Chapter 9
Recorded on January 2, 2069, at AfroCarr in Brooklyn.
Eman Abdelhadi: This is Eman Abdelhadi, I’m recording an interview with Latif Timbers in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, on January 2 of 2069. Latif, welcome!
Latif Timbers: Thanks, it’s good to be here.
Abdelhadi: Right now, we’re sitting in the Bed-Stuy Gestation Center. From what I understand, you’re a gestation care coordinator?
Timbers: In training, yes! I used to be a counselor, and now I’m training to be a GCC.
Abdelhadi: I definitely want to hear more about those roles. I wonder if we could start by getting to know you a little bit, though. What year were you born?
Timbers: 2045. I think. That’s kind of a lie. Well, not a lie.… A guess, a guess. It’s a guess. We kind of did the math, and that’s what we figured.
Abdelhadi: Who is we?
Timbers: My family.
Abdelhadi: Tell me more about your family.
Timbers: It’s the kids I grew up with. I kind of found myself in this group. Like, my earliest memories are of them—of us—living in a tent city that had cropped up in Prospect Park. In the meadow, you know. Anyway, that’s as far back as I can remember, living in a tent in the park with a bunch of kids that became my family—Mirna, Lulu, Matt, Shireen, Carissa. That was before the liberations, and before the communes took off.
Abdelhadi: How did you come up with 2045?
Timbers: I went through some version of puberty in the mid to late fifties, so I figured I was probably born in the mid-forties. My best friend Matt, they were born in ’45. I decided I was born then too, and I sometimes forget that I don’t actually know if that’s true.
Abdelhadi: How did Matt and some of the other kids end up in this encampment?
Timbers: Matt lost their parents in one of the little wars that broke out with the NYPD—I think they were out in Crown Heights at the time. It was the same story you hear a million times; landlords were trying to kick them out and brought over the police. People started self-defense coalitions to resist, but it didn’t always work. Matt’s parents ended up in a shoot-out with the pigs, and they were both martyred. Other people’s parents were lost in fights with the [US] Army or the fash. Shit was crazy in the forties, you know. So much fighting. Some people’s parents froze or died of LARS or whatever. Everyone had a story, ya know. Except me. One of the older kids, Fatima, said they found me sitting on a bench in Grand Army Plaza one day crying, and they took me with them.
Abdelhadi: I see. So, you all lived together?
Timbers: Yeah. You know I’ve been reading all this anthropological history recently, and I guess you could call us foragers. Most of the year we lived in the tents, but when it got really cold, we’d wander around and find empty buildings. Usually, brownstones or houses that were left behind. People with money had been abandoning New York for years. In some neighborhoods, LARS had hit hard, sometimes killing whole families. So, there were a lot of abandoned buildings. We’d make our way inside, eat whatever we could find, huddle up a bit in the warmth. My favorite was this beautiful mansion in Ditmas Park. It had dark green paneling, and a tower on one side. We walked around the house playing make believe for a few days, putting on leftover clothes and accessories and pretending we were different people, from a different time. But we ran out of food eventually and we had to go. Anyway, whenever we could, we liked being outside. It was just more fun out there. We could play soccer in the park, do whatever we wanted, be all together. Safer that way, too—it’s easier to get picked off in smaller groups.
Abdelhadi: How long did you live in the encampment?
Timbers: Until sometime in the fifties, I think ’53—maybe ’52 or ’51? I’m not sure—until the Army left the city and the pigs left the area. The fash fled around then too. Things got a lot calmer. The communes hadn’t come together yet, but everything got better. You could feel a sigh of relief come over New York. Like, we all had a common enemy before, but you didn’t know who was who and everyone was so desperate to survive. After the withdrawal, it was like the forces of hate had receded and people could be kind to each other again. When we’d meet adults in the streets, they’d actually ask about us, ask how we were doing, give us food. Before that, we were seen as at best a nuisance or at worst a threat. Anyway, one day we met a tall bald person, his name was Paul, but we nicknamed him Paulina. He asked us all these questions about how we were living. The next day, he came back with a bunch of other adults, who would also ask questions. We were suspicious, but they seemed nice and always brought food. Finally, they explained they were building a commune. AfroCarr. They invited us in, got us a house, coordinated our food, and put us in the crèche for some schooling.
