Jodi Tilton,

One of the Womyn

the World Requires:
Collected Writings & Memories

This is a written testimony of the

grieving process. It is a document meant
to remind us of her life and what she
meant us as the wrinkles of time fade
into our lives; it is a document meant
to comfort the memory of her passing. In
ÉÌÄ κ¶Çȁ ¶ÃÎ ÌǾɾüÈ ¶Ã¹ Ǻijº¸É¾ÄÃÈ
have come forth for various projects
and events from those who loved her. In
two years, we as friends to Jodi Tilton
have returned to work, school, and our
daily routines but the frustrations of a
society and system, which that does not

Jodi Tilton
allow ones own to grieve, still burns our
hearts. As a response we offer this to

One of the Womyn the World

you, as an act of care.

- From the Introduction

Requires
warmachines.info spring 2 0 0 9
Collected Writings & Memories
Jodi Tilton
One of the Womyn the World
Requires
Collected Writings & Memories
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attri-
bution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United
States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send
a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite
300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Printed at Eberhardt Press:

Eberhardt Press
3527 NE 15th St. #127, Portland, OR 97212
www.EberhardtPress.org

Cover Artwork:
Cristy C. Road
www.CroadCore.org

Contact the Editors:

Craig-Jesse Hughes, Beth Puma & Kevin Van Meter

OneoftheWomyn@WarMachines.info
 contents
1 Introduction

6 A Biography

35 A Tribute

42 A Life & Weapons

Against Forgetting

Kate Wadkins

Beth Puma

61 Craig-Jesse Hughes

Conor Cash

Paul Cash
 Jodi Tilton,
One of the Womyn the World Requires
It has been nearly two years since our friend and com-
rade Jodi passed away. There are times when we can
sit back and laugh at the moments that we shared
with her, far too few in the greater timeline of our
lives. There are others when the pain of her loss to
our lives and community is still too much to bare.

Jodi Tilton, One of the Womyn the World Requires is a

written testimony of the grieving process. It is a document
meant to remind us of her life and what she meant us as the
1
wrinkles of time fade into our lives; it is a document meant
to comfort the memory of her passing. In two years, many
writings and reflections have come forth for various projects
and events from those who loved her. In two years, we as
friends to Jodi Tilton have returned to work, school, and our
daily routines but the frustrations of a society and system,
which that does not allow ones own to grieve, still burns our
hearts. As a response we offer this to you, as an act of care.

One of the Womyn the World Requires

The title, “One the of Womyn the World Requires”, para-
phrases a memorial given to Commandante Ramona of
the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Naciona, an indig-
enous rebel group in Southern Mexico known as the Za-
patistas – and we the editors feel strongly that such a
sentiment applies to our partner, colleague, friend and
constant companion. Jodi was a native Long Islander
who was heavily invested in the music community. She
went on to be an integral coordinator to the Long Island
Freespace Project, a social and activist center located in
Ronkonkoma, New York. In addition, she organized with
the Long Island Womyn’s Collective, putting on a week-
end long cultural and political festival celebrating wo-
myn called the Big She Bang. She graduated from the
New York Fashion Institute and worked for Jones Ap-
parel. Jodi Tilton was a varied and distinguished per-
son, but most dearly she was a sincere and honest friend
to many of us, far beyond what we could give in return

A Collection of Materials
Jodi Tilton, One of the Womyn the World Requires: Collected
Writings and Memories is a collection of biographies, stories,
2
reflections, tributes, poems and other materials for, about
and around Jodi together as a depository of active memory.

Jodi Tilton, One of the Womyn the World Requires be-

gins with a detailed biography by Craig Hughes and Beth
Puma, originally printed as a one-off zine for the August
2008 “Big She Bang” which was held in Jodi’s honor. .

At Jodi’s memorial service, held in her hometown of Wan-

tagh, New York, three close friends of read a beautiful
tribute to her life. David Castilo, Beth Puma and Chris-
tine Sterling have graciously provided us with this tribute
so that those who were overwrought with tears the first
time may read these humble and magnificent words again.

On 26 July 2007, the day Jodi’s body was finally at rest

and six days since she had passed into the unknown, at
a gathering of friends in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Kevin
Van Meter read a statement read “Jodi Tilton: A Life” to
all those assembled to remember her, us, and our lives to-
gether. To mark the year anniversary of the 21st, Van
Meter circulated a tribute called “Weapons Against For-
getting: An Open Letter Among Friends on the Year An-
niversary of Jodi Tilton’s Passing into the Unknown”;
this too is collected here for those who knew her and
struggle against the passage of time, against forgetting.

Jodi’s colleague and fellow organizer in the Long Island

Womyn’s Collective, Katie Wadkins shares with us a trib-
ute read at the Big She Bang in August of 2008. This event
– in previous years organized by Jodi, Beth and Katie to-
gether – was held “in the spirit of Jodi Tilton”, and here
Wadkins touches on this relationship and the immeasur-
3
able loss Jodi has been to her personally as well as the
feminist community at large. Following Katie’s contribu-
tion, Beth continues to speak to Jodi as an active and cre-
ative person in the world. Herein Beth utilizes moments
in her life currently, to reflect upon her life with Jodi and
the daily impact she had and continues to have upon her.

Rounding out the collection is a contribution chronicling

the “other parts of that week”, that week we came together
collectively to say goodbye to Jodi and to witness her pass-
ing. In this contribution friend Craig Hughes, draws on
the rich relationships around him and that surrounded
Jodi “that week”. This is followed by a thoughtful piece by
Jodi’s confidant and friend Conor Cash, as he reflects on
the mourning process, those regrets that inevitably come
along with it, and the strong friendship they shared. Fi-
nally, Paul Cash provides a contemplation on Jodi’s life in
a dreamscape that wonderfully brings Jodi’s memory and
life, his, the lives around them into the present. These
two final contributions, not only collect memories of Jodi’
by actively engage with them, highlighting the purposes
and very best of Jodi Tilton, One of the Womyn the World
Requires.

Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank all those who contributed
to this collection. We know that the this type of writing
– the kind that touches upon the nerves of memories and
mourning, of solidarity and sorrow – is not easy, but we
insist that this is the type of writing that provides sup-
port. We would like to thank Paul Cash for commissioning
the Cristy C. Road piece that is the cover to this collection
and adorns many of our walls; as well as Jodi’s family for
4
providing us their support and links to Jodi’s past. Finally
the editors would like to thank Eberhardt Press for offer-
ing their expertise and guidance in addition to printing.

Acts of Care & Mourning

The impact on us all of Jodi’s life, as well as her unfortunately
and untimely passing, has been immeasurable. By collect-
ing writings and memories together in this zine project, we
hope to carry the memories of one of the womyn the world
requires – a womyn we require – into our everyday lives.

Jodi’s spirit is not found in the contents of Jodi Tilton,

One of the Womyn the World Requires alone, rather this
collection is intended to be an example of active and en-
gaged mourning, of those who grieve finding one anoth-
er and themselves through this process. For those that
read this, we hope you can draw upon Jodi’s stories,
memories and this immeasurable loss that we have in
our lives and we can find our own ways forward, together.

In grief, sorrow and loving memory,

Craig-Jesse Hughes, Beth Puma & Kevin Van Meter

Spring 2009

5
 Jodi Tilton: A Biography

Jodi was a friend to both of us. When she died our worlds
changed. Since that day, just over a year ago now, the par-
ticipants in the community that we shared with her have
had ongoing discussions – one on one, and at points col-
lectively – about mourning, about keeping Jodi’s memory
alive and about keeping her personality flowing through
our everyday thoughts and actions. When the idea for a
third Big She Bang came up we discussed writing this piece
as a way to more thoroughly weave Jodi into the event, and
as a way to create a piece documenting a womyn’s life – a
document to visit and be reminded and inspired by. We
hope it accomplishes both of those goals.

Researching and writing this biography was hard – emo-

tionally, and at points, physically. Both of us are going
through points of transition right now, and the period sur-
rounding Jodi’s death is a particularly hard time for us, as
well as the community that we share with her. Although
it was hard, the process was also deeply powerful for us.
While asking, listening, writing, editing and designing,
we were able to recall Jodi: to find new things out, to re-
member things we had forgotten, but more than anything,
6
to articulate the ways in which Jodi was so anomalously
beautiful, and put into print why she meant so much to the
people she chose to surround herself with.

This bio was a collective effort. Sometimes under particu-

larly hard conditions, and at the year anniversary of her
passing, people gave their thoughts and memories, and
responded to our questions with thoughtful and loving
answers. We’ve wrapped their voices into the narrative of
this piece, and we think that the collectivity of voices helps
more accurately illustrate Jodi’s personality.

In solidarity,

Beth Puma & Craig-Jesse Hughes

August 2008

Like all the very best people, Jodi was there in good times
and bad – when I needed to cry and curse my lot and when
we could laugh and love the fortune life could bring. Jodi’s
support and friendship meant/means more to me than I
could ever possibly put into words. I love and miss her very
dearly. – Ben

A Suburban Beginning: Growing Up In Wantagh

Jodi Lynn Tilton was born on June 1st, 1984 at Mid-Is-
land Hospital in Bethpage, New York. She was the second
child to Wendy and Bob Tilton who also had an older son
named Eric. The family resided in Wantagh, a hamlet lo-
7
cated in the Town of Hempstead on Long Island — one of
the most segregated suburban regions in the United States
and home to Levittown, America’s archetypal suburb. On
a sleepy cul-de-sac in Wantagh, Jodi was fed the suburban
experience that many of us shared, and that in many ways
brought us together. Her life experience was a stark con-
trast to the isolated and anti-community individual that
suburban social-geography was intended to produce and
reproduce.

Bob Tilton worked as an accountant in New York City when

Jodi and Eric were children. Wendy was an insurance jus-
tice before Jodi was born, but took ten years off to raise her
children. She later returned to work as a nursery school
teacher and eventually re-entered the insurance industry
when Jodi and Eric were able to be more independent.
As a child Jodi collected and played with Bryer’s horses.
From the beginning until the end she acquired eccentric
collections: fabrics, scarves, typewriters, and antique step-
ping stools.

She had a few childhood pets. Wendy recalled, “She won

this goldfish at a carnival... Every other kid’s died within
a week. She had that thing for five years. We had to get
the neighbors to watch it when we went on vacation.” As a
young child she had a cocker spaniel named Daisy, a rabbit
named Thumper and an occasional hamster. Unlike many
children her age she took the responsibility of caring for
an animal very seriously. At age 13 she was allowed to
get a pet of her very own. Cody, a bichon frise, became her
8
companion. Many years later, she would constantly come
up with schemes to allow her landlord to let her keep a dog
in her Park Slope apartment. Cody was the only dog that
could outshine her love and obsession of bulldogs. Jodi was
known to fall onto the sidewalk to hug a passing bulldog,
often to the surprise of the dog and its owner.

Her creative spirit was also very apparent at a very young

age. She would draw and paint for hours on end. She loved
any medium of artwork and many of her childhood pieces
are framed and hung in the house in Wantagh that she
grew up in. As a child she took art lessons with a lady in
Merrick. She also loved to dance and was the star of tap
dance recitals during her younger years.

Jodi’s mother pointed out that she was a “Very very cute
kid, she wasn’t shy. She was very sweet. She was very out-
ward as child. Adults absolutely loved her.” Jodi would al-
ways wiggle her way to the front of a group photo. Because
of this photogenic-ness, Mrs. Tilton took Jodi to auditions
for commercials in New York City. Although she never
made the final cut, Jodi came very close to scoring a role
in a Band-Aid commercial in the first grade. After many
years of friendship with Jodi she might have shared this
secret with you, how she was almost a child actress. Her
only real memories of it were getting out of school early.

Although modeling auditions served as an opportunity to

“get out of school early,” Jodi was an excellent student even
from a very young age. She attended Wantagh Elementary
9
School and even during this period took her grades very
seriously. Her mother pointed out, “Getting good grades
was very important to her. She always had to do well at
everything she did… She always made us proud.” Her par-
ents were well aware of her strong work ethic and ardent
desire to learn and grow.

