Too Busy for The L-Word

One thing that is the same at Heathcote, my Intentional Community, as in the wider world is our tendency to over-schedule and over-commit.

It’s a predictable comedy when we whip out our calendars at meetings and try to find a date for any outing, celebration or committee work. We’re certain to settle on some compromise date that leaves some people falling off the edges, “I can’t be there, but you all have it without me…”

Even as I shift my own projects, saying good bye to Open Classroom and selling off our fair trade retail venture Heathcote Earthings, my freed-up weekends have somehow gotten scheduled.

Nature abhors that vacuum; Wherever it appears, here comes stuff flying in!

Last summer, I kept the Communities Conference at Twin Oaks on my calendar for months. Finally I would get to go, represent Heathcote, market ZEGG Forum to Communities, network, play, eat, etc.

But wait! Along came Mother Earth Harvest Fair, holding an organizing meeting on the same weekend, conflicting with a great gathering at which I could have marketed…Mother Earth Harvest Fair.

Notice the subtle difference in saying, “This is when the meeting is,” versus, “When can you meet?” In either case, I expect you’ll have people dropped off the edges. But if I’m invited to find a date that works for me and that becomes difficult, I can opt to serve the higher good with my, “You all meet without me.” If I’m informed of a date and I have a conflict, I’m faced with breaking one commitment or the other. It’s a subtlety of inclusion and empowerment, I know.

So…I had low expectations when I opened my Netflix in the Heathcote kitchen and announced to the random Heathcoters within earshot, “Hey, I have season one of The L-Word! Who wants to watch?” Karen, my sister in queerness, zoomed up to answer me. “I’ve always wanted to watch that but I haven’t gotten around to it!”

That was the case with me, as well. Two over-scheduled gurrls, living in the woods who haven’t gotten around to checking out the now-canceled L-Word since it first aired in 2004…Ah…Sad.

“Can you watch it tonight?” I cringed, not daring to hope. I could see this collaboration log jamming my Netflix queue for the next month.

“Well, I have one thing I really have to do, but after that, maybe eight o’clock?”

What just happened? Did she say tonight?

She was clearly trying to calm the series of faces I was making, but I took the offer. And it only took until half way through dinner for Karen to warn me of her second thoughts. “I’m really feeling tired,” And, on schedule, half way through dinner cleanup she recanted, “I really want to see it but I know I’m not going to make it through. I’m just wiped out…”

You can put the tea in Ellie, my favorite mug. It has a band of runes that spell the four elements. I don't see that on The L-Word...

Watching on my own, I found out this land dyke wasn’t missing anything. I bailed after three episodes; I just wasn’t hooked. I can’t relate to rich lipstick sisters and their suburban problems. I’m still hoping for some Princess Charming who doesn’t know she has motor oil behind her ear (so cute) to saunter over here and haul this goat chow up the hill, and then make me some ginger nettle tea and massage my aching joints…between her many committee meetings.

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