On community, reciprocity and collective care.
Essay by Nick Ho, MFSP Intern
Robin Wall Kimmerer writes of the necessity of a gift economy to rescue us from the bondage of capitalist greed, self-serving ideologies, and individualistic isolationism. To be in a gift economy is to give generously, to eliminate any notion of scarcity, and replace it with an attitude of abundance. When the harvest is plentiful in my garden, you’d best believe that your table will be full of zucchini squash and sweet potatoes. And I can rest easy knowing that by feeding you, by feeding the universal karmic mouth that is your mouth, I shall be well fed in return, by you, or by your neighbor, or by the relatives I do not yet know. Reciprocity. In her book The Serviceberry, Kimmerer repeatedly returns to the mantra, “My excess is stored in the belly of my brother.”
A few weeks ago, I was settling into my afternoon class, having biked from therapy and only just making it before the classroom door closed. I found myself at a table with Mira, Eddy, and Billie. As our professor began lecture on the ethics and considerations of goal-setting with clients, Mira pulled out a container of dates and, in that silent, the professor is speaking but I am making eyes with you and with everyone at the table to say that these dates are for us way, Mira placed the container on the table. Without speaking, I made eyes at Mira, at the table, saying thank you Mira, and you know what would go so great with those unpitted dates from Trader Joe’s? – Thank God for Trader Joe’s! – is this bar of chocolate I’ve been carrying around with me and saving for the right moment. Well, now is the right moment.
Never one to be one-upped, Mira pulled out a bag of chocolate-covered berries, still sealed from purchase, fresh, as it were. With processed and manufactured (but delicious) treats, eager to contribute to the potluck, Eddy pulled out a ziplock of carrot sticks. Not the kind that are carved and shaped into little phalluses by big produce at the grocery store – did you know there is no such thing as a baby carrot? – but hand sliced, carved by knife into non-uniform shapes with jagged edges. This certainly makes them more endearing, more human, having been molded by the hand of a friend, does it not?
And so out came my Tupperware of pumpkin curry, cold, which I was saving for my lunch, heated up during our first break. But actually maybe I won’t need the whole portion, given the bountiful spread in front of me, so why not feed my friends? Chelsea leans over from the table beside us to say, “Love what’s going on here,” and plops their bag of crispy wasabi tempura crackers on the table, adding to the harvest. Billie, unprepared for this resource share, pulls a pack of gum and places it next to the chocolate-covered berries. We all laugh. The palate cleanser.
The professor turns and pauses lecture just for a moment to smile at the collectivism that has piled up on our table. At this point, we’ve had to move notebooks and computers off to the side to make way for all the food. I lament not being the type to carry a checkerboard picnic blanket with me in my backpack at all times; one never knows what occasions may pop up.
In Inciting Joy, Ross Gay writes about skateboarding culture between the mid-eighties and mid-nineties, the first place he experienced what it meant to participate in a gift economy. “It was just the case that whatever you had extra – and skateboarding with its many components (decks, wheels, bearings, trucks, bushings, riser pads, rails, Rip Grip, bolts, etc.) made for extra – you passed along. Most of us had a bucket of some sort somewhere, when someone needed something we dug around to find it” (58).
The visual of a bucket, messy, unorganized, maybe even a little bit greasy, but made for the explicit act of reciprocity, of selfless gift, makes me smile. At the beginning of the year, Billie organized a gathering – a potluck, of course – to discuss the dismal state of the world (Trump then being less than three weeks from taking office for the second time). We discussed coalition building, having difficult conversations, reckoning fraught relationships, grounding in community, and collective care. Harper spoke up. “I don’t like that we call it self care. It puts too much responsibility on the individual. Maybe 2025 is the year we normalize asking each other to cook dinner for us.” Reciprocity.
So for this year, may we have dinner ready for our roommates and our friends before they’ve even walked through the door, before they’ve run out of groceries, or fallen ill, or had a long day, just because. May the bearings, bolts, and chocolate-covered berries of life be shared in abundance, stored in the (proverbial) belly of my brother.