The Conversation Café

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone: Day 2

I could barely sleep last night. I was full of too much energy. Eventually around 5:30 I just had to get up a get to start working.

I found myself tossing in bed thinking a lot about what I want to model, what I want to offer to our new Commons as a gift.

As usual, my first tendency is to move into visioning and strategic planning, but that is me of years ago, not the new emergent strategy me. So with this new perspective, and a deep belief that this is a movement that does not need any white leaders in guiding the front, I have my aha moment and realize the contribution I want to make — the gift my heart feels called to offer.

The Connection Café comes to life. A place to deepen relationships and make new friends. A place to have transformative conversations about race. A place to enjoy a nice cup of coffee on the patio (is there anything more Seattle).

This is the perfect avenue to model principles of belonging, connection, and co-creation for the whole. The word “autonomous” in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone starts to make more sense, as it aligns with my belief in empowered agency. We all have autonomy to create what we feel called to here in our Commons.

I quickly imagine the few things I need to get this gift in order and get to making signs and accumulating everything I need. I make quick trip to the store and I’m set. It’s a beautiful thing when complexity gets simplified into a straight-forward action.

I now take a look at the news for the first time and am baffled, but not surprised. A quick glance at Fox News and Trump’s twitter and this makes me smile.

I was there 10 hours yesterday, I didn’t see a single gun-wielding individual patrolling the entrances. I heard multiple business owners share their support to the cause, and the one friend I ran into who lived a block away, shared how grateful he was that this new Commons has been created. He exhaled and said, “This is so much quieter than the protests of the past two weeks.”

I can imagine that a peaceful crowd in conversation with each other and an impromptu pop-up concert sound much better than flash grenades and screams.

Just to make this clear, what is happening here isn’t new or radical, it’s a urban design structure that Seattle has failed to envision and create, so it’s being done from a grassroots level. This is Seattle’s first superblock. And it can be a model for building Commons in all the neighborhoods of Seattle.

So back to our Commons and the work we need to do. This Conversation Café is about to be such a beautiful experiment in community. All it is is two signs, one table, and a few chairs. The signs say: “Conversation Café: Let’s Talk About Antiracism” and “Conversation Café: Let’s Make A Friend”. The white board is a list of needs like coffee, cups, tables, chairs, etc. and a sign-up sheet for shifts.

That’s it. That’s the sandbox I hope people will play in. Now, let’s see what happens.

So now, with a car full of mulch, signs, tables, chairs, and all of my favorite books on community, belonging, and antiracist work, I head over to our new Commons.

The café is set up and its beautiful already. I could not think of a better community experiment.

Within 15 minutes we’ve already had 4 “customers”, dozens and dozens of pictures being taken, and a few offers for supplies. We are still in desperate need of coffee and cups, so I don’t even know if you can call us a café, but we are rocking.

At first, Raymond joined me. Raymond is a high school teacher that lives across from the park. My first question had to be what are his feelings on this as a someone living in this neighborhood. His response is that he was a bit tentative at first, but now he is starting to see what is taking shape and believing in it more.

People after people come by and join me. Kathy. Linda and her son. Carl. Mark. Teri. And I start to forget the names.

At one point a conversation starts between two young white women and a member of the NW Tribes Council, Raven. He was at Standing Rock and is sharing his analysis of the comparison of both experiences.

“Learn how to defend yourself without anger.” “Use your anger correctly.” “A blind person cannot lead a blind person.” “We are here to support earth and natives” “We are here representing people of the land, show respect.”

Raven is now educating us on how his tribe works. How leadership, justice, education is done in their sacred traditions that our white, patriarchal, capitalistic culture has never taken the time to even look at, much less absorb. As we are sitting in circle, I can’t imagine a better place to learn this much needed indigenous wisdom.