Jodi was a petite child — and a petite adult — but never

let her small stature come in the way of anything; she was
determined and aggressive. She was often found playing
street hockey with her older brother and other neighbor-
hood children, and she also played soccer. She loved to ski,
and later snowboard; no mountain was too mighty. Later,
Jodi would dabble on a skateboard, and this activity would
open up avenues to friendship in her high school years.

Coming Into Her Own:

From Wantagh High School To FIT
It was during [the] transition into her “college years” that
you could see that Jodi was going to be a force no matter
what she was going to do, she was whip smart and passion-
ate about the things she loved. Looking back, it was dur-
ing these years that I saw Jodi really transforming into the
woman she was becoming and shedding the shy little girl
from Wantagh I once knew. - Dave

Being a teenager is largely about carving out your own

space in the world. Jodi’s mother recalled her having long
beautiful hair, which she chopped off in high school; she
donated her hair to Locks of Love, and later dyed her hair
10
pink. Jodi loved scouring the local thrift stores for old t-
shirts, ratty canvas shoes, and old man scarves. She loved
weekend trips to New York City with Christine for a show,
some food, and rolling around in the fountain in Washing-
ton Square Park. At 17, Jodi got stars tattooed on her wrist
with her friend Becky – something she would easily hide
from her parents with a red wristwatch. These small acts,
insignificant to many, were the small acts of defiance of a
suburban upbringing. Jodi was starting to construct her
adult self. With time and the right combination of support-
ive friends, these elements of her personality would serve
to develop an increasingly self-assured and powerful young
womyn.

During high school, Jodi began to work at Cori’s Lucky

Lotto Store in Wantagh. It was the kind of store that old
folks frequent every day. She knew all the regulars, and
she knew their favorite scratch off tickets and their favorite
numbers. She would strike up conversations with the pa-
trons – conversations that may have been small, but were
meaningful to some of the lonely characters that would
come through the store. Jodi would even grieve when one
of these folks would pass away. She quickly grew very close
with several people that worked at the store including a
woman named Dina. “When Jodi and I worked together
it was awesome! We laughed a lot and really worked so
well together. We often ordered dinner from Abe’s Pitaria
because that was one of our favorites. I think Jodi got more
excited to work with me because she knew we’d get Abe’s to
eat.” Jodi’s unique sense of humor shined in the Lotto envi-
11
ronment. “For some reason we developed goofy nicknames
for one another. She was known as “Jodi Pagodi” and I be-
came “Dina Begina.” God only knows why!” In their rec-
ollections, many of her loved ones often point out Jodi’s
humor as a defining characteristic of her personality.

While working at Cori’s Lucky Lotto, Jodi met Julio, an

older Colombian gentleman. It turned out that Julio was
the father of Dave Castillo who was becoming one of Jodi’s
closest friends around this time. Dave also lived in Wan-
tagh and shared Jodi’s love of music. She spent many af-
ternoons at the Castillo house, which was located on an-
other quiet cul-de-sac in Wantagh, and even spent several
holidays at their table. The Castillo household was a place
where Jodi felt particularly comfortable.

Many people incorrectly correlate a sub-cultural teen-iden-

tity with a lackadaisical attitude towards academics. But
Jodi’s academic performance illustrated the absurdity of
this correlation: throughout school she continually excelled
and received top marks and graduated near the top of her
class. At Wantagh High School she forged meaningful re-
lationships with her teachers, particularly an art teacher
named Ms. K, who Jodi would later return from New York
City to have lunch dates with. Jodi’s relationship with Ms.
K illustrated a unique kind of teacher-student dynamic –
less based on expertise and novice, and more based on re-
spect and sharing. Ms. K would later be the teacher chosen
by Jodi’s parents to give out a scholarship in her name at
Wantagh High School.
12
Jodi applied to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) to
study design. Despite her excellent grades and community
service record she was not initially accepted. She was an-
gered but not discouraged, and she called the admissions
office demanding to know the reasons that they had de-
nied her. As it turns out, Jodi’s art portfolio was not as
strong as her other qualifications; she had been compet-
ing for acceptance with students from around the world,
many of whom attended fashion design high schools. Jodi
tracked down the Dean of Admissions phone number, and
assertively reminded the Dean that although her portfolio
was not as strong as a candidate who may have attended
a more specialized high school it was FIT’s job to teach her
these skills. She demanded that FIT admit her. Impressed
by her fortitude and assertiveness, Jodi was accepted to
FIT – via phone call. Jodi began FIT in the fall of 2002,
when she was 18, and eventually switched her major to
marketing.

Grown Up Fast: Illness, Music, Friendship

Jodi was diagnosed with Colitis during her sophomore year
at FIT. Meg, a friend of Jodi’s, recalled “When she first got
sick she was very confused and read a lot about it. The
doctors didn’t know what it was. They gave her medication
for her symptoms, which made it worse. We all felt really
helpless because she was upset and sick and mad as hell
all the time. We would ask her what she wanted to eat
and she would yell saying that she couldn’t eat anything...
As she learned her diagnosis she grew stronger emotion-
ally and even started to poke fun at herself.” Jodi cared
13
greatly about discussing the illness she suffered from. Meg
explained that early on, “She wanted to educate everyone
about the condition which, in retrospect, was very Jodi.”
During her later years she would rarely talk about this
diagnosis experience.

Jodi was not a musician – despite many friends encourag-

ing her to join a hardcore band-with her killer, guttural
yell – but she regularly attended hardcore shows on Long
Island. She was faithful to her friends’ bands – even the
bad ones – because she was faithful to her friends. She
could often be found singing along to all the words, in the
front of the crowd, carving her own space with “hardcore
dudes” twice her size. Other times she could be found ajar
to the band, camcorder in hand recording a set or taking
pictures. Jodi was always excited to hear about her friends
projects and their new endeavors. But Jodi’s presence
at shows extended past the role of supportive friend and
fan. Always the crafter, she began selling handmade tote
bags alongside her old Wantagh friend Christine. The two
named their endeavor “Cut Along The Fold,” and sold sim-
ple but well made tote bags in cotton fabrics. They became
masters of silk screening, and the evidence of their craft
still stains the Stirling’s concrete basement floors. Jodi lat-
er recalled how excited she several years later, when she
observed one of her handmade bags on the arm of a young
womyn walking down the street in New York City.

When she was 19, Jodi began to date a young man named
Conrad who played bass in the band Encrypt Manuscript.
14
The two, both avid readers, would exchange copies of their
favorite short stories. It was a short relationship, span-
ning only four months, but it had a lasting impact on Jodi.
Jodi and Conrad broke up right before she embarked on a
month long adventure through Europe with Dave. This
trip was important for her, as she loved to travel immerse
herself in ways of living that differed from the Long Island
experience.

Jodi and Dave backpacked throughout several countries in

Europe and visited all the hot spots: London, Paris, Madrid,
Barcelona, Bologna, Rome, Venice, Munich, Berlin, Am-
sterdam, and then returned back to London. They stayed
in youth hostels, visited the sites, sampled local beers, and
at one point they managed to catch an International Noise
Conspiracy show. Jodi’s love and knowledge of art shined
on this trip. Dave explained “I really remember her art his-
tory skills coming out on our European adventure, she was
basically my own tour guide in every museum.” She kept
train ticket stubs and maps, and took an immense amount
of photographs. Later she meticulously arranged these
items into beautifully detailed scrapbooks.

During her time in Europe, Jodi started to notice her stom-

ach growing more and more swollen. She was concerned it
may have been complications with her colitis. As always
she tried to control her condition with a healthy diet and
by avoiding the foods that would cause flare-ups. When she
returned to the States she visited her doctor. Following
examinations and testing Jodi found out that her swollen
15
stomach was not what she had thought: the pain was due
to a mass surrounding her right ovary, and within days
Jodi had her the ovary removed. Although the growth had
been benign it left a trail of life changes.

The procedure had required an incision that left a good

deal of scar tissue which needed to heal, and she took the
fall semester off from FIT to recover. She would later use
the x-ray image from this experience as the backdrop to a
flyer for a Long Island Womyn’s Collective event. Though
Jodi took that semester to recuperate she did not lie in bed
all day. She threw herself into crafting projects and caught
up on reading lists. Once the scars from the surgery had
healed she begattending shows again. During this time she
befriended another young womyn named Jodie, who later
became known as Jodie Squared. Jodi Squared described
their meeting: “I first met Jodi at a party I threw at my
house. She had just gotten out of the hospital where she
had a tumor removed from her ovary. I was fascinated by
her story and we just talked all night long and really hit it
off. We could both sense a mutual enjoyment of each other,
a sense of immediate ease and comfort even while we were
still strangers.” The two became inseparable for a period
of time. The immediate ease that Jodie speaks of is a reoc-
curring theme when Jodi’s friends discuss her. Once people
were able to get through the tough, private exterior, it was
like you were immediately bonded with Jodi.

16
Taking Care of Business and Forging New Bonds:
Long Island Freespace and the Long Island Womyn’s
Collective
Beth and I went to First Saturday at the Brooklyn museum
last weekend and it was amazing. It was centered around
the opening of the new feminist art wing which was so in-
spiring and awesome. The Willie Mae Rock Camp for girls
played a show, and Beth and I are volunteering this sum-
mer at camp.Totally looking forward to doing that. We’re
going to work on some kind of workshop for the girls at
camp. We’ll see. Oh yeah, Jensen got a job teaching at Pratt!
So now Theresa, Gaia, Gabby, and Chris are all moving to
Brooklyn. I’m beyond excited for him to be close by! – an
email from Jodi, April, 2007

Jodi was a firecracker, she had a heart of gold. Her laugh

and her smile could light up any room, and brighten any
situation. Jodi’s dedication to her friends, her endeavors,
and her projects was nothing short of inspiring. – Kate

Some time in November at a Ladyfest Le Tigre show Jodi

befriended Beth. The two had met a few times prior at
shows, through their mutual friend Dave, but had never
really struck up conversation. Beth would later recall being
terrified of Jodi upon first meeting. “She was so tiny, but
had such a huge presence. Everyone had spoken so highly
of her — I was completely intimidated by her.” There had
been a communiqué that Freespace, a Long Island com-
munity project focused on opening a radical, cultural ad
musical youth center, was considering folding. The project
17
had failed to locate a physical space after years of events
at roaming locations, and steam appeared to be running
out. There was to be a meeting to reevaluate interest and
resources. Beth – who had come to Long Island via Hofstra
University, had been on the extreme periphery of the proj-
ect, occasionally attended shows and events, and later at-
tended the trial of Freespace organizer Conor Cash in 2003
– saw this as an opportunity to get involved. At that Le
Tigre concert, on the steps of Irving Plaza, Jodi and Beth
began to unravel all the commonalities between them –
their mutually intense love of crafting, art, music and most
importantly, feminism. “Maybe I have made this myth in
my memory, but I remember turning to Jodi and saying ‘I
think we should get involved with Freespace. I think we
have something to offer.’” They did.

In order to understand Jodi’s interest in Freespace, it’s

important to remember something that many Long Island
youth quickly realize – the Island’s social-geography and
its economy almost consistently manage to squelch or co-
opt artistic expression and youth freedom into something
limited, dull, boring, or privately profitable. Jodi linked
onto the project, at least in part, because the effort was
an intervention that challenged this process. Jodi quickly
became involved when Freespace finally opened an ac-
tual building in Lake Ronkokoma. As Kevin pointed out,
“It seemed that from the moment I met her she was head
over heals involved. It was amazing that she seemed not
involved one minute and then intensely and substantive-
ly engaged the next.” She also began to co-coordinate the
18
Long Island Womyn’s Collective and emerged as a crucial
voice of motivation and practicality. Simply put, the Space
would not have functioned for the almost year that it did
without her hands-on work.

