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The Magical List Serv
Friends, today feels monumental. I am sitting at a desk in a little basement room that will be my secret writing sanctuary for a few hours a week and I feel #blessed. The room is filled with musical instruments and festival posters, and there’s a little writing desk set up against one wall. My hosts, the owner of this house and this room, have decorated the desk with a colorful piece of fabric and several jars of flowers. Leaning against the lamp is a pocket-sized copy of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. They set it up for me—someone they barely know—so thoughtfully. I am touched.
How did I end up at this desk in a stranger’s house, you may ask. Well, the short answer is: I asked.
When we moved to Durham in October, someone connected me to the Duke Park list serv. I hastily joined and was tickled to find neighbors giving away toys, plant cuttings, furniture. Like a message board that lives in your email mailbox, list servs bring me back to my college days, when you could write to the Sailing Club list serv, for example, and send an email to the entire salty brigade.
In the first weeks of moving here, I turned to the list serv for all sorts of things. I found teenagers who were thrilled to babysit my toddler in exchange for cash. I met a fellow plant fanatic who happily loaned us her pick-up truck—twice!—so that we could haul furniture to our new house. I wrote that we were new to the neighborhood and that we had a small child and another baby on the way. People left plastic trucks, puzzles, a car seat, and unopened cans of formula on their porches for me to pick up. I received recommendations for pediatricians, thrift shops, and tailors. It has been an amazing resource for a newbie in town.
As my due date approached, I reached out to the list serv to see if anyone was going out of town for the holidays and was looking for a house sitter. Once again, the list serv came through; my mother and sister were able to spend two weeks at a neighbor’s house free of charge in exchange for feeding their cats and watering the plants. Like a magical incantation recited in the world of Harry Potter, ask the list serv and you shall receive.
But the list serv doesn’t only function as a place to barter goods and services. Recently, there was an in-depth discussion about the oak trees that line the neighborhood streets and why one of them was recently cut down for seemingly no reason. People share thoughts about plays that are being performed in town and the upcoming school board elections. It’s a community gathering space that exists wholly within our inboxes.
But these exchanges ripple out into real life. The annual lantern festival was organized via the listserv and the result was stunning.
Recently, my newborn turned three months old. I have officially graduated from the fourth trimester, which doesn’t mean much since everyone’s postpartum experience varies wildly. But spring is bursting all around me and my own inner world is beginning to unfurl. The umbilical cord is lengthening and I can begin to imagine having thoughts and ideas beyond those swirling around childcare.
“Writer seeking small studio space” was the title of my message. Only one person responded—the owner of this house where I am now sitting at a beautifully sparse desk, writing in silence. They had a room available and did I want to take a peek? Friends, it’s perfect.
One of my grad school compatriots gave me her copy of The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, and she was right; I really enjoyed it. Amanda Palmer, a musician and street performer, recounts the many ways that she has made herself vulnerable by asking people for help—and the ways that people delight in sharing what they have, even if it is very little. Check out her TED talk about the topic.
Amanda Palmer cultivated her community on Twitter, and while it was organized on the internet, it also led to many real-world connections. Same as with our little list serv. The woman who lent us her pick-up truck (twice)? She stopped by the other day unannounced bearing a sweet gift for our sweet baby. And thanks to the generosity of strangers, I have a room to call my own—for a few hours, anyway. But still, it’s a quiet space with a door within walking distance of my house that I can use at my convenience to scratch pen to paper and see what stories unfurl.
What marvelous magic is available to you if you simply ask?
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