War Communism

When I was 19, I started a lease in Liberty, South Carolina. It was a small, rural town of around three thousand. We rented a small 2.5 bedroom house, plus a shed. I lived there for a bit over 3 years. I often struggle to explain this period. There was so much magic. Every day was full of dozens of little miracles, miraculating forces swirling in the smoke. It was so miserable. It was violent. It was volatile. It was overcorwded and also lonely. I have never experienced the level of solidarity or grace that I felt there, and at the same time it was one of the most precarious and painful periods of my life.

I have come to understand this paradox to be a function of some of the basic contradictions that underlie the autopoiesis of trans existence. I see the same patterns repeat across countless contexts in every region/country I’ve lived. [note: bring in Gleeson’s “how do gender transistions happen” essay]. We made some really beautiful things together. But keeping each other alive, or even building a common infrastructure to advanced our lives, cannot be conflated with overcoming the foreclosure of our lives. Composing a subject capable of even expressing it’s needs is no small task in the face of such a radical and totalizing interruption of your life. So how do we escape the accumulation of petty resentment, bitterness, and external crises which relentlessly haunt our attempts to claw a way Outside?