Jodi did the planning, she did the grunt work and during
that year she was the key motivational force. Along with
the others who had been or became involved, Jodi forged
some of the most solid bonds of her life around Freespace.
Bryan, a core-Freespace organizer and a friend who she
met through the project, explained: “Jodi’s participation
was both important for the project and also showed that
the project worked. She was someone that kind of came out
of nowhere, kind of like myself.” Bryan, continued: “What I
mean by that is not really having too direct of a connection
to the people involved at first, but having the courage to
get involved and being a very important part of the project.
She devoted so much time to the work she was interested
in seeing done and also supporting other people’s endeav-
ors at the space.”

The friends Jodi made through Freespace would describe

her in words like “witty” and “sincere.” In her activism, like
the rest of her life, Jodi’s humor was as important as her
sincerity. Paul succinctly captured this when he described
her as “furious at the way the world works. Determined to
change it, if only in a small way, and hoping to have some
laughs while doing it.” Billie, a Freespace core-organizer
and friend, explained: “Jodi’s humor was both childish and
informed. She enjoyed being silly for no reason. The absurd
19
was always comical to her. I have far more memories of her
laughing than not.”

Even during her early involvement in the Space, Jodi

showed a willingness to dialog and an openness that many
involved were much quicker to bend on. When it came to
an anti-choice band playing at Freespace, this was particu-
larly risky – potentially putting her at odds with others in
the project. Bill, a friend of hers, commented on what this
meant to him: “My favorite memory of Jodi was when I
had a band called No Innocent Victim played Freespace in
2004. It was the cause of great debate among most of us, I
remember a meeting even being held to discuss it. The day
of the show, Jodi stood out among the rest… Even though
she and them (and myself) differed in many ways politi-
cally... She treated those guys with the utmost respect and
left with both she and them laughing. I will never ever for-
get that.” He concluded, “It was a glimpse into her overly
radiant personality.” Jodi spent many days and nights at
Freespace during the 9 months that the building was open.
Bryan pointed out, “I can’t remember an event, cleaning,
day of painting, meeting, or anything she wasn’t at. I even
remember hanging with her super late before an early
event the next day and she was still going out later that
night and showed up at Freespace at like 8 or 9 on barely
any sleep.”

A core-group of womyn had carved out a space for the de-

velopment of an explicit feminist current – the Long Island
Womyn’s Collective – which functioned autonomously, but
20
was directly tied to the project. Maria, a core-Freespace or-
ganizer and a member of the Womyn’s Collective addressed
how Jodi saw male-domination in organizing and the need
for a Womyn’s Collective: “I saw Jodi get frustrated orga-
nizing with men who did not listen to or respect what she
or other women were saying. Later, I spoke with Jodi about
this. We spoke of the struggle of organizing as women. Of
being inspired by other women organizing. Of wanting to
claim that space for organizing as our own. Of wanting to
and actively confronting the men who did not listen. Of
how good it felt working with other women, speaking with
other women, and learning from other women. I respect
Jodi so much. Her strength and her ability to organize
within a patriarchal world, a patriarchy that even seeps
into places where it’s hated, inspired me and continues to
inspire me.”

Kate, a friend and fellow core-member of the Womyn’s Col-

lective explained: “Jodi was a total organizing force. She
made sure everyone got to meetings, often driving myself
and other women out to Ronkonkoma, she always had
something to bring up or work on... It’s hard to say what
her importance was, because it was prevalent through ev-
erything that we did together. She was totally organized
and motivated. Jodi contributed her artistic and crafty tal-
ents as well as her professional way of taking care of busi-
ness. Not only did she keep us on track, but she took care
of nitty gritty things, like appealing to donors, keeping in
touch with speakers and performers, and staying on top of
finances.” Kate continued: “More than all of that, Jodi was
21
a positive force. She was a charming, hilarious, smart, fer-
vent, sassy girl. When she was having a hard time, she was
honest about it. We were able to have real conversations
and real connections. I have always admired this quality in
her. Her character contributed as much to the collective as
her hard work, dedication, and extreme organization did.”
During the summer of 2005 Jodi played a lead role in orga-
nizing The Big She-Bang. The event took place on Saturday,
August 14th and was an all day festival of feminist move-
ment – including feminist bands, panel discussions, an art
show, a craft-centered do-it-yourself fleamarket, and more.
Beth, who was living with her parents in New Jersey for
the summer, recalled their phone dates: ”We would come
home from our respective summer jobs and immediately
get on the phone. We would discuss what needed to be done
and simultaneously send out emails. We usually worked
for an hour or two a day via phone, trying to address all
the details of an event of such magnitude. We would laugh
about how teleconferencing was just part of our daily rou-
tine.” The She-Bang stood as one of the proudest, if one of
the most exhausting, moments of Jodi’s life.

The She-Bang may have also been the most important

single event held in the Space: a group of feminist womyn
struggled within a male-dominated culture and project
to hold what was likely the most accessible and creative
event held within its walls. It was also the final large-scale
hurrah for the project: the combination of neighborhood
property-holders who were against the Space, a location
within a vast car-centered geography that made travel to
22
and from Lake Ronkonkoma an arduous task for most, an
inability to secure funds, and a dwindling volunteer and
attendee base, made sure the building didn’t last long.
Freespace closed at the end of the summer in 2005.
Bryan vocalized a common understanding of Jodi by
Freespace’s core-group: “Her devotion, like all of ours,
showed what we were capable of, while the outcome of the
Space may have been seen as a failure, the experiences of
people like her and the way she embodied this new world
we talk about, made me realize how much of a success that
place was.” Jodi exemplified some of the best of Freespace,
which Billie, a core Freespace organizer and a friend ex-
plained: “Jodi had an ability [to] allow her politics to be
known through her relationships with others… she knew
that the importance of political action lay in redefining our
relations with each other.”

It was through her interest in activism that Jodi met Kevin

Van Meter at a workshop he was giving on December 8th,
2004. Conor, a friend and Freespace organizer described
this: “I first met Jodi – like, really met Jodi – at Hofstra
University when Van Meter and myself were speaking to a
crowd of, like, 5 people, at most, about Freespace. Jodi was
there with Dave Castillo, making eyes at Van Meter.” Her
relationship with Kevin was often unclear, even to those
within their tightest circle. But she fell head over heels for
him and his relation with her became central to her life.
They would attend lectures at Bluestockings, travel to cit-
ies like Boston and Philadelphia, ride their bikes to their
respective apartments and cook together. Kevin recalled:
23
“The most important memories I have about Jodi are the
moments we cooked together, as its not just food we were
sharing but the raw emotion and differences between us.
My lack of patience, her quick tongue, her annoyance with
me, my ability to make some silly joke or to carve out some
saying that would stay with us, our ability to work damn
good between each other in preparing a meal, and even
though we were in the midst of cooking we would have to
grab each others arm, steal a hug or a kiss, and all of these
things mixed together. These meals of course were far more
then just eating or cooking, and they became the defining
moments of our relationship and friendship.” For Christ-
mas in 2005, Kevin compiled a large variety of recipes
from friends and their cooking experiences, and published
a cookbook/cooking journal affectionately called “Cooking
with Ole Ma’ Tilton”. Kevin recently recalled how he expe-
rienced Jodi’s love for him. His comments speak not only
to their relationship, but also illustrate important charac-
teristics of Jodi’s personality that others close to her also
experienced — her supportiveness, and her sincere care for
those she was close to. “Jodi not only loved me for who I am
or appear to be, but rather for who I was becoming. This is
an important distinction, as Jodi was able to see that pro-
cess of growth, need to learn and development deep inside,
which she, in turn, shared. She would grab my arm, almost
to shake me, frustrated that I allowed certain blockages
and past experiences to limit my development.”

Making Home: Brooklyn, Work and New Challenges

As Jodi’s college career came to a close she made herself
24
increasingly busy. Meg, a friend and roommate from FIT,
pointed out that “She had a billion internships, jobs, and
social engagements/activism get-togethers. She was never
picky about surroundings then...[she was] very focused on
her work.” In 2006, Jodi graduated from FIT – in three and
a half years, despite taking a semester off and a change
of major – at the top of her class. She reluctantly moved
back to Long Island until she was able to secure full-time
employment. After 4 months she landed a job at Jones Ap-
parel, a major fashion-firm in Manhattan. Although Jones
Apparel was not her dream fashion company, it offered
independence and financial autonomy. Beth recalls, ”It
was an exciting time for us. I had landed a New York City
teaching job, she had secured a position at Jones. We called
them our ‘big kid jobs.’ Of course we knew the downfalls of
joining the workforce in this capacity – but these positions
offered us the ability to be financially solvent, without hav-
ing to live with our parents or work sixty hours at a coffee
shop. Before our first paycheck we were planning our vaca-
tion together.”

Jodi began to carve a name for herself at Jones Apparel. As

always, Jodi ‘took care of business’ and managed to laugh
along the way. Melissa, a co-worker at Jones Apparel, re-
called: “She was an extremely dedicated worker and very
meticulous about her job responsibilities. She took on every
task she was given and completed it well beyond anyone’s
expectations. She handled a very intense work load and
was extremely diligent in regards to completing anything
thrown her way. In addition, everyone loved being around
25
her, she was funny and always brought her unique person-
ality to the table.”

Despite all the excitement of starting a new job, there were

some bumps. Her boss, in many ways the caricature of a
boss in a major fashion industry, was harassing, utterly
insensitive, and often blatantly mean. As it would hap-
pen, Beth also ended up also having a domineering, mean
spirited employer. “We would call each other at 7am ev-
eryday— it always felt like we were the only one of our
friends up at that time-trying to provide comfort and sup-
port before we entered our respective battlezones. We both
worked so hard for our positions, yet it wasn’t good enough
for them. Despite my being in education and her in fash-
ion, our bosses operated exactly alike. I often joked how
they should get beers together.” Beth secured a new job
for the following year, and urged Jodi to do the same. Jodi
took the attitude that if she could survive a year or two at
Jones, she could work anywhere.

After a few months of commuting from Wantagh to mid-

town, Jodi felt she had saved enough money to secure her
first apartment. After a meticulous search, Jodi signed the
lease to her apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, just a few
blocks walk from the Prospect Avenue stop on the F train.
Jodi would tell her friends she could spend the rest of her
life in that neighborhood.

Living so close to Prospect Park played a huge role in her

love of her neighborhood. She would regularly take trips
26
there to meet with friends or get some reading done. Kev-
in, who lived close by recalled their “clandstine” trips:”We
would meet always on the hill behind the ball fields, which
wasn’t the most private of spots, but rather we both liked
the noise around us. Often we would meet for a picnic,
to just read, to ride our bikes, but most often to just sit
and talk. We would sit on the grass, until she discovered
this hippy blanket of her mothers in the back of the closet,
which then became her favorite.” When not with Kevin or
others, Jodi loved to lay in the sun and watch the parade of
dogs (eyes always keen to the sight of a bulldog) and stroll-
ers. She held her 23rd birthday picnic at Prospect Park on
June 1st, on that hill behind the ball fields. She was unable
to eat the potluck dishes because of her colitis, but she still
was able to enjoy the gathering of her friends.

Interrupted Becoming: Jodi’s Passing

All of us together remind me that another world is indeed
possible. In our best moments we carry its image on our
shoulders, sometimes like a victorious friend aloft and
sometimes like a dear dead friend. – Conor
As her colitis worsened Jodi followed her doctor’s recom-
mendation and made the major decision to take steroids,
which had both physical and emotional side effects. While
on these drugs Jodi experienced rapid and dramatic mood-
shifts, and attained support from a close circle of friends.
The harshness of the steroids simultaneously combined
with Jodi’s boss at Jones Apparel, who directly injured
Jodi’s ability to cope with the flare-ups. Craig recalled: “I
remember walking on the overpass at Hunter College and
27
getting a call from her in the middle of the day. She was
hysterical, and was sitting outside of her office building.
She had dealt with another incident of her boss treating
her like shit. Her boss had been doing that for months:
trying to make her feel guilty for being sick, harassing her
and making her horribly uncomfortable.” As things wors-
ened with the steroids, Jodi struggled to get through each
day at the job she had been so proud to get.

During the summer of 2007 Jodi’s doctor recommended

that she take a new and experimental drug called Remi-
cade for the colitis. The drug had potentially major side-
effects, and Jodi was unsure. But with the flare-ups as bad
as they had been, and the steroids not helping, the drug
represented some potential hope: it could possibly control
the flare-ups and it would allow her to get off the steroids.
She thought deeply about it, consulted friends and family,
and decided to take the medication.