Abdelhadi: Was that a relief?
Timbers: Yeah, because they fed us! Even fresh stuff! They took over the old co-op farms here in the city and started working with farms nearby; it was the first time I had lettuce. It tasted like crunchy water. I still love it. Before that, my life just revolved around finding food and reacting to the weather. Being too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and always, always hungry. They brought us in, and they gave us a little apartment, and they stocked the fridge and the kitchen, and I hadn’t seen that much food before in my life. I ate until I threw up. We all did. But the food kept coming, and that was honestly a miracle. [Pauses, begins to cry.]
Abdelhadi: Would you like a tissue?
Timbers: Sure, thanks.
Abdelhadi: Did you get to choose who to live with?
Timbers: Yeah, pretty much. They said, listen, we can divide you up to live with adults or you can live as a group but have an adult check in on you every so often. It kind of tied to how people were thinking about their living situations, too. Like the adults themselves. Reading more and more about how people lived before, I’ve been realizing that family was usually blood, and that’s who you lived with. And who you lived with was really tied into what you got. So, like, if your blood had food, you had food. If they had a nice house and heat, you did too. If they didn’t, well tough shit for you. You were fucked.
Abdelhadi: [Laughs.] Yes, I’m old enough to confirm that’s how we lived for a long time.
Timbers: Talking to the elders and reading history, I realize people were really trying to get rid of that system with the communes. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine making all your choices based on blood! Why would it matter so fucking much who gave birth to you? Or who you fell in love with or who happened to have the same parent. Like, what if those people were straight up assholes? Or just didn’t know how to take care of you? And people only had two parents? Who were expected to take care of everything? So inefficient! Like, why wouldn’t you collectivize things like childcare? It makes no goddamn sense!!
Abdelhadi: [Laughs.] It really didn’t make a lot of sense, you’re right.
Timbers: It’s hard to know how anyone could focus on the love part of things when there was so much else involved—material fec. For most people, blood matters now because of love. And it’s not held hostage by money, or food, or shelter, or education—we all have that all the time, regardless. You’re going to be okay, regardless of whether those relationships are central for you or not. It’s like people often say, “Not all blood is kin, not all kin is blood.”
Abdelhadi: Yes, it’s really different now, because weall have what we need. It used to be that if you moved out of a house you shared with a lover, for example, that really affected your well-being. Because everything was tied to money and that money was so scarce. I used to study all this actually, as a sociologist back in the day.
Timbers: For cert? That’s crazy. I’d love to hear more about that. I get into rant mode every time I think about those times. Maybe you can suggest some readings though, really. I wanna learn more, and I’ve been really into sociological and anthropological history lately.
Abdelhadi: Definitely. For now, let’s get back to you. So how did you choose to live when you got into AfroCarr?
Timbers: Paulina took us around and showed us a lot of different options. Some chaps lived in small subunits in big apartment buildings. And those were sometimes people living with lovers or a couple of friends, sometimes with blood. A parent, a sister, that kinda thing. Some chaps lived in bigger groups in a house or a brownstone-type situation. Most people still mostly ate together in the canteen, and spent a lot of time on projects or chills with other people in the commune outside their small subunies. AfroCarr had the illest music and parties and chills. Some people moved around between subunies. But for many, who you familied was a big deal, like those people spent a lot of time talking about who they should parent with or sleep with or get a subuny with or I don’t know. Now, in working with parent groupings, I get it a bit more, what a commitment that can feel like for some people to be raising an infant together. I was a lil’ creeped out by some things in AfroCarr initially, and it took me a lot of time to get all the different ways of thinking and being and living that everyone brought to it.
