297 investors and tenants.

Information for potential Project 297 investors and tenants is now available.  Click Here for more information.