My name is Zoë Aurora Grimes . I am trying to regain my autonomy and rebuild after losing everything. I spent four years full-time as the Head Librarian at the Lizard Tree Library in Slab City. I was even in the New York Times. This past Christmas Eve I went grocery shopping for a special holiday dinner with my campmate/best friend and some other locals. When I walked into our kitchen with groceries, I found my best friend murdered . He was my security, my only campmate, the one who helped me feel safe at night. I love him and I miss him deeply still .

For those who don’t know, Slab City is an off-grid squatter community, inhabited by veterans, dreamers, artists, average folks and so many others. As Librarian I worked 6 or more days a week, year-round, mostly by myself, sometimes for no compensation at all. I lived on-site in a bus I converted with my own hands, in an environment that can get up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer (and that’s in the shade). I curated donations not just of books but clothes, food, sanitation equipment, water and harm reduction supplies, providing them free to the Slab City community and anyone else in need. I essentially operated as an unofficial social worker, and while many wonderful patrons donated to me, I never made even a quarter of minimum wage.

I took a couple of days off during which I was hassled for leaving, and upon returning I found my camp areas along with the library ransacked. My solar battery bank was stolen, my bus home was broken into, and my few sentimental items were stolen or destroyed, along with a bunch of other things. After 14 years seasonal and 4 years full time, it really stung. So I sold my bespoke bus home, the only home of my own I ever owned, for a fraction of its value and left, and I have been staying with my girlfriend and her family.

My hope is that y’all can help me get back on my feet. Your support can provide me:

Truck - a reasonably reliable vehicle, preferably a sturdy used truck, which will allow me to work odd jobs under my own power.

Camper - cab-over or a small tow behind trailer that will let me and Lexi Dog have a safe place to sleep that can travel.

Dental Surgery - I have significant dental work I need done, not for cosmetic reasons, but because the infection could eventually kill me if untreated (this has been tentatively scheduled).

Lexi Dog's Special Food - my beautiful Lexi Dog, who adopted me when I was living in Slabs, is experiencing renal failure and needs special dog health food.

New Clothes - it would be really nice to buy some new clothes and socks that are comfortable and fit me properly.

My girlfriend is helping me ask for help because that is not easy for me. I have had a life filled with trials and tribulations; some more difficult than others, some just absurd. I have significant disabilities, including partial blindness in one eye, neurological disorders that affect my cognitive abilities (worsened by heat stroke I experienced last summer) and nerve damage that causes debilitating pain and tremors. In spite of all of this, I have always managed to push through and do work. I have always gone my own way and made do by myself. I grew up with parents who never parented very well, to put it mildly. I was passed back and forth between my father in Idaho and my mother in Northern California. I experienced extreme and repeated physical violence throughout my childhood, and my first several broken bones were caused intentionally by my “parental figures”. I was overly and toxically medicated by home remedies and wayward physicians, and as such have very few memories of my childhood. What I know of growing up is remembered through fractured trauma fog and siblings' recollections. When I was about 14 my parents decided they were sick of raising children so I was on my own. My siblings helped me as much as they could, and with their support I graduated high school two years early at the age of 16. Ever since then, I’ve worked and found a way to support myself.

As I traveled and became more aware of the world and my own feelings of self, I realized I was trans. Upon coming out as transfeminine I was subject to even more hostility from both my family and my community, especially as I was living in rural communities and working what some people considered “man” jobs. Even then, I did not reach out for help, but pushed through. I have been a migrant farm worker, a logger, a handyperson, and many other seasonal and transient jobs.

Today I’ve been working odd jobs, but I just haven’t been able to pull myself up by my bootstraps this time. Who woulda thought this traumatic event has uprooted my life more than I can fix all by myself? Even I can’t just power through my home, my best friend, my life, my community ripped away from me on Christmas Eve.

I invested so many years of my life to community service inside and outside Slab City, and I have so little to show for it. So consider donating to my cause, thanks!