Jodi was a private person, and speaking about the illness

that she suffered was hard for her. As she became sicker
it became more common for her to discuss the colitis and
her experiences with the illness and the medications she
was taking with her friends. Ben, who was diagnosed with
cancer around this time, commented on Jodi’s ability to be
supportive, and the importance of their common experi-
ences during this period: “Though (much to my regret now)
our conversations during this time often focused more on
me than her, I think she took comfort in helping and also
in having someone who could relate to her own struggles
28
with illness. Together we could bemoan a day filled with
appointments, swap stories about inconsiderate doctors,
soothe each other’s fears about what may happen to each of
us, laugh (sometimes in order not to cry) about the various
unpleasantries that come with losing control of one’s body,
cheer the brilliant ways in which our friends were sup-
porting us, and lambast the sometimes terribly distressing
ways in which others were not.”

Jodi’s health became rapidly worse during the Summer of

2007. She became increasingly unstable and her depres-
sion and sense of isolation worsened. The medications she
was on were taking a serious toll. On July 9th she went in
for her second Remicade treatment at Mount Sinai. That
night she ate a small meal and felt exhausted; she was also
confused. On July 11th Jodi began to have chest pain and
was admitted to the emergency room. On July 18th, after a
week in the emergency room, Jodi began to slur words. On
July, 21st, Ben walked into her hospital room to find her
seizing. While seizing Jodi’s brain had hemorrhaged. She
died and was taken off of life-support on July 26th, 2007.
Throughout that final week in the hospital nearly 100 peo-
ple weaved in and out of her hospital room to be with her
and to be with the community Jodi had played such an im-
portant part in; the same community that played such an
important part in forming who Jodi was. The care shown
by her friends made it clear what an impact she’d had on
those whom she shared loving relationships with. The
bonds Jodi had crafted with these individuals coalesced
into a larger whole during that week. And the community
29
she had created with the others involved in the Freespace
project functioned as a community in the most meaningful
sense of the term: through providing tangible forms of mu-
tual support to her, each other and her biological family.
On the night of July 26th, upwards of 50 of Jodi’s friends
gathered in Prospect Park for a memorial service where we
celebrated her life, and where we collectively said “good-
bye.” We shared stories about the experiences that we
had with her and reflected on what impact she had on us.
More than anything, what was clear that night was the
overwhelming combination of love and sadness. The world
had lost one hell of a spark. That same spark had been an
important part in keeping the flame in many hearts; the
same flame that burned in Jodi’s heart – for life, and for
her community.

To say Jodi is missed is accurate, but it’s also cliché. It

doesn’t explain why she’s missed. Jodi is missed because
of the spark that she was: because she knew how to be a
friend like few do, because she was intuitively brilliant and
willing to share that brilliance, because her humor and per-
sonality brought real change to those who encountered her,
and because her sincerity was uncompromising; and that
sincerity made her into a person that those who became
close with her stood in admiration of. Jodi died just as she
was becoming many of the things she’d long dreamed of,
and just as she was discovering more of who she was.
On a year since you’ve passed Jodi, those of us who got to
know you can only hope we’ve carried that flame onward
with the dignity you did – in our inner-thoughts, our inter-
30
personal relations, and in our movement activities. Conor
spoke for many in his response to a question about what
he’d remember most about you: “More than anything else,
I’ll remember that I loved her and I still love her.”

Memories and Moments Shared:

Good friend.
Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Summer of 2007: We were hav-
ing a picnic to celebrate Jodi’s 23rd birthday, which as al-
ways, involved a massive amount of food and Kevin mak-
ing an ass of himself. In this instance Meter was refusing
to reveal where he had purchased the famed “Foodswing’s
Vegan Buffalo Wings” in bulk for the BBQ. He was finding
joy in keeping it from everyone else. Amidst the laughter,
I noticed Jodi seemed to be staring at me pretty intensely
with a smirk on her face. I couldn’t for the life of me figure
out what she was looking at and she wouldn’t give even
the slightest hint as to what was so funny. The evening
came and a few of us ended up back at her apartment. At
one point Jodi and I ended up alone in the kitchen, it was
then that she burst out laughing. Despite my best efforts
to hide them, she had noticed the waist band of my boxer
shorts. I hadn’t done laundry that week and was forced to
wear a pair of rarely used “Playboy Bunny” boxer shorts
I had gotten as a gag one year for my birthday. She then
revealed how tempted she was to out me in front of every-
one for wearing something so silly and trying to hide it.
My terrible posture means my shirt rides up in the back
31
and my boxers are usually visible. In her compassion and
understanding of how painfully easy it is to embarrass me,
she spared me that time. But definitely took the opportu-
nity to give me some well deserved shit for wearing silly
underwear when no one else was around. I think of this as
something important because in the moments I feel myself
falling into despair over her leaving us far to soon, I look
at a pair of silly boxer shorts and remember a friend who
knew me well enough not to make fun, at least not in pub-
lic.” -Paul

Hater of peanut butter.

Jodi Tilton probably had the most absurd and unfortu-
nate hatred for peanut butter. Knowing this, we would all
try to lower our peanut butter intake around her, but no
one could resist a Foodswings’ shake loaded with peanut
butter. One time, probably after a long day at Freespace
and then a long drive from Ronkonkoma to Brooklyn, a
few of us sat down to gorge ourselves. Everyone would
always get something delicious so we would often share
and give tastes of things to each other. Jodi decided that
she wanted to try someone’s shake. As soon as the shake
hit her tounge, she threw it down and freaked out. Mak-
ing sure that all could hear, she screamed in the middle
of the restaurant, “BLAAAAAAAAR PEANUT BUTTER”
and quickly grabbed at anything to eat/drink so she would
not have that taste in her mouth anymore. For the rest of
the night she would laugh and complain about how terrible
that was and talk about how she generally hated peanut
butter. Seriously, who doesn’t like peanut butter? -Bryan
32
A slight fear of heights.
Jodi came to Tucson to visit during the fall of 2006. She
stayed for several days and a lot of this time, she was quiet
and pensive. I remember her not feeling well. There’s not
much to Tucson aside from what it’s near; the surround-
ings are beautiful, the city itself is quiet and sleepy. I took
Jodi hiking on a Saturday. The Catalina Mountains stand
over the North side of Tucson, reaching an elevation of
about 8,000 feet. Driving the Catalina Highway to Mount
Lemmon (the tallest peak in the Catalinas) is an obliga-
tory sightseeing experience, so Jodi and I drove out in the
morning. I’d never known she was afraid of heights, but
as we got into the higher altitudes, Jodi became fright-
ened. For some fucking reason we decided to go hiking, or
maybe I decided to go hiking and Jodi was nice enough to
accomodate me. We hiked on a particularly steep trail on
the north face of the range. Jodi was wearing converse and
those jean shorts she always wore, neither of which are
good for that sort of walking. There are sections of the trail
that basically hug the face of the mountain, and while there
aren’t any sheer drops, if a person were to fall they would
certainly bounce for a while. All through our descent Jodi
had been quiet and uncomplaining. But at a certain point,
the heights got to her and she began to cry. She seemed
frozen and asked to be carried until she felt safe again,
which is just what I did. I remember how tiny she felt, and
how brave she had been, both in continuing for as long as
she did, and in asking for exactly the help she needed. I
wish that I could carry her like that again. -Conor

33
Lover of vegan sweets.
We just had tried to go see someone play at Cakeshop base-
ment. It was during the week, and the show as three hours
behind schedule. We finally gave up on seeing the show
and went upstairs for some vegan cake. We both bought a
slice of vegan oreo cake and went to sit down. We dove our
forks into our respective pieces, but we both began to grum-
ble about how Atlas Cafe (another source of vegan sweets
in lower Manhattan) provided a wider variety and bigger
piece of cake then Cake Shop. We continued to grumble
like two old ladies, when we both casually glanced at the
two women who just sat down at the next table. They were
sharing a tiny cupcake together. We both glanced back at
each other and burst out laughing. -Beth

34
 Jodi Tilton: A Tribute

To put anyone’s life into one short piece of writing is a

daunting task, to do it for a womyn as complex and beauti-
ful as Jodi Tilton – it’s downright impossible. That’s why it
was our decision to attempt this by speaking about Jodi’s
life through our three subjective lenses that knew her well
but in different ways. Hopefully this way we can paint a
more accurate portrait of the dynamic life and person that
Jodi was.

David:

Jodi was one of those people went from being a friend to

eventually growing into a part of my family. I can still
remember the first time she found out that she knew my
father from her early mornings at Cory’s Lucky lottery
store. Jodi and Christine thought this one older man with
an accent was so cute. When it turned out to be my father
she was so excited. Eventually she started hanging around
my house and was quick to start chatting up my mom and
dad. She instantly won them over with her brilliant laugh,
honesty, and just overall decency. When she came over for
35
her first thanksgiving she soon conquered the rest of the
family with those very qualities. As our friendship grew
she became a fixture at our household on holidays and in
general. Her interactions with my family and soon other
friends of mine quickly showed me that Jodi was genuinely
willing to take the risk to really get to know people, become
part of their lives, and treat them well. This was an amaz-
ing thing to watch and one of the things that I came to
admire about her the most over the years as I watched her
touch so many other people through her love of music, art,
creativity and community. Jodi’s passion and enthusiasm
were unbridled. She put in 150% effort into being a part of
everything that she felt was worthy of her Midas touch. In
turn, we received so much and she reveled in being part of
those experiences with us.

To quote Jodi in one of her last emails to me,

“I cannot begin to express how much fun I had the other
night. The show was so amazing...and reminded me how
every time we all get together (even if it’s not for amazing
reunion shows) it just feels so good to be a part of a com-
munity of friends.”

Lastly, whether it was hanging out at a show, helping her

out with one her many projects or simply stopping into
her job the pay off was huge - she had the best smile and
laugh you have ever heard. I remember later her life when
I would stop in to Cory’s with a sunflower when she was
having a bad day to remind her of the Van Gogh paintings
we had seen on our 5 week trek through Europe (which
36
was more like Jodi trekking me through Europe) Without
fail It would always put a smile on her face. Last Saturday
I came into the hospital with a sunflower in hand with the
very same intention I had all the days in Wantagh. I hadn’t
done it in a while but I wanted to remind her of all our good
times and friendship. Now every time I see a sunflower I
think of all the memories that I have of her. So in the end
she bested me one last time by taking my gift to her and
giving it back to me.

Christine:

Jodi was my mentor, my big sister and my best friend. Her

intelligence and motivation to make things happen became
very apparent and very admirable to me at a young age.

With a little more life experience at hand and an intensely

strong ability to love, Jodi took me under her wing and
made me a part of the Cori’s family. It started out as just
a job but thanks to Jodi it became something I looked for-
ward to throughout the week, not because I had a love for
old folks who liked to gamble but because I got to spend
quality time with her. She made me feel right at home
and was always there to offer her support when necessary.
Jodi possessed a particular maturity that was well beyond
her years that made her an ideal teacher and a perfect role
model for me. From our start I was 14 going on 18, she
was 17 going on 30 and somehow we seemed to meet half-
way. Jodi carried me on her shoulder through different
37
benchmarks in my life, which I would have never reached
without her, until our ages and interests seemed to align
perfectly.

Jodi was active in the arts but always took on a new hobby
and a new favorite craft that she would study and share
with whomever was willing to listen. It was in my par-
ent’s basement where we spent many isolated summer
nights tearing up fabrics and creating new accessories to
sell within our community. She learned through persis-
tent trial and error that’s effects can still be seen all over
the basement floor. Though Jodi would laugh if she heard
me say this, she held many of the characteristics of an in-
dependent young entrepreneur and geared our crafting to-
wards more of a business adventure.

She truly was the fire beneath me and the one responsible
for opening my eyes to a world of unfamiliar and exotic
things in life. Jodi was always one step with me and one
step ahead of me whizzing through new ideas and projects
she mentally started organizing. She put so much faith in
me as a friend and as her counterpart that it kept me alert
and on my toes, always ready to absorb some new informa-
tion she had to share.