And somehow things just keep getting better. After a couple hours of making sure the conversation continues with everyone that comes up, I receive a lunch donation from Junebaby, a restaurant I have been waiting to try for two years. I thought I read somewhere that their owner/chef, Eduardo Jordan was cooking meals for the protestors. Delicious!!

It’s seven o’clock now. The last four hours just flew by. It felt like a real shift. I definitely got to pull out some of my old hospitality skills. It was an absolute blast.

And also one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been a part of in my life. Right now I am looking at a circle of 10 diverse Seattleites, sitting on a blend of couches and chairs, with rug in the middle, and a crowd of at least 20 people around listening in.

We are doing it. We are modeling what a Commons can be for the community. Someone came up earlier and asked me if I believed this conversation would’ve happened if this place didn’t exist.

Sadly, I responded, “no, no chance.” And that means we’ve failed as a community up to now.

Now I see tears, hugs, and cheers, as an older black woman shares a story of her parents’ first time voting and that each time every one of us here votes, we should think of them.

This is just a small glimpse of all the beauty that is happening around us. I’m emotional as I sit on the outskirts of the circle and just observe. Simply wow! There must’ve been hundreds if not thousands of pictures and videos of our Conversation Café today. We did it right.

Now more and more community magic is happening around and I’m trying to document it, but keep getting absorbed in our conversations.

The Black Lives Matter art has now taken over an entire block and was all white letters this morning, but throughout the day, each letter has had a different artist take it over and each is coming in to its own character. They are simply stunning, wondrous, and inspiring.

Our No Cop Co-Op seems to be growing more and more. The food and drink selection somehow gets bigger and better every time I walk by. It’s been fun to observe who I have to assume is the de-facto leader of the team. Just walking by and hearing her share orders with the crew puts a smile on my face. “Fix up this sign here!” “Clean up that stack over there!”

There was another beautiful town hall up the street from our café at 3pm. It sounds like that is now a part of our regular programming each and every day. I missed it facilitating conversations in our Conversation Cafe, but I heard it was good.

I’m finding my voice in this fight. Something is happening that I can’t fully explain. We are all here witnessing something special.

And once I did, something shifted, we now have a small community of action. I won’t ever forget that moment. I’d been sitting back on my laptop trying to document the moments as they come and someone starts talking about how the police can take this back anytime and we need to get tougher.

I actually stand up, I think people had forgot about me, but so many from the circle had known that I started this space, so I just start going. It’s not us getting tougher that will stop the police, it is this right here. We are embodying the transformation and trust the city has been trying to create for years.

We are building our Commons as a part of a movement that can’t be stopped, so this can’t either. It just flows and flows. Co-creation and belonging. It is something I’ll never forget (I think it’s recorded somewhere, I can’t wait to watch it).

After that it turns into a conversation about what do we need and what can we dream up together. 30 people now in this circle dreaming what this Conversation Cafe can become. Questions are flowing in a creative and collaborative way. How can we make this viral? (We now have a hashtag, #conversationcafe) How should we grow as a café? How can we have more conversations?

Ideas are taking shape and people are feeling empowered to co-create, what’s emerging is wonderful. Everyone feels like they belong here in this circle. We have the beginnings of something special.

We are flowing in and out between beautiful conversations. Conversations about privilege and fear. Conversations about marginalized communities and voting. Conversations about what principles we will need to embody as a circle.

People are volunteering to bring supplies. The next steps are becoming clear. We will need one big circle with a couple rows of chairs and microphone and amp. Outside and around of our big circle will be many smaller circles for small group conversations.

But then as I share this vision with one of my new co-conspirators, Sara stops me and reminds me, lets keep it emergent, and see what comes. How beautiful.

As I’m cleaning up things for the night, a few of the other BLM organizers come by and we start to dream together. Something is fizzling up here, and it’s amazing. I’m going to call this the Black Lives Matter Commons moving forward. That seems right.

So now, as I finish writing this from my home, I get ready for bed exhausted, but with so much gratitude, love, and excitement for what emerges tomorrow. Today was just the start.