Diamonds in the Gutter

Report on life found within a mutual hub in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Milton. Originally posted to Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. 

A young man enters a resilience hub in search of food, and before the moon wanes, initiates a wetlands restoration program giving mangroves another chance to protect the whole region from the impact of extreme weather once again.

The couple across the way, living out of their vehicle since hurricane Milton flooded their home, the young woman who survived two hurricanes (and the subsequent contractor scams), and the women who work the street next to the freedom center, are the ones fostering and feeding the non-human creatures impacted by the storms and bottomlining the animal survivor program.

A non-binary person enters an autonomous wellness center not having eaten in two months. Nobody violates their bodily autonomy. Their vitals are checked frequently by volunteer trained medical personnel acting within their scope of practice. Expert doctors in the field communicate directly to the patient about potential risks and the person freely decides what care they receive, and after a few days of healing the wellness center has another sound healing practitioner, this one specializing in sikh chanting and prayer.

An elder experiencing homelessness and drug addiction raids a mutual aid center of narcan and saves a dozen lives at trap houses and on the street. When he returns to the resilience center dehydrated needing electrolytes, he is cheered as a hero instead of trespassed from the property.

An older seeker with a lifetime of work experience in emergency preparedness and crisis response walks into a beloved community space questioning the values of his institution, and after a couple hours of good food and better conversation, he walks out with zines: some documenting crimes committed by oil companies covered up by government agencies, others exposing war atrocities and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the confluence of I.D.F. and kahane terrorists, and still others offering eloquent treatises on the anarchist case against terrorism (whether with or without a badge to hide accountability behind).

A disaster survivor carrying within the winds and waves of hurricane Katrina and a dozen other named storms, but whose real trauma comes from psychiatric abuse in dozens of carceral psychiatric institutions turns off the laptop, says the nonprofit auditors and government regulators can wait, gives a big welcoming hug to the children of the permaculture gardener watering the new sunflower, squash, and moringa sprouts, and together they make a sign that says, “toy store” knowing in this one everything (and everyone) is free.

People create art, poetry, and music about tearing down walls, but it’s actually the hurricanes themselves and avocado trees who knocked down the local police station’s walls.

A black liberation army movement elder’s words, “You can always tell who the real revolutionaries are because they do the dishes” have no kitchen sink to be written above, but they echo in the air like a powerful whirlwind as the man who overdosed three days ago is taking out the trash and vacuuming the center, and everybody here knows all of us are the real revolutionaries, regardless of whether the words used to describe these activities by friends or enemies are intense ones like revolution, intifada, insurrection, or even civil war, or gentler words like public health, solidarity, care, kindness, and love.

When tears flow freely from any of these co-creators of mutual aid disaster relief in Tampa, big feels are honored, seen not only as nonpathological, but sacred, and fully capable of breaking any and every colonial, capitalist, white-supremacist, patriarchal, shock doctrine curse from every river to every sea.