Jodi’s mind and heart were so respectable that I always

feared of disappointing her but at the same time felt em-
powered when I made her proud. While talking to Conor
after sitting in the hospital for days he told me that Jodi
always spoke of me as a sister and was proud of the young
38
womyn I am and am becoming. Part of that young womyn
that she was so proud of was something that she helped
create and a part of her that will live on with me forever.

Beth:

Jodi was a multifaceted womyn. While writing this I find

that I am faced with a series of opposites. Jodi Tilton was
not only serious but silly. She loved with ever cell she had
but was never afraid to make it clear when she was disap-
pointed by your actions or character. She was a wall of
strength but could be easily hurt. She took care of busi-
ness in so many ways but could roll around the sidewalk
at a passing bulldog. She loved adventures in the city but
valued sitting at home curled up on her futon watching
Tommy Boy. Jodi lived with a chronic illness but valued
her healthy lifestyle. Jodi Tilton was a one of the most
complete womyn I have ever known. She never once made
an apology for that and embraced her intricacies.

In addition to the onion that Jodi was, she was a constant-

ly evolving person. Her believes were not something that
bent with the wind, but she never stopped challenged her-
self through art, books, dialogues, and friendship to grow
into an even better person then she already was. It is
through this process of evolution that Jodi and I became
friends. We were both at a time in our lives where we
knew we were on the cusp of change. We had met a few
times at various shows but had not solidified our partner-
39
ship until we both had expressed interest in working with
the Long Island Freespace. I turned to her at a Le Tigre
show and said “I think you and I should start working to-
gether.” It is there we became partners in crime, and have
never looked back.

She attached the project, along with any project she was
involved in with an ardent desire for a more just world.
She never simply sat around and wished for things to get
better. Through coordinating workshops geared to empow-
er young womyn through art, music, education with the
Long Island Womyn’s Collective or simply making peanut
and butter jelly sandwiches for the hungry with the Pea-
nut Butter and Jelly Club she invested her whole self into
a project. She dedicated much sweat and many tears while
laboring what she loved. She carved for herself and her
community around her the change she wanted to see.

Just as Jodi became invested in various projects, she

would invest in people. After only a few conversations af-
ter meeting you, she would offer a hat she had recently
crotched in your favorite color or mix tape she had record-
ed with your favorite song as a way of acknowledging the
new friendship. And as the roots of my life became more
inter-tangled with hers, I found that her love was not only
expressed by these tokens of friendship but how she dealt
with me in the darkest moments of self doubt that are so
much apart of being twenty something. She was firm and
knew how to push you in the direction that needed to be
taken. I would often find myself chatting with her at 7:15
40
in the morning as we both made the dreaded trek to work
at jobs that were neither empowering nor exciting. She
would often say things like, “You need to stop thinking like
that. I It does you no good. Get on the bus and go”. I could
then always count on a text message at my lunch hour that
read “you made it this far today. You are so strong.” She
always dealt with my lowest of moments with a firm hand
and tone, but nurtured me later with the sweetness that
was both sincere and genuine.
Conclusion

One of Jodi’s favorite writers and thinkers bell hooks de-

fined love as, “… a mix of various ingredients – care, af-
fection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, as well as
honest and open communication.” For Jodi, this was not
just a definition in black and white words but the embodi-
ment of everything that she wanted to give to all of those
around her. As we wrote our three recollections of Jodi’s
life, we started to realize that she lived all of these quali-
ties everyday. We believe, that proves that Jodi not only
gave love to everyone around her but because of that also
won our care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment,
and trust.

This tribute was read by Dave, Christine and

Beth at Jodi’s’ wake.
July 28, 2007.

41
 Jodi Tilton: A Life

I am writing this and circulating it among friends because

of the possibility that I will not be in New York City for
Jodi’s memorial. I will be in Europe for a month visiting
social centers and organizations that address the condition
of precarity and (no) borders as well as meeting with nu-
merous activists, writers and theorists.

In a few days to a week as these processes begin to end

– that of her life and of the arrangements that we have
adopted to bring some closure to ones life – you all will re-
turn to work, school, and other commitments. You should
and must in order to continue your own lives and to honor
Jodi’s.

During the next month, without employment, with my the-

sis and all the articles I was working on completed, I see
moments where I will be alone. I know that I am not al-
right in these moments, and I feel myself wandering along
dangerous ‘lines of flight’. As these moments collide to form
days and weeks I have realized that at the end of this there
may be nothing of me left. So I instead have to put myself
on a plane to Europe, where I will be active daily and have
42
numerous tasks and conversations to occupy my mind, as
a way to have a life at the end of all this – one worth living.
I love you all!

Kevin Van Meter

July 26, 2007

The question is always how one should begin an undertak-

ing such as this: how does one ‘cast on’? Ending is clear;
it is always constructed from the elements that one knits
together. Ending is ‘binding off’ or whenever possible es-
pecially in situations such as these, one should allow the
loose yarns to trail off and wander into other thoughts.

The question I confront here is a complex one: how do I

avoid representing a life in some mythical way, where calls
to the great beyond and generalities cover the actual ele-
ments of that life? I feel that my task here is to amplify
a life in such a way as to reflect its very elements and its
construction. As a life is constructed from the relationships
and moments that flow through it, and the uncertainty and
possibilities of it must be lived themselves.

I don’t want to ‘memorialize’ Jodi Tilton, but rather am-

plify elements of her life that are to be lived by us through
processes of creating, experimenting and living. These
are all corporeal processes and they allow one’s desires to
overflow one’s body and connect with other desires in the
world.
43
These elements and desires summarized in four parts below
are entirely subjective. They are mine, and mine alone.

As a Character

Jodi Tilton was certainly a character as her raspy voice

and personality carried on far beyond her small body. Ar-
gumentative, sharp, punchy, and quick would all describe
her conversational style and how she interacted with the
world; yet within this she was unrelenting in her support
and love for her friends. Her social conscience intersected
with her love of craft and old typewriters, which in turn
intersected with unique sense of humor and her obses-
sion with bulldogs (she just couldn’t walk past one with-
out grabbing it in her arms). I find it difficult to imagine
a world that is constantly moving, bustling with activity,
lives continuing as they have – and all of this without such
an energetic and complex person such as Jodi in it.

As a Partner

Our hearts were both jagged edges, and this is where our
story began.

The spring after we met and just before her twenty-first

birthday, the two of us headed to Philadelphia on what we
jokingly called our ‘Philly Vegan Fatness Tour 2005’. We
wanted to eat as much vegan food as possible and ended
44
up at six restaurants in just two days where we began, of
course, with an all-you-can-eat joint. The stated purpose
-- really the excuse -- was to see the Salvatore Dali exhibit
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

We wandered the exhibit for hours, talking, sitting in front

of one painting before moving on to another, and stopped
for a while to figure out what subject a particular gentle-
men in his old blazer walking the exhibit with us taught.
We seemed to go on more tangents then we had discussions
of the paintings, causing us nearly half a day to complete
the exhibit.

I still remember when we got to the hotel that night, af-

ter eating our way around Philadelphia and walking for
hours through the exhibit and city streets. Tired and with
full bellies, all we could do was lay there with our stom-
achs pointing toward the ceiling and laugh about the day’s
events until we were both fast asleep. It is in these mo-
ments, insignificant as they may sound, that we found our-
selves and found something that we loved deep within each
other.

Ours was a relationship, a partnership without the bound-

aries that are normally used to define the time two people
spend together. The time that we were friends and then
the time that we were lovers often greeted each other. At
other times, those frenzied and special times, we were in-
tensely both.

45
Even when we continued our relationship clandestinely we
would rendezvous at Prospect Park, on the hill behind the
ball fields. We would picnic and while we would always
meet with our bikes, we rarely rode. It seemed that we al-
ways got lost in conversation and it would be dark before
we wheeled our bikes home. It is in these moments as the
sun went down, with that look that she would give me,
that those jagged edges found their counterparts and fit
together.

As a Friend

There was a letter I was always writing to Jodi. She knew

of it, and I would at times reluctantly take a moment to
share part of it with her. I never felt that it was ready, that
the words were just right, or that the moment had come.
She never got to read this letter, which stands as a nearly
unbearable regret.

But this letter is in some senses is not a letter at all, but

rather a metaphor. A metaphor for the simple act that we
all seem unable to do: the act of telling someone what they
mean to us and how, why and in what ways we love them.

Since we met, Jodi has been a constant companion, an insti-

gator of all kinds of excursions and adventures, and a daily
presence in my life. The intensity of these interactions, of
our conversations, debates, and activities, along with her
quick wit, was something that I enjoyed immensely.
46
She made all sorts of faces. The ‘many looks of Jodi Tilton’
I would call them, and it didn’t take me long to figure out
what each one meant. I could almost read her thoughts
by the look she would give me. She would squint her eyes
whenever she found something amusing, and twist her
nose to one side when she was annoyed. But there was this
one, a quick one, where she was almost questioning you,
before she laughed and for the past year that one has been
my favorite. She knew that I would say anything to see it.

There was this way her head rested on my shoulder -- it

was very distinct -- as she almost wanted it not to be at
rest. She was always restless, always unable to sit at home
and not go out into the day, or not be involved in some
project, activity, or outing (potlucks with her friends being
among her favorite).

One would be challenged to find someone who cared for

or thought more about her friends than Jodi. She was an
immensely emotional person and she developed strong
emotional ties to those around her. The esteem she held
for those in her life, the thought she put into everything
from conversations to gifts, and the love she had for all her
friends could never be returned in full.

Our friendship grew because we were old souls, as Jodi

would say. We even dressed as old versions of ourselves one
Halloween, she was ‘old Ma’ Tilton’ and I can still imagine
her years from now sitting in a rocking chair looking very
much the same.
47
This letter is a ‘weapon against forgetting’ (though I know
that I will never forget her); against forgetting those nights
when she was sick and we would lay in bed with her hold
my arm until she fell asleep; against forgetting those short
phone calls we would have every morning (and periodically
continue late into the night) at times laughing, at others
bickering on some silly point. This is a ‘weapon against for-
getting’, as simple as it sounds, how much our friendship
was part of my everyday life and how I don’t know how I
will live without it.

If she could hear me now all I would say is this: I love you
dearly, and I will never say goodbye.

As a Life in the World

This sketch, story, and letter are not examples for their
own right, but rather elements of a life – a life that needs
to be carried out into the world. Each of us carries these el-
ements of Jodi with us: some of us as a character, others a
partner, all of us as friends. The task before us is to figure
out how the moments we have shared with Jodi and the el-
ements of her sketched here exist in our own lives. How do
they change us? How do we continue to live with her dur-
ing the course of our lives? How do we challenge ourselves,
and each other, around these elements and give a life to
them? How do these moments we share with Jodi become
part of our ‘forever’? How do we live like Jodi did; how do
48
we come to the world to challenge it and change it?

We often wonder how to construct a better world; one more

just, beautiful, and whole than the one we now inhabit. I
have but one suggestion to address this: to construct a bet-
ter world we simply need more ‘lives’ like Jodi’s to overflow
into and through it.

49
 Weapons Against Forgetting:
An Open Letter Among Friends On the
Year Anniversary of Jodi Tilton’s Passing
into the Unknown

The world has lost one of those women it required. [We

have] lost one of the combative women [we] need and we, we
have lost a piece of our heart.
- Subcomandante Marcos on the death of Comandante
Ramona, a Zapatista leader.

I walk through the endless, solitary corridors where even my

heartbeats echo, and it seems that I am walking the wrong
way on a moving sidewalk. I am not moving forward, I am
always in the same place, more and more exhausted. As I
walk, I am whispering magic formulas of my own inven-
tion, and the closer I get to the building, to the long corridor
of lost steps, to your room, to your bed, the more tightly my
chest squeezes with anguish.
- Isabel Allende, Paula

Kevin Van Meter

July 21, 2008
50
A year ago today I walked down the long corridor of lost
steps, entered her room, and held her hand as she passed
into the unknown. Isabel Allende aptly describes this mo-
ment and all of those that would follow for the next six
days just as I experienced it; her daughter Paula slipped
into a coma as did Jodi, and neither of them awakened.