Abdelhadi: So, what did you decide?
Timbers: We wanted to stay together, the kids. We found this house on Park Place—between Troy and Schenectady. It’s really close to this cute park, St. John’s. We wanted to be close to a park and we wanted to be together, so we picked that one. It’s a row house. The chaps to our left were a funny semifunctional polycule, six or seven chaps living together, romantically involved in complicated ways and generally happy. On the other side, these three aunties lived together. They were blood sisters, I think. And sometimes their mom would come stay with them. Anyway, both sets of neighbors helped us out a lot. They would help us coordinate getting stuff to the house—basic supplies, food and all that. Gradually, we started eating at the canteen for a meal or two every day, but I think everyone kind of got that we needed some time to trust anyone. They also taught us some life skills. One of the aunties, Sophia, taught us how to cook. One of her lovers was super handy—her name was Monique, I think—she taught me some woodworking. I’m still really bad at it, but hey, I made one table. [Laughs.]
Abdelhadi: I hear both that you were weirded out by how much attention people gave to who they slept with, but also that you did really care about staying with your family.
Timbers: Yeah, I guess that is kind of contradictory? I don’t know, it doesn’t have to make sense. Like—when we were in the park, we didn’t spend so much time making a huge scene out of who slept in each other’s tents or whose tents were next to each other. Because we were all together, and that is what mattered to us.
Abdelhadi: How did you manage conflicts as young folks living by yourselves?
Timbers: Well, we started having house meetings every week to talk things over. If things got heated, we’d ask one of the neighbors to come facilitate for us. Then we all did facilitation and conflict management trainings too. AfroCarr was super into that kind of thing. And we all also started therapy around that time, that was really important for us. And sometimes we’d do group therapy. But yeah, at various points, people moved out. Matt actually moved in with the aunties next door, they needed a bit more affection, I think. That child wanted to be smothered, and you didn’t have to tell those aunties twice. [Laughs.] But yeah, we were sad to see them go. But that’s when we started having, like, a tradition that when folks move out, we have a big chill together. We do a bunch of drugs, read poetry, cry it out, some people fuck. Just kind of give the sads room to breathe. It became like a … a … umm.
Abdelhadi: A grieving ritual?
Timbers: Sure! Yeah, like a ceremony almost. That is in the anthropology I’m reading too!
Abdelhadi: Sure. You mentioned that you also started getting some schooling when you moved to AfroCarr?
Timbers: Well, I had learned to read because one of the older kids in the group taught me. Not very well, of course. But yeah, we started the crèche. AfroCarr had taken over some of the old school buildings. I got really, really into reading. The science stuff was my favorite. My guides at the crèche saw that, so when I learned all I could there, they connected me to scientists who had started operating out of the old Brooklyn College campus. I think you spoke to one of my mentors, Aniyah. She coordinates between Brooklyn College and the campus in Harlem. I worked on a couple of teams there, trying to figure out what I loved most, worked with some biologists, some chemists. But I kept coming back to this idea of reproduction, specifically among humans. And at the time, I realized I wanted to gestate, but that didn’t work out.
Abdelhadi: Say more about that.
Timbers: Well, I was in love with this person, she lived over in Brownsville. She never really wanted to be with me romantically, but she knew I loved her, and we spent a lot of time together. She was the first to help me realize that I wanted to gestate. She said: “You have been obsessed with this process forever. Just transplant! Go for it.” By then, the hospitals had been reclaimed, a lot of them. And so, I went into Downstate, and I made an appointment and got checked out.
Abdelhadi: And what did they say?
Timbers: They said no. I guess my body had undergone lots of trauma, I’m sure some from before I can remember. They ran a bunch of tests and basically said it would be too risky to do something so invasive.
Abdelhadi: That sounds really hard.
Timbers: I got really depressed for a long time. I just kind of stayed home, I didn’t know what this meant for my life, what I would do instead. It was weird to be so torn up about something I hadn’t even known I wanted. But once I acknowledged it to myself, I realized it had been there all along. For a while, I wanted nothing to do with children or gestation. I stopped reading about it or talking about it. Stopped doing much of anything. Spent a lot of time in the party scene.
Anyway, my housemates were supportive, they took shifts to hang out with me to make sure I wasn’t alone since no one was quite sure how bad things were, and they were trying to make sure I wasn’t suicidal. Everyone shifted their twenties to tens to make more room for taking care of me. I stopped doing any hours. And I started talking to a couple of counselors until I found one I liked. Therapy helped. I hadn’t dealt with my past or anything, so it helped excavate some stuff.
Abdelhadi: How long did this episode last?
Timbers: Oh, a year maybe. Then I felt lighter, and I realized through all these conversations with my unit mates that I didn’t have to experience it myself to be a part of it, that I could still be a meaningful part of the process. Gestating is for everyone, anyway—so we can all have children in our lives, a new generation to raise together. It’s never about the individual people—not really. So yeah, at first, I trained to be a counselor. That took a while because the depression slowed me down. But eventually, I realized I wanted to get closer to what I loved, and that’s how I decided to train as a GCC.
Abdelhadi: What’s the difference between a counselor and a GCC—a gestation care coordinator?
Timbers: When folks choose to gestate, it can be really emotionally and physically draining. Counselors are mainly supplementary therapists; they’re therapists that are very familiar with this process and work with the gestators as they go through it. The GCCs are more like point people for the whole care team. We work with the people here at the center: the mediators, the counselors, the doctors, and all that, even the gestator’s loved ones and people outside the center.
Abdelhadi: Are you only working with resident gestators or anyone gestating? Some folks do it from home, right? Gestate from home, I mean.
Timbers: About half the gestators of the communes we serve stay in the center. My sense is that it’s similar ratios across the city, from talking to other GCCs. So yeah, sometimes folks want to gestate from home and feel like they’re better off in their commune. Others feel like they want this immersive relaxation experience and they come and stay with us. Others come and go—spend a few days here, a few days back home, etc. There are some people who want to be here in the first trimester, then they miss home and leave, then come back for events. Or some people find they only need support in the final trimester. It’s really a mix. We leave it really open for chaps. If you’re gestating and you let us know, we have a spot for you and we just keep that spot warm and ready for whenever you want to use it.
Abdelhadi: What do you think goes into what people decide?
Timbers: A lot of stuff, who they are as people, what’s going on in their commune or housing unit, why they decided to gestate in the first place. There are so many reasons people do it and so many different arrangements for when the baby is born. Yesterday, I was doing an intake for this woman who came in, and she was talking about how she just felt this yearning in her body to make life. Like, a physical pull towards it. I actually hear that a lot. Her commune—she’s from Sunset I think—has this lovely nursery—
Abdelhadi: How did she get pregnant? Implantation?
Timbers: Woah! We never ask that. That’s not really our business. I think there was a lot of work around this, politically, in the last couple of decades. DNA doesn’t give anyone ownership of children. Children are children, they’re precious and beautiful and it doesn’t really matter who made them or how. You know? So no, we don’t ask that at this stage. Of course, there are fertility counselors, and folks have intense conversations about how to get pregnant with their loved ones. My understanding is most people just use sperm and egg banks. It really varies, though. But, like, once someone is pregnant, which is where I come in, we don’t ask about the methods.
Abdelhadi: Sorry about that! Thanks for explaining. Sometimes olds like me ask dated questions.
Timbers: Oh, that’s okay! There are still folks who ask, and that’s something we’ve been working on in the repro world. We talk about it at conferences and citywide meetings a lot. How to shift people’s focus away from the bio of it all. But honestly, the very structure of the commune has already done that.
Abdelhadi: For sure. So, you were telling me about the nursery over at Sunset Park.