How do I write to you of this immeasurable loss, of a col-

lective loss, as it is not mine but ours? This entire last year
has been immeasurable: of her personality and persever-
ance in facing an insidious illness, of her passing and the
corridor of lost steps, of our mourning against our grief, of
our collective memories, of a world without her. In conflict
with this undertaking are countless moments I cannot es-
cape; here what becomes immeasurable is the passage of
time (as I feel that I have lost the last year of my life).

In writing to you of this immeasurable loss I am in exo-

dus from my grief and seeking to participate in the social
process of mourning, as we reach for each other as this an-
niversary approaches. This narrative is my contribution
to the project of remembering her life, mine, ours together,
and the community that surround us both; in which, in
different ways, we are all engaged. By extension and in
requiring Jodi Tilton, I attempt to address who she was
becoming, begin to map a collective memory and describe
memory as a weapon, and discuss how we carry her into
the world – as she was one of those women that the world
requires.

51
These memories and thoughts summarized in four parts
below are entirely subjective. They are mine and mine
alone.

Becoming Jodi Tilton: A Life

Jodi had a voice that would occupy space, one that would
leave the corners of her mouth and wander along the edges
of a room. This would surprise anyone encountering her for
the first time: that such a bellow – that such sharp wit and
clear notions – would arise from her short stature. Jodi
Tilton occupied a different frequency, a positive nature, a
depth, and a conversational ability tied to a subtle shyness.
As she breathed in she brought the world in with her.

I was a witness to the development of this voice, as it grew

in strength considerably during the three years between
our first meeting and her passing. Jodi was always en-
gaged in a process of becoming: becoming an activist, a
feminist, a thinker, an independent person, becoming oth-
er in a constant process of learning and growth.

I rarely noticed a learning curve with Jodi. Where others

would take some time to acclimate themselves to organiz-
ing projects or participating in discourses, Jodi always
seemed to have a grasp of the tasks that needed to be done
and the political ideas that informed them, knowing them
almost intuitively. What I loved most about Jodi was her
desire to learn; to be an avid reader; to become other than
52
she was; to engage in the world through craft, art, politics,
bikes, or collecting Underwood Typewriters; and her more
recent obsession, antique stools.

In so many ways she had so much life still left to live. What
she was becoming can only be suggested by looking at her
recent developments and accomplishments: graduating
college, learning to love biking, becoming ‘political,’ devel-
oping new friendships, obtaining her first apartment and
a full time position. She was finding her way through this
life until illness cut it short. Though there were times that
her illness caused her great distress and discomfort, she
would not allow it to prevent her from participating in the
life activities that she enjoyed.

Becoming requires contact, activities, emotional and physi-

cal flows; it requires something more then just statements,
something measurable and substantial. It requires one to
act; and what the person she was becoming deserves is our
actions, our becoming other through our contact with her
life and in addressing the immeasurable loss her passing
has created in our lives.

“I didn’t want to give you up to the day”

One morning after an intense weekend of endless conver-

sations and amorous moments together, I wrote this line to
Jodi. She had left my Brooklyn apartment before I awoke
to attend class. By the time I realized she was gone the day
53
had taken her from me, and I wanted to reach out to em-
brace her, to not let her go, to continue that endless flows of
our lives into one another’s. This reach, with its accompa-
nying outstretched arms, hands and desires, was constant
between us: from the moment we met, until it was stolen
from us that evening I held her hand and she passed into
the unknown.

Jodi and I met on the 8th of December, 2004 when a mu-

tual friend brought her along to a workshop I was giving.
From this initial encounter she pursued me by initiating
first contact and then making plans for us to get together.
On our first date we discovered our mutual love for bad
movies, bad diner food and that we both had tattoos of la-
dybugs.

Many “couples,” a term I dislike, have this obsession with

returning to those first few months together or some awk-
ward meeting that is overcome later in the relationship.
Jodi and I never returned to those moments as some his-
torical or pure state, but rather would bring the moments
we shared into the moments we were experiencing as a
way of enriching and intensifying them. Of course, this
doesn’t mean that our relationship was without discord,
the intensity of our desires for one another intertwined in
both affection and conflict.

Unlike any relationship I’ve had before, Jodi not only

loved me for who I am or appear to be, but rather for who
I was becoming. This is an important distinction, as Jodi
54
was able to see that process of growth, need to learn and
development deep inside, which she, in turn, shared. She
would grab my arm, almost to shake me, frustrated that I
allowed certain blockages and past experiences to limit my
development. And she knew how passionately I felt for her,
and it would bother her that there were points where I was
unable to access this consistently and actively.

During those last few months as Jodi’s illness worsened

we grew closer as a new form of relationship developed
between us, that of care. Jodi was a very proud and inde-
pendent woman and would allow very few people to see
her when her flare-ups were at their worst. It was because
of those deep desires for one another that we were able
to construct this relationship of care, and it was for this
reason that she would allow me to see her in this condition
– to lay next to her as she held my arm in the attempt to
steady herself before falling asleep.

We “turned in the night, consumed by fire.” Ours was a

love story not because it was perfect, but because under-
lying our actions, activities and affects was a wellspring
of endless and uncompromising desire for one another. I
know how she felt for me from those loving looks she would
give me, one of the many faces of Jodi Tilton; and I, in turn,
was unable to keep my hands from hers.

Everyday since her passing I return to that morning when

I didn’t want to give her up to the day. I still reach for that
warm spot beside me that she would occupy, for those mo-
55
ments when we made love out of doors, drank too much
Chamomile tea, cooked an elaborate meal together, wan-
dered the city streets hand in hand in search of vegan
sweets, and met clandestinely for a picnics in Prospect
Park. I still see her every time I close my eyes and I em-
body those faces that she would make, inhabit those smiles
and loving looks she would give me. I know what she was
saying with those eyes. She had endless faces and I know
what each one meant. But without her there is this great
silence. Out of the silence, there comes a scream.

“Hang on to Each Other”

Jodi Tilton was an intense and loving person to those

around her, and she developed substantive and meaning-
ful friendships with those in her life. Often the welfare of
her friends, a gift for an upcoming occasion, a mix-tape to
share a notion, was foremost on her mind. This sense of
creating friendships through meaningful activity and ex-
pression is far too unique, and was a constant in her life.
This was paired with an amazing ability to forgive and un-
derstand those she had affection for, at times to a fault.
The richness of all the flows she mobilized in her life and
the affects created in her friends lives, were quite remark-
able.

Quite often Jodi would organize a dinner party or potluck

to mark some occasion in a friend’s life or to gather those
she cared for around her. These events took weeks to plan:
56
from putting out a communiqué, to developing themes, to
cooking the day of and making sure everyone had eaten
and got rightfully drunk. As an extension of her affection
for those in her life these meals were quite elaborate, and
were part of networking and strengthening relationships.

Jodi and I shared an intense friendship. We went on regu-

lar bike rides, cooked lavish meals, planned dinner parties
for friends, attended lectures, wandered museums, went
on excursions to Vermont, Boston and Philadelphia, and
partook in all shorts of adventures. From the moments we
shared emerged a common project and activities, and this
in turn intersected with a community that surrounded us
both. This became clear in the outpouring of support that
took place that week in the hospital, among the trees in
Prospect Park when her friends created moments with her
memories, and in the impossible mourning that has fol-
lowed.

The intensity of Jodi’s friendships and interactions contin-

ues after her passing only in our activities, our collective
memory, our lives, loves and friendships. We must “hang
on to each other” during these moments of grief, find ways
through this with our mourning, and carry those elements
of her into the world.

Weapons Against Forgetting

Memory, as with desire, can connect to other memories in

57
the world; thus engaging with Jodi’s memory becomes a
social project and political struggle against forgetting. This
is not to be found in god nor in the back of books nor the
passage of time. This is located in acts, in the event, de-
ployment of desire, the initiating flows, they emerge from
activity, and from becoming other then ourselves in the
process of carrying her into the world.

Memories and The Commons

During this past year we all have been engaged in the pro-
cess of creating collective memories in our discussions, ac-
tions and projects. The relationships at the core of these
undertakings don’t just construct a collective memory of
Jodi’s life through their initiatives, but result in an im-
portant development themselves: that of a commons, a set
of relationships defined by mutual aid, self-activity, and
solidarity.

Herein: I republished a cookbook I had put together for

Jodi to share our recipes with friends and have written on
the political aspects of care, death and mourning; a close
friend of Jodi’s had DIY artist Cristy Road produce a ren-
dition of her to be made into posters which now hang on
all her friends walls; memorial dinner parties have been
held; those in New York celebrated her birthday has we all
had the year earlier with a picnic in Prospect Park; a num-
ber of us have gathered to talk about the process of grief;
and it seems our future political projects are awash with a
new politics of care and her presence. Additionally, there
is the upcoming The Big She-Bang organized in her spirit,
58
a biographical zine and other writings will appear shortly.
Much of this important work has taken place in interper-
sonal conversations, moments of support, and in so many
ways I don’t know how I would have lived through this last
year without those in the community that surrounds us.

Memories carry emotional and physical codes, these codes

are the elements of Jodi’s life and can be deployed in our
own lives. Here my purpose is to amplify, coordinate, and
deploy memories so that they may connect with other
memories in the world. These collective projects of memory
are part of the larger undertaking of carrying Jodi Tilton
into the world, of becoming other through these actions,
and of constructing weapons against forgetting.

Weapons Against Forgetting

Documenting memories themselves are important to re-
membering someone you love after they have passed into
the unknown, but “weapons against forgetting” are memo-
ries with a specific use, they are codes with specific func-
tions.

This is not a fear about forgetting her; it’s a fear of not

being engaged with a process of remembering. Here we be-
come involved in a process of collectivizing grief, hence of
mourning against grief, and of engaging in battle; yes, this
too this is a war.

Our self-activity and solidarity has limits: we can create

depositories of memories and events that bring the spirit
59
of Jodi Tilton into our own lives; we can form projects that
address caring for those of us who are ill, address mental
health and grief, and seek to engage with our own repro-
duction – but these all have points in which they come into
conflict with capital and the state-apparatus, with life as it
is currently constructed.

At these points we wield our weapons against forgetting:

when we were forced to return to work before we were able,
when we see forms of oppression stealing our voices and
the voices of those around us, when we cannot build loving
partnerships and relationships, when we cannot make col-
lective decisions over our own lives, when we cannot care
for one another in meaningful ways, when we aren’t able
to mourn in collective ways against our individual grief,
when we don’t have the resources to reproduce ourselves
and create substantive lives. At these points, at the limits
of our own self-activity, we must begin to struggle for new
forms of life and a new world.

Memories of Jodi Tilton, of who she was becoming, of her

struggles and the form of life she sought to live provide
those emotional and physical codes for our collective un-
dertakings and weapons for our struggles. Jodi Tilton was
one of those women the world required; and
we require her in this new world we are
creating!

60
 Katie Wadkins from the Big-She Bang

Honestly, I am quite nervous to speak about Jodi. I have

chosen to share with you my experience with Jodi in its
reality, with hesitation. But if there is one thing that Jodi
taught me, it was to be real and honest.

Jodi Tilton entered my life during a time of change and

growth. I met her through mutual Wantagh friends, whom
I had met through the Long Island D.I.Y. music and activ-
ist community. We inhabited the same community, though
it is common that folks weave in and out of this kind of
thing. I could not have imagined the impact Jodi would
have on my life. Jodi remained an acquaintance of mine
until she joined the Womyn’s Collective in 2005.

Even as an acquaintance, I was well aware of Jodi’s craft-

ing skills. At the first She-Bang, Jodi and Christine tabled
with their crafts under the moniker Cut Along Fold. I spent
many days in Christine’s basement, rummaging through
the gorgeous crafts they created together. Once involved
with the Womyn’s Collective, I would hear from Jodi con-
stantly. She was an outspoken girl, making all of her cre-
ative and political ideas known, as well as her gripes with
61
projects at hand. However, her gripes never quite seemed
that - any issues Jodi had always presented themselves as
sarcastic quips that left the group tearing with laughter, or
organized actions intended to reconcile a difference.