Timbers: Yes! So carework structures vary a lot between communes, with everyone exchanging ideas about what seems to work. At Sunset, the babies all go into nursery and adults take on shifts working it. Of course, there are more people interested than shifts usually, but the nursery coordinators try to include everyone. I still cannot believe that people used to do nursery-level care all by themselves or with just one other person back in the day. Honestly, how?!?
Abdelhadi: [Laughs.] Why do you think birthrates had dropped so much in the beginning of the twenty-first century? It was just so hard to do this in these tiny households of one or two people. And everyone had to still be working at maximum capacity to produce for the bosses.
Timbers: And only women could gestate back then too, right? Also sounds awful. Anyway, yeah, so there are a lot of arrangements. Another person who came in last month, they are in a midsize unit. They have two townhouses that open onto each other and live with fifteen others. Their house basically has several more or less monogamous couples and a couple of single chaps. And they all want to raise a few kids as a house. I think, to go back to your question about getting pregnant, they are going to mix things up so that it doesn’t feel like children [quote gestures with fingers] “belong” to particular couples. You know?
Abdelhadi: I understand. And does your house have kids?
Timbers: Not yet! Because our house started as a group of children, we have staggered relationships. Some of the older kids took care of me and I took care of some of the younger ones. Now that we’re all adults, we’re thinking about what it would be like to raise kids, and how we want to do it. There are a lot of house meeting discussions about it. Almost everyone wants to gestate at least once. So, we have to decide how to not end up with more kids than we can handle! But yeah, it’s really exciting. There is one housemate, Amanda, who doesn’t want to do the kid thing. She’s thinking of moving next door with the polycule, which is still going strong. [Laughs.]
I have a question for you, is it true that when folks would have babies in the old world—it was kind of looked down upon? Or like it was kind of low status? It’s so wild to think that, since so many people want to gestate now. People are so drawn to it, kind of as a part of growing up and a way of relating to their bodies that is new and a challenge. Almost anyone can get a womb now. You don’t have to have been born with one, so there has been this whole explosion happening in the number of people thinking about gestating and getting all into it. Sometimes we do prefert counseling, and I have to remind people what a toll it is on the body. Because people are so psyched about it, and I think sometimes they underestimate the labor of it all.
Abdelhadi: For sure. It was sort of this double-edged sword. Back when it was just cis women, you were kind of damned if you didn’t have kids and damned if you did. Because you were supposed to still do all the things everyone else was doing while also raising the kid or kids, and everyone kind of questioned your worth if that wasn’t 100-percent true. If you couldn’t do it all or have it all—which no one could. It was a weird time. That’s why I didn’t gestate, part of the reason anyway. Or really even parent, until much later, in an eight-parent grouping.
Timbers: I see. I thought AfroCarr was pretty strange at first, but it grew on me and seems normal now. I still can’t really picture how weird and hard the old world was. I see it must have seemed normal to people then, but I can’t get my head around it. Thanks for sharing.
Abdelhadi: Sure. Thanks for asking. So what else are you offering at the Gestation Center besides counseling and coordination?
Timbers: Oh, everything. Arts and crafts. Meditation and prayer spaces. Exercise. Medical care specific to gestation. Skincraft, from massages to sex. A garden. We have a gorgeous library upstairs. And we’re always adapting. Each person who comes through to gestate adds something new.
Abdelhadi: Like what?
Timbers: A couple of years ago, this one person came in. It was his first time gestating, and he came to tour the center before his implantation. And he said, “Where is the theater?” I said, “We don’t have a theater.” And he said, “We need one.” And when he came, he made it his mission to get a theater built. And we did it. And now there are plays and performances in there all the time; AfroCarr and some of the other communes use the space too, since they’re next door. You should come by tomorrow; I think they’re playing Macbeth. Plays are especially cute when all the actors are at various stages of pregnancy. [Laughs.]
Abdelhadi: Absolutely. I’m noting that the midday bells have rung, and you said you’d have to go about now. I want to honor that agreement. It’s been so wonderful talking to you. Thank you.
Timbers: It’s been a pleasure, thanks.