Jodi was a total organizing force. She made sure everyone

got to meetings (often driving myself and other women out
to Ronkonkoma), she always had something to bring up or
work on. Nary a meeting went by without getting something
done. It’s hard to say what her importance was, because
it was prevalent through everything that we did together.
She was totally organized and motivated. Jodi contributed
her artistic and crafty talents as well as her professional
way of taking care of business. Not only did she keep us on
track, but she took care of nitty gritty things, like appeal-
ing to donors, keeping in touch with speakers and perform-
ers, and staying on top of finances.

Working along side Jodi was a privilege and an experience.

It was real proof that people can create change, it was evi-
dence of someone with the drive and dedication to make
things happen. My peers at that time, specifically my new
female cohorts Jodi and Beth, consistently inspired me, ex-
emplifying what I wanted feminist change to look like.

Jodi was a positive force. She was a charming, hilarious,

smart, fervent, sassy girl. When she was having a hard
time, she was honest about it. We were able to have real
conversations and real connections. I have always admired
this quality in her. Her character contributed as much to
62
the collective as her hard work, dedication, and extreme
organization did. I have never met someone so dedicated
to so many things at one time. Jodi’s ability to organize for
feminist and sociopolitical struggle, to cook delicious treats
and craft like crazy, to make all of these things relevant in
her work, was so amazing. More importantly, Jodi’s poli-
tics shined through in her personality, as she was one of
the most generous and caring souls I’ve known.

I have never experienced such a loss in my life until Jodi,

and as it was felt personally, it was felt communally. It
seems that we all have been careful with each other since.
We have done our best to create real, healthy support for
each other. This has been inspiring, this has created hope.
I just miss her. We just miss her.

It felt necessary and urgent for me to organize The Big

She-Bang with these other women in Jodi’s spirit this year.
Inspired by all of her hard work and dedication, inspired
by her personal legacy, I intended to do what she would
do. If she were here, she would be organizing at our sides.
Furiously. I am sure we would have Beth on the phone in
Tucson, and we’d be sending the 10-15 e-mails that often
go out per day for the event planning. With Jodi in mind,
it feels necessary and urgent to continue this
feminist work, to continue these important
discussions on community and illness and
loss. It feels necessary and urgent to live as
Jodi taught me; passionately and with in-
tent.
63
 Beth Puma:
Publicly Grieving & Two Excerpts

Publicly Grieving

Unlike many others in my age bracket, I am not a com-

pulsive public blogger, constantly posting pictures, and
other web related ways of convincing yourself of your self
worth. At least not since my late teens anyway. However,
I occasionally put write something for a blog, post a bul-
letin, or throw up a new set of pictures mostly to commu-
nicate to friends over great distances. In some ways I am
an intensely private person keeping pieces of myself only
open to a very select group of close friends, and even other
pieces only for me. However, in someways I need to grieve
publically over Jodi’s death. I needed to let people know
that despite the “back to business” tactic that the systems
that govern us demand, I still was not alright. I needed to
let people know that despite me working relentlesslly to
serve as an alli and emotional support, that I still was not
alright. This type of public honesty is not my strongest
suit. Choosing the medium of blogging however allowed
the public to converge with the protection. Maybe nobody
ever read these pieces (until now) and maybe people did;
64
but I needed to expel the grief of losing Jodi to the world

Excerpts from My Personal Blog

These two entries are from a blog entry I wrote on Mys-

pace. The first entry is me wrestling with the idea that six
months after her death, some had stopped talking about
Jodi, when her passing still encompassed many of my day
to day actions. The second was a public letter, but really
addressed to Jodi. Perhaps she is still compusively check-
ing her email and mysapce from the great beyond.

January 12, 2008

It was said that people would stop talking about her....as
a way of dealing with it all. I have seen it happen, as time
erodes july (the euphamism that I use for Jodi’s death)
from the forefront of their brains. I understand it. I do. But
it doesn’t mean I have to accept it. Because I still think of
her everyday. In my happiest and sad moments.

I think of her when I am crafting late into the night (work-

ing hard on making my new year’s resolution not stupid)
and I have a construction question, about the treble stitch
or how to alter something.

I think of her when I go to call Joanne from work or Jeff for

a drink. She sits there nestled between them in my phone.
Part of me knows that her phone line must be disconnect-
ed, but I keep her there anyway.

65
I think of her when I went for blood Thursday, for some
health things I am trying to iron out. My arm on the chair,
the nurse tying that smelly rubber band around me to
watch my veins come to the surface. This moment will for-
ever remind me of my last days with Jodi. I remember so
vividly one Friday night while she was in the hospital. It
had to be 11 o clock at night, visiting hours long over, but
nobody seemed to mind. I sat with my mask on (they still
thought we had to wear masks at that point) as a tiny preg-
nant nurse tried to replace her IV. She kept saying “such
tiny veins....I wish I could give you one of mine.” I remem-
ber telling her, you could have one of mine too....look how
fat they are. So when my nurse on Thursday said, oh you
have large veins...it just reaffirms what I said to her that
night.

I thought of her last night when I went to see Each Other’s

Mothers at Matchless last night. I remember the Friday
night before she died walking to see a friend for her birth-
day at Enids. I remember walking up driggs on the side of
the park. I stopped to talk to sit on a bench at the edge of
McCarren to call Conor. I very specifically remember sit-
ting on that bench, looking up at the Brooklyn summer
night sky. I remember telling him I was going to cancel my
plan to come to Arizona if she wasn’t out of the hospital
by Monday. I just didn’t want to leave her sitting there by
herself. He said he would come out too. And then he said
something like “I am really afraid she is going to die”....I
remember getting mad at him for even saying it, because
97% of me wouldn’t even entertain the idea. This was all
66
routine right? The next day she had the seizure.....

At matchless it was the same bartender that Jodi had con-

vinced to give like six rounds of free shots to at my Cel-
ebrate the End of School Year fiesta. I kinda wanted to
shake his hand just because.....but that would have been
crazy. It was a little ridiculous how your senses are so at-
tached to your memory center in your brain. I remember
the whiskey on my esophogus, I remember the copper (or
some metal) bar on my fingertips, I remember the big door
knocker earings I was wearing. I remember her laugh.

Documenting A Womyn’s Life

This was a piece I orginally wrote in July 2007 conjacent
to co-autoring the autobiography I wrote with Craig, which
is also featured in this compilation. The blog is written
about different experiences from a group of womyn I went
to college with. In writing this blog I was quite literally
S procrastinating from the writing Jodi’s biography; our
personal deadlines were already past due. But I needed to
take a break. I presented this with a minimal edits.

I am co-authoring a biography on a womyn named Jodi Til-

ton. She passed away, almost exactly a year ago. And she
wasn’t just anybody, she was one of my best friends both
in life and organizing. So in a lot of way’s I am chronicling
a fallen comrade.

How do you document the life of someone who by HIStory’s

accord was nothing spectacular? She didn’t cure cancer
67
or event a bomb or start a war or something. She didn’t
slaughter anybody, although she often joked of filling a tote
bag full of nails and screws and beating her boss with it.

By HERstory’s measure she was nothing SHORT of spec-

tacular. She lived a life full of sincerity and integrity. She
was always excited about a friend’s new endeavor-even
the shitty band you were in-and there were so many shitty
bands. She was the kind of person who sent post cards for
fun; not the kind you buy but the kind she hand stamped
herself. She was the kind of organizer who actually has her
shit together and returns emails. She would get to an event
at Long Island Freespace to set up, stay late to clean up.
She would eat a huge piece of cake with me and complain
about how the other vegan cake shop had bigger slices. She
would jump into a bar alongside theLIRR for a quick shot.

There are other things I am having trouble documenting.

She had a chronic illness. How do you write about how that
impacted her life EVERY SINGLE DAY without victim-
izing her. Because she was no victim to ulcerative colitis.
She was PISSED about it, and would let you know, but in
so many ways, until the last months of her life she was in
charge.

How do you chronicle the complicated love affairs. The re-

ally shitty ones that were disempowering and made her
feel stupid? They shaped her too. How do you document
the happier, fluid loves that still contained a dynamic I
still might not understand?
68
How do I document a womyn’s life? All the beauty? All the
sadness? All the laughter? All the of the body’s pleasures
and failures?

It ain’t easy. Especially not Jodi Tilton’s, my friends.

69
 Craig-Jesse Hughes:
Others Parts of That Week

I sat in that dusty, gross archive scrambling to finish all

the work I’d been doing. Most of my summer was spent in
Portland, Oregon – interning at a local space for homeless
youth and archiving in the local radical library.

4pm: Conor called to say that Jodi had seized; it was time
to fly back home to New York.

I left the archives, biked back to my apartment and began

to walk over to Mandy’s house.

7pm: Beth called me to tell me they had induced a coma.

I didn’t understand. I didn’t get it.

I repeated it in my head several times over:

“they induced a coma, they induced a coma, they induced
a coma.”

I still didn’t get it.

70
I thought back to the years I worked in an Emergency
Room and tried to remember what that process looked like.
Being 3,000 miles away made me feel helpless, but it also
made me feel unaware.

I had talked to Jodi just the day prior. She said she felt
better.

12am: Kevin: “Are you awake?”

Me: “Huh? What?”
Kevin: “Wake up”.
Me: “I’m awake, what’s going on?”
Kevin: “Jodi’s mother just called me… I’m going to
the hospital now.”

Jodi had a head bleed.

I stared at the white ceiling.

1AM: Kevin: “The doctor says the surgery went well.”

2AM: Kevin: “They’re giving her an hour or two to live.”

I stared at the white ceiling.

I called Brenna: no answer. I called Mike: no answer. I

went out to Mandy’s balcony and smoked a cigarette.

I called my mother. I called Jenn. Aside from relaying the

base details, what could be said?

71
I got back into bed. I stared at the white ceiling.

630AM: Ben: “Jodi has slipped into a non-induced coma.

They don’t know if she’ll wake up, and if she does she’ll
have serious brain damage.”

Kevin and Brian met me at the airport in New York hours

later. We went straight to the hospital.

I hugged Conor. I hugged anyone that I knew within arms

reach.

Nothing seemed accurate during the days I spent at the

hospital, even staring at her. And that’s all I could do when
I first saw her: stare. The entirety of that week was a bal-
ance between tragedy, exhaustion, support and staring.

I had been introduced to Jodi through her involvement

with the Long Island Freespace Project, which I’d been
involved with, in different capacities, for most of its five-
year existence. Freespace was an arts and activism center
on Long Island, and the core-group of people that ran its
different functions formed a community that I’ve come to
consider my chosen-family.

During the two years between our initial meeting and her
death, Jodi had become a regular in my life due to her close
relations with my closest friends. We had only become clos-
er friends in the months before her death.

72
It’s nearly a month since she passed. Her death strikes me
intermittently. I’ll wake up feeling an awkward loneliness;
an overwhelming and acute sadness that Jodi isn’t waking
up that day as well. It feels like a shot of emptiness and
then it disappears.

It’ll hit me when walking through the train station termi-

nal. It’ll hit me when I double take after seeing someone
who looks like her.

I feel sad, and I feel angry. She had just turned 23.

Without submitting another cliché post-mortem compli-

ment, I feel the urgency to say that Jodi was a full-hearted,
honest, generous and caring person. She was admirable.
And we were all lucky to have bonds with her.

Coupled with the shock of Jodi’s loss, even in its non-com-

prehension, was a feeling of “community” that I hadn’t felt
in a few years. Some of us talked about that feeling during
the time we spent in the hospital together. And afterward
we talked about the loneliness we felt when we were apart,
both from Jodi and from each other.

Things are so naked now.

Paul had mentioned feeling this very serious sense of lone-

liness, which was less evident when we were all together
in the hospital. Beth had a similar feeling. So did Ben. So
did Bryan.
73
I asked Paul to tell me what he thought the difference was:
why did this loneliness develop? After all, the same people
who I was with during those moments in the hospital were
the same people I’d call if I needed a shoulder to cry on.

Paul wasn’t sure. Neither was I. I’ve been mulling it over

for weeks now.

Some of the deepest and intensely acute loneliness I’ve dealt

with have been through the worst periods of my mother’s
illness. Or, during the moments when my anxiety peaks
and I don’t feel I can relate to anyone, and I abandon the
phone with the exception of brief catch-up sessions. There
was a lot of that in recent months.

So sometimes I run away to try and evade things, or give

myself a new environment to figure things – and myself –
out. I run to places like Portland, Oregon. The last time I
saw Jodi was the night I left for Portland. She, Ben, Kevin
and I met for dinner. She was late because her boss was an
asshole. The next time I saw her was when I arrived at the
hospital, straight from my flight back from Portland. She
was breathing then, but I would never talk to her again.

Aside from long-term relationships with family, friends

and comrades, I’ve only truly felt the feeling of “commu-
nity” in its best and most acute sense a few times during
my life. In recent years the two clearest times that I’ve
felt part of a living, breathing, active and overwhelmingly
74
positive and functioning “community” were immersed in
tragedy: Conor’s trial and Jodi’s hospitalization.

Conor had been targeted by the government for his activist

work: in 2001 he was framed as a “leader” of an ELF cell
that he had nothing to do with. His trial took two weeks
in 2003. Each day the court-room filled with an increasing
number of people present to support him. It was during
Conor’s trial that many of us who had been involved in
radical agitation on Long Island in the preceding five years
finally realized the depth of the bonds we had built. These
relations were evinced through consistent emotional sup-
port, an overwhelming sense and feeling of solidarity and
the obvious reality that Conor was not alone; that none of
us were.

Following Jodi’s death, for the first time since she had
passed, Conor emailed some of us who had been through
the previous week together. One of his statements really
stuck with me: “…all of us together remind me that another
world is indeed possible. In our best moments we carry its
image on our shoulders, sometimes like a victorious friend
aloft and sometimes like a dear dead friend.”

Jodi had become part of the Freespace community late

in the game. But she rapidly integrated herself. And the
bonds she built with others in context of Freespace, and
then afterward, were deep. They were based in love, libera-
tion and struggle. I share bonds with some of those same
people. They’re the bonds that I rely on, even when I go
75
months without seeing or talking to some of those folks.
This was a community that Jodi helped – at times strug-
gled – to keep together during the previous two years.

I’ve tried to reconcile the questions I have with my feelings

of community during Conor’s trial and Jodi’s death. These
were moments when I felt strong because I knew, at the
deepest level I’ve ever known, that people could be truly
admirable, heroic and beautiful. And they were some of the
moments when tragedy was clearest to me.

I think these feelings that I experienced, and that the oth-

ers I mentioned also felt, are the most important parts of
revolutionary activity. They are real feeling of solidarity
– composed of the physical and emotional togetherness
that develops during times when individuals are allowed
to count on each other without pretensions, commodity or
monetary-exchanges; simply to cope and move forward to-
gether with confidence in each other, and overcome even
brutal obstacles.

My day-to-day is a struggle to remember and maintain

clarity on these feelings, because monetary-exchanges,
wage-labor, and the alienation that develops under capi-
talism do everything they can to keep me from it.

Conor ended the email he sent with another statement: “I

would do anything for any of you. Don’t forget it, and don’t
let me forget it.”

76
We had all forgotten it, to some degree, since his trial.
The tragedy of Jodi’s death helped us all to remember the
real, tangible parts of the community that she’d become so
intertwined within – what it was capable of, and what it
meant to us. That community is something Jodi believed
in and practiced all along: even when many of us, myself
included, became overwhelmed, became petty, forgot, or let
distance and time interrupt.

Jodi passed at the end of July. Her body is buried near

Levittown, New York – tragic on top of tragedy because
Jodi existed as an antithesis to the humdrum cookie-cutter
world of Levitt’s homogenous architecture and the mass-
production economy it was so crucial to.

We’re left with her memory and the inspiration and cre-
ativity she left us. But we’re also left with the reminder
that we need to build a new world, that it’s possible, but it
won’t be the boring old red and black – it’ll be flamboyant
colors, and sarcasm combined with “tote bags filled with
nails” for dealing the fucking assholes. It won’t be made
up of rigid ideologies, but of radical solidarities, practical
and sustained forms of friendship and communities that go
beyond mere rhetoric.

I miss you, Jodi.

77
 Conor Cash: Reflection

I failed Jodi in more ways than I care to acknowledge. This

isn’t to say that I was cruel to her, but there was a degree of
negligence on my part that I’ve not admitted to. The fact is,
I was not as good a friend to her as she was to me. Sadder
still, she knew that and loved me in spite of it. Most of the
people in Jodi’s life fell short in this way, some of whom I
love and have forgiven, and others who I’ll hate for it for a
long time to come.

She was already dead by the time I arrived in New York.

In fact, she had been dead since before I had purchased my
ticket to return. My motivation to leave Arizona, where I
was ensconced in my own mediocrity and stupid flailing
while she gradually lost her ability to speak and walk, was
a phone call from Kevin. He told me that she had begun
seizing and had lapsed into a coma. I am not a stupid per-
son- I knew what this meant, and left in a hurry regard-
less, feeling a responsibility to those who’d been on watch
during her convalescence.

I arrived at JFK during an ugly rainstorm, drenching my

shoes as I arrived at the hospital with my mother in tow.
78
She is a woman who at times seems eminently incompe-
tent- ‘spacey’ would be a good word to describe her. But she
becomes a tiger in a medical settings. She has been an RN
for 30 years of her life and a supervisory nurse for most of
those years- she is also a kind and empathic person, deal-
ing with the sick and the grieving with both native talent
and weathered experience. I served as her emissary, de-
livering her to Jodi’s friends to explain where things stood
and where they would go.

I did not get much time to sit beside her. Crying is diffi-
cult in the presence of others, and I wanted to sing for her,
something she would think was funny, maybe “Living on a
Prayer”, in the hopes that somewhere deep inside her brain
she would recognize the song, and some astral self would
laugh. Or “Turning Towards the Morning”, the chorus of
which is “oh my Joanie don’t you know/ that the stars are
swinging low/ and the seas are rolling easy as they did so
long ago/ and if I had a thing to give you/ I would tell you
one more time/ that the world is always turning towards
the morning.” Of course Joanie would become Jodi.

I wish that I had gotten there in time to sing those songs

to her, or that for a brief while I could have been her lover,
or her father or brother- that I could have held her and
rocked her and told her I loved her, rather than express
half-competent concern over the phone. This is a lesson
about being too late and giving too little, of being trapped
in the rigidity of a body and its way of relating to others. It
is a lesson about the tyranny of linear lives- how we prog-
79
ress from one point to the next at the expense of everything
else- the ability to comfort a dying friend, or even to be able
to cry over their passing.

After she was dead in the clinical sense, I shoved a young

man over a chair for arriving too late and for not giving
enough. I deserved that push as much as he did for all the
things I failed to give and the shortsightedness I permitted.
Maybe the lessons from this experience would have been
ingrained more deeply if they had been shocked, bruised
and burned into me- I I’d been properly shamed for the
inadequacy of my response to her illness and her death.

It has always been my inclination to make light of the bad

things in life, and if I could put my arms around that tiny
person one final time, I would do my best to make her laugh
darkly- to try and embrace the absurdity of death with her
as she slid under the waves of blood that submerged her
mind. If I had a thing to give her, I would tell her one more
time that the world is always turning towards the morn-
ing.

Jodi- I will miss you forever and love you for always. I will
do my best to learn from your example and from here out,
will join in the preservation of your memory.
There are things I would love to tell you, some
that you would find disappointing, others that
would make you proud, and I would hope, all
of which would make you laugh. Life isn’t the
same without you, and that’s only fair.
80
 Paul Cash: The Playground

It started when I fell asleep on my father’s couch some

weeks after Jodi passed. I had been working an overnight
shift at an assisted living home on the weekend and I
decided to spend some time at my father’s apartment in
eastern Long Island on my day off. We had made dinner
and watched some television before he headed to bed. I sat
down on the couch and after a few moments had drifted
into sleep.

I found myself in a park with the sun shining and a warm

breeze blowing past me. I felt someone holding my hand.
I realized then it was Jodi. Holding her other hand was
Beth, my partner and best friend. As we walked through
the park others joined us. The faces of Jodi’s friends were
all smiling as they came to us; everyone seemed very in-
tent on making sure she reached her destination safely. In
the distance I saw a playground. Waiting in front of it was
Conor, Jodi’s best friend. Everyone stopped at that mo-
ment and only Jodi began walking towards Conor. When
she reached him he lifted her up towards the sun and for
a moment we were all blinded as we watched her. When
she was returned to the ground it wasn’t Jodi as we knew
81
her. She was a child again. She looked at us and smiled. I
knew that Jodi was going to enter the playground and nev-
er have to feel the pain of her crohn’s colitis again. I also
knew we would never see again, but somehow our joy over
the easing of her pain overcame any sadness I might have
felt. Beth held me as we looked towards the playground
feeling only the warmth of this sunny day.

My father’s lapsed Catholicism takes hold of me some-

times, despite how much I try to fight it. Not the guilt or
intolerance I remember from the few times I found myself
in church. Not the threat of damnation and pain for those
who didn’t follow. Rather the promise of suffering ending:
the hope of finally reaching a place where this life couldn’t
hurt you anymore. There are moments when the realiza-
tion that I never told Jodi how much I loved her consumes
me. I never took the time to let her know that her friend-
ship with my partner Beth filled me with a sense of comfort
that I haven’t felt since her passing. Jodi’s love of Beth and
devotion to her will forever be the standard that I have to
try to live up to. I never had the strength to tell her that.

It is in the moments that this hurts the most that I let my
father’s belief in something greater comfort me, if only for
a moment. I can see the dream of Jodi walking towards a
playground as a child as some kind of sign that the pain is
truly behind her. There is no conflict for me in doing this,
even as someone who gave up on faith a long time ago.
I don’t know if I deserve to meet her on that playground
when my time comes. Hoping she might be there, enjoying
82
herself the way only a child could comfort me. Sometimes
that’s enough.

83
Additional Projects in
Memory of Jodi Tilton
Jodi Tilton: A Biography
A collective biography of Long Island
Womyn’s Collective member and dear
friend Jodi Tilton. Friends and fam-
ily share stories, memories, and the
history of her life as a way to explore
and document what she meant to her
community, and to keep her memory
alive. From her love of vegan sweets
to balancing her first ”grown up job”
with her devotion to feminist organiz-
ing, the zine represents a space where
the reader can visit and celebrate
what made Jodi so special.

Cooking With Ole Ma’ Tilton:

Cookbook & Cooking Journal
This humble collection contains some
of the illustrious Jodi Tilton’s favorite
recipes with a sampling of ideas con-
tributed by Jodi’s friends, and a few
from other sources. Initially printed
for Jodi’s personal use during the
winter of 2005, the second expanded
edition includes a few new recipes,
photos, and a new forward.

to obtain a print copy contact

oneofthewomyn@warmachines.info or
visit warmachines.info online versions
84
 Jodi Tilton,
One of the Womyn
the World Requires:
Collected Writings & Memories

This is a written testimony of the

grieving process. It is a document meant
to remind us of her life and what she
meant us as the wrinkles of time fade
into our lives; it is a document meant
to comfort the memory of her passing. In
ÉÌÄ κ¶Çȁ ¶ÃÎ ÌǾɾüÈ ¶Ã¹ Ǻijº¸É¾ÄÃÈ
have come forth for various projects
and events from those who loved her. In
two years, we as friends to Jodi Tilton
have returned to work, school, and our
daily routines but the frustrations of a
society and system, which that does not

Jodi Tilton
allow ones own to grieve, still burns our
hearts. As a response we offer this to

One of the Womyn the World

you, as an act of care.

- From the Introduction

Requires
warmachines.info spring 2 0 0 9
Collected Writings & Memories